Virginia Davis

The child star Virginia Davis was Walt Disney’s first “Alice” in a series of short films made from 1923 to 1925, and then modeled for Snow White and gave her voice for some sequences of the animated feature film. She also worked in the company ink ad paint department. Outside of the studio, she was an actress in 1941 as Mary Daily, a dancer, and then a realtor.

About Snow White, in an interview conducted by Jim Korkis published in Didier Ghez’s “Walt’s People volume 13”, she said:

Walt called me (…). I did a Snow White voice for him. I remember doing the line “a shoe? That will never, never do.'” So he thought he might use my voice for Snow White. And he knew I could do the actions, the live-action reference. Anyway, I was put in the costume and wig. I couldn’t do the singing, but I could do everything else like the dancing. . I could carry a tune, of course, but not the type of singing they wanted. It was a three-year exclusive contract which meant I couldn’t do any other acting, any other films. And I would only be paid for the days I actually worked. So my mother said, “No, thanks.” I was sad because I liked Snow White. I really did. I still wish I could have done it.

Virginia Davis

Although the line she remembers is only partly heard in the final film, her claim is quite believable. Snow White says “…and a shoe”. However, in the script, her full dialogue, presumably recorded, was: “What peculiar appetites.” It is possible that Virginia was asked to rerecord the line. The line “That will never do” refers to a later scene, when she inspects the dwarfs’ hands. It is unclear wether her recordings or her modeling was eventually used, but she most likely did it.

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