My longtime buddy Jim Korkis is one of the world's great authorities on All Things Disney. Upon seeing our discussion here about voice guys like Clarence Nash being on salary as opposed to paid by the job, Jim sent me this…
Feel free to use any or all of the following on your blog. Basically, I am just sharing to let you know Nash was on salary not just to do a voice.
On December 2, 1933, Nash became Disney's 125th employee. He was earning the same amount he made working at Adohr Milk for $35 a week as "Whistling Clarence, the Adohr Bird Man." He would drive a miniature open-topped milk wagon pulled by a team of miniature horses. He would go to local schoolyards and assemblies to entertain children with his bird calls and animal sounds as well as giving out treats to promote the milk. He was attired as a standard Adohr milk man.
He had auditioned at the Disney Studio and Walt did indeed want him to do the voice for a girl duck he had in mind for an upcoming cartoon. Ub Iwerks, Walt's former partner, had also heard Nash do his act on the radio and called him in to audition for a new cartoon he was making called The Little Red Hen, based on the children's story of a hen looking for help to plant, harvest and grind her corn.
Nash wisely phoned to ask Walt's permission, but Walt was unavailable. Ironically, Walt also had a version of the same story, titled The Wise Little Hen, in development and was planning to have Nash do the voice of the duck character. Walt told him not to take the job and had him meet with Disney storyman Pinto Colvig (the voice of Goofy but also the guy in charge of voices at the studio) who told him, "Walt told me about your calling about your going over to Iwerks. He said, 'I like that loyalty in that guy, I'm going to put him on the payroll.'"
Nash could not put in enough hours just doing voices to justify that full-time salary, so he often found himself temporarily in side jobs from accepting artist portfolios at the front desk and processing them to being a chauffeur for visiting celebrities. Also, because of his performing background as an "animal impressionist" on the Redpath Chautauqua and Lyceum circuit, he accompanied Walt on many of Walt's early radio show appearances as well as doing additional voices like the bluebird in Song of the South, the meows for little Figaro the kitten in a handful of short cartoons to the earliest voices for Huey, Dewey and Louie.
Walt kept him on salary for several reasons including the fact that Nash didn't seek personal publicity (unlike Pinto Colvig did for his work in Snow White). He was a genuinely nice and well-liked person, he was flexible at doing whatever he was asked and Walt often kept people on salary years past their usefulness because of their early loyalty to him.
Nash's wife's reaction to him being hired to do the voice of a duck was "That's nice but it probably won't last." By the way, Nash's tombstone in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, California, is shared with his wife (who died in 1993) and has a carving of Donald and Daisy Duck holding hands.
How do I know all of this? I grew up in Glendale, California, the home of Nash that I passed every day on my way to school. I got to know him in his later years and he was a natural entertainer who loved making children laugh. Of course, I am also considered a Disney historian with over thirty books written on Disney related topics.
Thanks, Jim. I think I have most of those thirty books and they're must-haves for anyone interested in Walt and the world he built around himself. Here's an Amazon link to order some of those books. All highly recommended.