What Disney Historians Say About Leslie Mace
Walt Before Mickey: Disney’s Early Years, 1919-1928, Timothy S. Susanin
University Press of Mississippi, 2011.
“Walt hired Leslie Bryan Mace, a twenty-four-year-old salesman, to be Laugh-O-gram’s general sales manager. Mace, a Missouri native previously a salesman with the Vitagraph Company film studio, signed a contract with Laugh-O-gram on Monday, May 29 for a salary of $84 per month. Walt might have met Leslie through the Hammonds, or them through Leslie, since Leslie had been married to Esther Hammond, William Hammond’s daughter and Fletcher Hammond’s older sister. Mace and Esther Ida Hammond were married in Kansas City, Missouri on Tuesday, July 18, 1916, when Esther was twenty-four and Mace was 18 (although their marriage license application states that she was twenty and he was twenty-two). Within a few years of being married, the Maces had moved to Sweetwater, Texas, where they lived on Sam Houston Drive and Leslie worked as a portrait salesman. By 1921, the marriage appears to have failed, and Esther Mace returned to Kansas City, where her father and brother lived. Even though Leslie was still alive, Esther apparently declared herself a widow (her alleged late husband was listed in the city director as ‘William H.’ Mace, perhaps a nod to her father, William Hammond), as other separated women did at the time. Leslie Mace was back in Kansas City by at least 1922, the year Walt hired him at Laugh-O-gram Films.” p. 38
“Leslie B. Mace, of Kansas City, is the general sales manager.” p. 41
“Walt decided to send his sales manager, Leslie Mace, on a month-long trip to New York to look for a distributor. Either prior to Leslie’s departure, or within a few weeks of his return, Laugh-O-Gram Films participated in a South Central Business Association parade.”
pp. 44-45
(An ad placed in the Motion Picture News about this trip)
Plan Distribution of Laugh-O-grams.
Leslie B. Mace, Sales Manager, and Dr. J.V. Cowles, Treasurer of Laugh-O-Gram Films of Kansas City, are in New York this week. Dr. Cowles is a well-known figure in the oil business in Kansas City as well as being connected with Laugh-O-grams, and is here in the interest of his oil business.
Mr. Mace is arranging for the distribution of a series of twelve Laugh-O-grams to be released every other week. Laugh-O-Grams are single reel subjects, consisting of stories of modernized fairy tales in Animated Cartoons by Walt Disney. Some of the first releases are “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Four Musicians,” “Goldie Locks,” “Cinderella,” “Jack, the Giant Killer,” etc. p. 44
While Walt continued to build the Laugh-O-gram team and work on fairy tales, Leslie Mace remained in New York, where he tried to interest a distributor in Laugh-O-gram cartoons. Leslie stayed at the McAlpine Hotel and, as Jack recalled, the “bills were amounting to more than the amount of money that we had in the ban,” Nadine Simipson recalled that Leslie “spent all the money [Laugh-o-gram] had for expenses. They didn’t have much but he spent it all.” Word reached the staff that, as Rudy remembered it, “nobody was interested [in distributing Laugh-O-grams].” Finally, Walt ordered. Leslie to come home.
Before Leslie departed, however, he finally struck a deal with a Tennessee corporation named Pictorial Clubs, Inc. Walt recalled, “[W]e finally sold [several subjects] to a firm…called the Pictorial Club, a film distributing concern.” Nadine (Simpson) explained that Leslie “sold this [series] to Pictorial [Clubs] to be shown in schools and non-theatrical places, but instead of getting the cash, he got a note[.] The deal with Pictorial Clubs, Inc. of Tennessee was reached on Sunday, September 16, 1922. Pictorial agreed to pay $11,100 for six one-reel animated Laugh-O-gram cartoons. The contract called for Pictorial to put $100 down and pay the balance on January 1, 1924—over fifteen months later—after all six cartoons were delivered. It is unknown how Pictorial convinced Leslie, or Walt, to allow Pictorial to receive six films without paying for over a year. p. 48
But the giddy atmosphere that must have existed at Laugh-O-gram from mid-September, when Leslie landed the Pictorial deal, through early October, quickly gave way to the reality that the company was out of money—and still well over a year away from receiving the $11,000 from Pictorial. It must have finally been clear to the young artists that the terms of the deal did not allow for income to the company, even though it continued to incur operating expenses such as production costs and salaries.
Perhaps because of the disastrous terms of the Pictorial agreement he negotiated, Leslie Mace quit Laugh-O-gram Films in mid-October, within a few weeks of returning from New York. On October 16 Leslie assigned to Dr. Cowles Leslie’s claim against the company for salary due in the amount of $511.84. Dr. Cowles, in turn, paid Leslie his back pay plus interest. p. 51
Leslie Mace, after leaving Laugh-O-gram Films, remarried and moved to St. Louis, where he worked in “talking pictures.” He later became a self-employed building consultant. Mace died in Santa Ana, California, in 1977, at the age of seventy-nine. p. 202
“of his return Leslie quit Laugh-O-gram by mid-October, so if the parade did not take place before he left for New York in mid-August, it must have occurred after he returned to Kansas City in the second half or September and before Leslie quit in mid-October. See Mace assignment to Cowles, October 16, 1922. p. 237n (note regarding text cited on page 44)
The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney, Michael Barrier
University of California Press, 2007.
The new cartoon producer announced its birth in the trade press in June 1922. Supposedly, six films had already been completed, but that was not true. “They will be released one every two weeks,” the article said. “Announcement of a plan of distribution will be made shortly. “ That plan had still not been announced in August, when Leslie Mace, the sales manager, and J.V. Cowles—a Kansas City physician and “well-known figure in the oil business” who was now Laugh-O-gram’s treasurer and had presumably become an investor in the company—were in New York, as another article said, “arranging for distribution of a series of twelve Laugh-O-grams.” The idea was still to release a cartoon every two weeks.
p. 32
Walt Disney’s Missouri: The Roots of a Creative Genius , Brian Burnes, Robert Butler & Dan Viets, Kansas City Star Books, 2002.
Armed with a print of “Little Red Riding Hood,” Laugh-O-gram salesman, Leslie Mace traveled to New York in 1922 and eventually found a buyer in the Tennessee branch of Pictorial Clubs, Inc., which distributed films nontheatrically. Its customers were civic groups, churches, schools and private businesses.
The terms of the deal called for $100, with $11,000 to follow in 1924 with the completion of six animated fairy tales. (Why Pictorial Clubs was given 15 months to pay for the films is unclear. The contract practically guaranteed that Laugh-O-gram would have horrendous cash flow problems. It’s just one more example of the poor business judgment that doomed the little company. p. 101