‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’

Celebrity Q&A
on November 12, 2009

Was a real person used as the model for Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? The character looks so lifelike.
Lisa Andrews, Walla Walla, Wash.

Legendary dancer and choreographer Marge Champion was selected to help the animators bring the cartoon damsel to life in 1934. "I was chosen out of my father’s dancing class by a talent scout for Walt Disney," recalls Champion, 90, who was 14 when Disney animators went to work on the film. "I was the ideal model—too young to have any fear and too silly not to try to be a cartoon." She went on to dance in many big-screen musicals, including Show Boat (1951), and continues to kick up her heels working on a documentary, Keep Dancing. Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released on Blu-ray recently.

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