Walt Meets The Mustache

Over at his always interesting Institute of Disney History Paul Anderson has published one of my favorite photos of Walt Disney, featuring Hollywood's most unlikely Studio head aboard a rider mower on the lawn of the Disney Studios in Burbank. The truly intriguing detail about the photo is that Walt's mustache has been drawn in—that is, Walt was sans his signature mustache when the photo was taken and the image was retouched to add the missing under-the-nose appendage. Walt grew his mustache in April 1924 (the photo seen here was taken when Walt was nineteen) as a way to make the twenty-three year old filmmaker seem older and he was rarely seen without it for the rest of his life, so one wonders why Walt was clean-shaven in the photo. Perhaps it was taken after the infamous incident in which legendary Disney artist Ken Anderson accidentally singed the facial hair off while trying to light Walt's cigarette with a faulty lighter. At any rate head over to Paul's blog and see the drawn-in mustache for yourself.