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Wilfred Jackson: I was born in Chicago in 1906, and moved with my family in about 1913 to Glendale, where I attended grammar school and Glendale High School. I had always been interested in making animated cartoons; in fact, in school I would draw figures on the corners of my textbook pages and turn the books into flip books. I sent cartoons to magazines but only achieved a collection of rejection slips. But I did have cartoons accepted for the high school annual. I thought the name Jackson [was] too ordinary. No one would notice it. So I invented the spelling ‘Jaxon” and used it on all my cartoons. I had trouble with my first name, Wilfred, too. In grammar school my schoolmates would tease me by calling me Winifred instead. A modern (1971) young man with his beautifully marcelled, shoulder-length hair-do might not understand (times do change), but in North Glendale in 1915, it was considered no compliment to be thought girlish in any way. And, when ‘Wilfred of Ivanhoe’ became required reading, aloud, in the classroom, the ingenuity of my companions made life almost unbearable for a while. My middle name, “Emmons,” was no help and I had the good judgment not to try to substitute it with my friends. Instead, I insisted from that time on to be called only by my last name, Jaxon. In later years this resulted in the dubious distinction at the Studio of being called by my last name in an organization where everyone else, even the two bosses, Walt and Roy, were called only by their first names.

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