Lawrence L. Morey (March 26, 1905 – May 8, 1971) was an Americanlyricist andscreenwriter. He co-wrote some of the most successful songs inDisney films of the 1930s and 1940s, including "Heigh-Ho", "Some Day My Prince Will Come", and "Whistle While You Work", and was also responsible for adaptingFelix Salten's bookBambi, A Life in the Woods into the 1942 Disney filmBambi.
He was born inLos Angeles,California. Larry was born with a skeletal limb abnormality. His left arm was not fully formed and caused his mother to reject him at birth, saying "he would never amount to anything." She abandoned him to the care of his father, George T. Morey, a traveling musical ventriloquist. When he was only six years old, his father left him in a boarding house in Los Angeles and went on the road performing throughout California. Larry attended UCLA, then went to work forWarner Bros. andParamount, for whom he wrote the lyrics to "The World Owes Me a Living", composed byLeigh Harline and sung byShirley Temple in the filmNow and Forever. He joined Disney in 1933,[1] and wrote songs for severalanimatedshorts, includingThe Wise Little Hen andThe Grasshopper and the Ants.[2] Working with composerFrank Churchill, he then wrote some 25 songs for Disney's first full-length cartoon,Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in 1937.[3] Eight of their songs were used in the film, including "Heigh-Ho", "Some Day My Prince Will Come", "Whistle While You Work", and "I'm Wishing", and the film was nominated for anAcademy Award forBest Original Score.[1][2][4] It is little known that Larry could only peck at the piano, due to his withered arm, but was very talented musically. Walt Disney used to say that a talented artist only had one great work in them, and would release them after he felt they had used that creativity. He said that Larry Morey was his one exception. Once Walt Disney was giving a tour of the studio to some guests, and they came upon Larry Morey leaning back in a chair with his eyes closed. Mr. Disney told the visitors to not disturb him because he was working. Larry had a great love for Japanese culture. He created a script about a cricket, set in the Japanese Edo period, that was never published. He named itHappy Mountain.
In 1938 Morey collaborated with composerAlbert Hay Malotte on the title song forFerdinand the Bull, which won anAcademy Award for Best Animated Short Film, and he worked with Frank Churchill on the score forThe Reluctant Dragon in 1941. The following year he andPerce Pearce were responsible for adapting the bookBambi into the animated film of the same name. With Churchill, Morey was responsible for the film score, and both it and the song "Love Is a Song" were nominated for Oscars. In 1949, he received another Academy Award nomination, with composer Eliot Daniel, for the song "Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly)", sung byBurl Ives in the filmSo Dear to My Heart.[2]
Morey died at the age of 66 inSanta Barbara, California.
