Pat Sullivan

Patrick Peter O'Sullivan was born on Ivry Street in the Paddington suburb of Sydney, Australia on February 22, 1885. He was the second son of Patrick O’Sullivan - an Irish immigrant who was said to be "Sydney's oldest cab driver" - and his Sydney-born wife Margaret O'Sullivan (née Hayes). Pat had an older brother named William, and remembered how they would both watch his father and uncle break the horses in.

Sullivan's family grew up in the working-class suburb of Darlinghurst. From a young age Sullivan enjoyed drawing, but his parents tried to discourage him with his father feeling he would not be able to make a living, and his mother once telling him: "What's the use of drawing silly bits on a piece of paper?"

During his childhood, Sullivan's mother died, and he and his brother were raised by their father. Sullivan was educated by the Marist Brothers at St. Benedict's School in Chippendale, and later St. Mary's Cathedral Boys' School in Woolloomooloo. As a child Sullivan produced a newspaper with some friends called Blowflies. One of Sullivan's childhood friends, Tom Doyle, recalled how he, Pat and William, would earn extra money performing outside of hotels.

Sydney, London and New York

After graduating from High School, Sullivan worked as a gatekeeper at Toohey's Brewery in Surry Hills, and attended classes at the Art Society of New South Wales. Sullivan eventually contributed occasional cartoons and illustrations to newspapers and magazines, such as The Australian Worker, The Gadfly and The Bulletin, as well as short-lived a humour magazine called Vumps which he co-founded. As Sullivan remembered: "The happiest moment of my life was when my first cartoon was published."

It was around this time he dropped the "O" from his surname, most likely to avoid anti-Irish sentiment of the time.

In 1907, the then 22-year-old Sullivan left Australia to find more prosperous work in London. He was unsuccessful, and ended up homeless, often spending his nights sleeping on the Thames Embankment. When he was finally able to sell some drawings on Fleet Street for a few shillings each, he found lodgings in South London. As he recalled: "In one of them my landlady used to drink my whiskey when I was out. So I wrote the word 'poison' in large letters on the label. But she still went on drinking the whisky. I found out, afterwards, that she could not read." This anecdote is the earliest documentation of Sullivan's alcoholism. Sullivan ultimately sold a few cartoons to humorous weekly magazines such as Ally Sloper's Half Holiday and Sketchy Bits, as well as newspapers like London Bulletin and the Daily Mail.

Unsatisfied with the meagre earnings from these cartoons, Sullivan then began appearing in London Music Hall doing a song-and-dance act with his friend George Clardey - who later became an animator at Sullivan's studio. As Otto Messmer later remembered of Sullivan and Clardey's act: "Sullivan would come out [on stage] and he would draw a face. They had some trick where Clardy on the other side [of the drawing board] - the face would animate. They would substitute a red balloon [for a nose]. Blow it up." This act was ultimately a failure, and Sullivan then turned to business side of theatre managing, becoming one of the first motion picture exhibitors in England. However this endeavour was also unsuccessful and Sullivan ended up going bankrupt. Out of desperation, Sullivan spent the next year working on-and-off as a mule herder, helping to ship the animals from England to Missouri, United States.

In 1909, while the ship was docked in New York Harbour, Sullivan jumped ship and swam to shore. He remained in New York City for the rest of his life. As Sullivan recalled, his first job in America was as a shoeshiner, as he remembered:

"The first job I went after in New York was that of a shoeshine. The advertisement directed one to apply to 'Mike'. I walked from 22nd street to 125th street, hoping to find a sympathetic Irishman who would give me the job. I found ‘Mike’ to be an Italian. Shoe shiners, glorying in Irish names there, are generally Italians."

Eventually having grown "hard and strong" from herding mules, Sullivan then tried professional boxing, however after a while he ultimately decided it was too intense for him.

In 1911, Sullivan finally began to find some success when he landed a job at the struggling McClure Syndicate. After spending three years working on-and-off at McClure, Sullivan became one of several assistants to William F. Marriner on his comic strip Sambo and His Funny Noises - starring a stereotypical African American child based on the character of Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman. Sullivan worked well as Marriner's assistant, since their art styles were very similar and they were both alcoholics. During this time Sullivan also created his own comic strips, Willing Waldo – He Wants Work and Old Pop Perkins. Animation historian John Canemaker describes Sullivan's artwork in these strips as poor: "Sullivan's penline is thin, his characters circular, the action minimal, and the staging stilted. Walking characters are usually shown in extreme profile, one foot thrust forward. A slight variation is used to simulate the agitated movements of a chase: characters in profile, both legs spread wide, with action lines and dust and sweat symbols to indicate speed and exertion. Backgrounds are simple, often containing a titled line to represent a landscape that holds a tree or, more often, a triangle-roofed house with a line of smoke curling out of a chimney."

On the evening of October 8, 1914, while at his summer home in Harrington Park near Hackensack, New Jersey, Marriner's wife caught him drinking, and decided to leave him. Distraught, Marriner then committed suicide by burning the house down with himself inside. His charred remains were found the next morning. After Marriner's death, Sullivan ghosted the Sambo and His Funny Noises strip, but without Marriner's involvement the strip declined in popularity and was cancelled by the end of the year.

Relationship with distributors

Feline Follies was originally intended to be a mere one-shot cartoon. However, as Messmer recalled, the short was well received by audiences, and Paramount: "...ordered another one, and another one..." Eventually, Paramount executive John King - the head of the Screen Magazine – commissioned an entire series with the character. After the second appearance of "Master Tom" in Musical Mews (released on November 16, 1919), he was finally given the name Felix in the character's third appearance, The Adventures of Felix (released on 14 December 1919). Messmer credited King with coming up with the name Felix - a combination of the words "feline" and "felicity".

In March 1920, Pat Sullivan officially signed a two-year contract with the Famous Players–Lasky Corporation to produce cartoons for the Paramount Screen Magazine, including one Felix cartoon per-month. By this time, the Sullivan Studio moved to 66th Street and Broadway on Manhattan's Upper West Side. A total of 25 Felix the Cat cartoons were released under the Paramount Screen Magazine between 1919 and 1921, and were modestly successful, with the cartoons receiving good reviews and Sullivan gaining some mild-media attention.

Despite Felix's growing popularity, the film industry was hit hard by the Recession of 1920–1921, and cartoon shorts especially suffered since the initial novelty animation had enjoyed during the late-1910s, was beginning to wear off with audiences. For this reason Paramount Pictures head Adolph Zukor decided to end the Screen Magazine. According to their March 1920 contract, Paramount owned the rights to the character of Felix, but Paramount ultimately relinquished these rights to Sullivan. According to Hal Walker, in a story Sullivan told him "once and only once", upon learning about the cancellation of the Screen Magazine, Sullivan got heavily intoxicated, stormed into Adolph Zukor's office, screamed at him, claiming he had been robbed and demanded the rights to Felix. Sullivan then allegedly got up and began urinating all over Zukor's desk. Disgusted, and wanting to avoid any further confrontations, Zukor then phoned the studio's top lawyer and ordered him to honour Sullivan's request.

After his distribution deal with Paramount ended, Sullivan then began shopping the series around to potential distributors. He eventually approached the Warner Features Company (the predecessor to Warner Bros.), who at the time had been distributing the Barré-Bowers Mutt and Jeff and Max Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell cartoons in the states of New York and New Jersey. After screening a few Felix films, Harry Warner was uninterested, but his executive secretary, Margaret Winkler, saw potential. Warner then encouraged Winkler to distribute the Felix the Cat series herself, and also offered her the Out of the Inkwell series – whose contract was set to expire by the end of the year. Winkler signed a contract with Sullivan on December 15, 1921, making her - at age 27 - the first female producer and distributor of animated films. Winkler commissioned Sullivan to produce 12 Felix cartoons, and agreed to pay him $1,000 for each of the first six films, and $1,200 for each of the remaining six, as well as 50% of all foreign earnings for each short. In early-1922 Margaret officially formed Winkler Pictures, and hired her brother George Winkler as an office manager, and fellow Warner executive Charles Mintz (who she later married) to handle contracts, while she concentrated on marketing and promotion.

Felix Saves the Day was the first Felix cartoon released under then new Winkler agreement on February 1, 1922. Winkler then began distributing the films to theatres on a states rights basis. By the end of March, Winkler had sold the Felix cartoons to 60% of all theatres in the United States, as well as the international market of Canada, and the Felix cartoons began screening in prestigious theatres such as New York's Rialto Theatre and Grauman's Chinese in Hollywood. Felix's popularity continued to grow throughout 1922, and on September 12 Winkler commissioned a second season of Felix shorts: doubling the amount to a total of 24 films – with one scheduled to be released every two-weeks. Winkler also agreed to increase the budget, and pay Sullivan $1,750 for each film. As a way to meet Winkler's demands, Messmer convinced Sullivan to expand his operations by moving the studio's location for a third (and final) time to the second floor on 47 West 63rd Street. After securing another year of Felix shorts, Winkler then arranged international distribution of the cartoons through Pathé in London. Pathé - using its European connections – distributed the cartoons across the world, turning Felix into an international icon.

Despite the immense popularity of the Felix series under Winkler, from the beginning she and Sullivan often clashed. Winkler aggressively promoted the release of each new Felix short, but some of her early publicity-material neglected to mention Sullivan's name. In one particular article in the April 1, 1922 issue of Moving Picture World, Winkler accidentally referred to Felix as "her" series, which infuriated Sullivan. Sullivan and Winkler also clashed over who should be allowed to design the posters for each short. On 8 April, in order to placate Sullivan, Winkler issued the following statement in Motion Picture News:

"Pat Sullivan, celebrated cartoonist and creator of the 'Felix' cartoon comics, the series of which are controlled for world-wide distribution by Miss M. J. Winkler, will henceforth be responsible for the poster illustrations as well as the subject matter of 'Felix' comics."

Ironically, Sullivan initially assigned Messmer to draw the one-sheet posters for every Felix film, in addition to his duties running the studio and providing the Sunday strip.

In late-1923, Sullivan once again got into conflicts with Winkler and her fiancé Charles Mintz On August 29, Winkler sent a letter to Sullivan commissioning another 24 Felix shorts under the same terms and conditions. However Sullivan refused unless they raised their advances to him beyond $1,750 per short. Over the next few months Winkler and Mintz tried to persuade Sullivan to renew his contract with them – but he refused. As George Winkler later said, "Pat Sullivan was a small man with a fiery temper. He wanted more for his product, but he boosted his price way too high." Sullivan came close to signing a new deal with Joe Brandt of CBC Film Sales Corporation - with an offer of 26 films budgeted at $3,500 each. When The Mintzes heard of this deal, Winkler quickly issued a statement in Film Daily threatening legal action, which scared Brandt off and then backed out of the deal. In early-February 1924, Harry Kopp began preparing lawsuit against The Mintzes, with a trial scheduled for the end of April. However the two parties ultimately settled out of court. As part of the settlement, Sullivan agreed to enter a new contract with Winkler Pictures on May 1, 1924: with Winkler ordering another 24 Felix cartoons, and agreeing to increase Sullivan's payment to $2,400 per short.

Immediately after signing the May 1924 contract, Sullivan went on a six-week tour of England. During the trip Sullivan was displeased to learn that much of the Felix merchandise in Britain was copyrighted to Pathé instead of him, and was poorly made looking nothing like the character. As Sullivan told one reporter, he found this: "...annoying to say the least, especially as some of them are so inferior in intellect... [and] looked as if they didn't know enough to wash their own faces." He was also horrified to learn that Pathé wasn't showing his Felix films in full reels, but in fragmented “chapter form” – which he described as being "mutilated". When Sullivan returned to America he told Harry Kopp to send a memo to Pathé demanding they turn over all British merchandising royalties to him immediately. This resulted in more fights between him, Winkler and Pathé, but was ultimately resolved in a three-way agreement.

The final straw for the Sullivan-Winkler relatationship came in March 1924: when Winkler began distributing the Alice Comedies series by a newcomer named Walt Disney – which featured the supporting of Julius the Cat, who bore a striking resemblance to Felix. In late-1923, during Winkler's heated contract disputes with Sullivan, she also lost her second biggest animated series - Out of the Inkwell - when the Fleischer brothers left to start their own distribution company; Red Seal Pictures. So, when Winkler received a copy of Disney's film Alice's Wonderland that October, she immediately commissioned a series of these films, in part as an "insurance policy" in case her relationship with Sullivan deteriorated any further. Winkler married Charles Mintz in November 1923, and a few months later retired from the business in order to focus on raising her children, with Mintz had taking over Winkler Pictures. According to animator Rudolf Ising, Julius was a result of Charles Mintz urging Disney and his staff to "...make their characters more like Felix." While Disney was hesitant to copy Felix since he didn't like imitating others, since he was young and new to industry, he reluctantly agreed. While there had been Felix imitators before, Sullivan was infuriated by Disney's perceived copyright infringement, since they shared the same distributor and decided to cut ties Winkler Pictures once his contract expired with them.

In February 1925, Harry Kopp (along with his wife Lena, and the partner in his firm, Sammuel Null) formed Bijou Films, Inc. – both as a way to profit off each Felix cartoon, and also to provide Sullivan protection against legal retaliation from Winkler. In March, Kopp then sailed to England, where he signed a new international distribution contract with the Ideal Film Company who ordered 24 Felix cartoons for a whopping $5,000 for each short - with the first one due immediately after the Winkler-Pathé contract expired in May. Kopp then travelled back to New York, and proceeded to negotiate with Earle W. Hammons of Educational Pictures for domestic distribution. Mintz and Winkler then immediately sued Sullivan, Kopp, Hammons and Educational Pictures. The trial took place over the summer, but on July 25, 1925 the New York Supreme Court ruled in favour of the defendants and the Mintzes lost the case. While they quickly filed tried to appeal - which was heard in January 1926 – but it was ultimately rejected on April 26.

According to Messmer, Margret Winkler was "heartbroken" over losing distribution of Felix the Cat. Having lost Sullivan, Mintz retaliated by forming his own studio, and acquired the rights to George Herriman's popular comic strip Krazy Kat as a replacement, forming a studio in New York City led by Sullivan animator Bill Nolan specifically to produce the series for Paramount. Disney created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit before leaving to create Mickey Mouse, both of which became more popular than Felix the Cat, eventually leading to Sullivan's studio losing any market share they had before closing in 1930.

1917-18 Rape conviction and imprisonment

On Friday April 27, 1917, two teenage girls from Rutherford, New Jersey – Alice McCleary and Gladys Bowen (aged 14 and 15 respectively) rented a room at 132 West 42nd Street. They had run away from their home five days earlier with vague aspirations going into Broadway. From their room they could overlook the backyard into the fourth floor of the neighbouring building on 125 West 42nd Street, where the Sullivan Studio was located. As they watched the animators work at their light tables, Pat Sullivan and Ernest Smythe noticed the girls and began to flirt with them. Eventually Smythe motioned the girls to come down stairs. Gladys went down and returned with an invitation to meet Smythe and Sullivan that evening. At 9 PM the two men took the girls to a nearby café on the corner of 6th Avenue and 43rd Street, where Sullivan bought alcoholic beverages for all four of them. The girls returned to their apartment and hour later. The next evening Sullivan and Smythe took the girls out to a bar and gave them several rounds of Crème de menthe. After some heavy petting Sullivan hailed a taxi back to his apartment, while Smythe escorted Alice and Gladys back to their rooming house; but not before Alice promised to meet Sullivan the next night.

On Sunday April 29, at 8 PM, Pat Sullivan arrived to pick up the 14-year-old Alice McCleary for their solo date. Alice was hesitant to go with him, but while in Gladys' presence, Sullivan urged her to come with him promising her she would come to no harm. The two boarded the 6th Avenue elevated train back to Sullivan's apartment at 10 Manhattan Avenue. Back at his apartment, Sullivan then piled Alice with alcohol and then raped her.

When Sullivan returned to the studio the next morning, he bragged to his staff how he had "screwed the dark one." George Clardey - Sullivan's former music hall partner in London turned animator - was determined "to get the girls away from [Sullivan] and his friends" and immediately took action. He arranged for the girls to speak to an acquaintance of his, a film actress by the name of Julia Siggins. Horrified by their story, she immediately found new lodgings for the girls on Seventh Avenue. Siggins also "noticed some suspicious stains on Alice's clothing", and it was later discovered that she contracted venereal disease from Sullivan.

Sullivan and Smythe were arrested on May 10, 1917. Smythe was charged with abduction, but was later lowered to "impairing morals" - while Sullivan was charged with the rape of an underage girl. On May 21, Sullivan was released on $2,500 bail, and hastily married his long-time girlfriend Marjorie Gallagher that same day at Manhattan's Municipal Building. The next day, Sullivan was indicted with the charge of rape in the second degree and arrested. After a trial, the jury found Sullivan guilty on June 21, with his sentencing scheduled for September 13. Between his indictment and his sentencing, Sullivan was detained in the The Tombs.

After the verdict, Sullivan hired a second lawyer, Harry Kopp, who filed a motion on August 29, 1917 to set aside the conviction judgement rendered against Sullivan on the ground of newly discovered evidence. This motion was denied, for "in the opinion of his court, the verdict of the jury was justified by the evidence" and the "alleged facts" made to support a new trial "would not, had they been presented at the trial, have changed the result." However Judge C. T. Crain took into consideration that Sullivan was "a man of very considerable ability... without a criminal record" and also acknowledged receiving a number of letters "from reputable people who speak well of you." One of these people was Sullivan's wife Marjorie, who the day before the sentencing wrote to the judge saying: "...if you will be as lenient with my husband's sentence (Pat Sullivan) as possible, for I know, if anyone knows, he's innocent of this crime. Justly you will listen to my plea and down in my heart I ask this only favor."

Judge Cain ultimately agreed that Sullivan had been "...punished by the imprisonment which you have undergone between the date of your conviction and this day... [and] although that confinement was really at your own request, [it] ought to be taken into consideration in the imposition of the sentence." While the maximum penalty for a person convicted of rape in the second degree at the time was 10 years in prison; Judge Crain sentenced Sullivan to Sing Sing Correctional Facility "...for not less than one year and not more than two."

Sullivan ultimately served a total of 9 months in prison. On July 6, 1919, Motion Picture World ran an article announcing Sullivan's return to producing animated cartoons, without mentioning where he was returning from or why he had left in the first place. Sullivan's then-distributor, Universal Pictures, welcomed his return and agreed to distribute his cartoons as part of their Nestor line. Harry Kopp remained Sullivan's attorney until his death. Due to Sullivan being a convicted felon, he was exempt from the draft during World War I.

While Sullivan was imprisoned, the studio closed and the animators found work at other animation studios. After returning from his military service on May 28, 1919, Otto Messmer was the only member of Sullivan's staff to return to the studio. Throughout his lifetime, Messmer refused to discuss his boss's rape conviction, but he claimed to have had sympathy for Sullivan's alcoholism: "I saw him cry like a baby trying to overcome that weakness. That's why there's sympathy for him. He went to the cardinal there at St. Patrick's. Tried to get some strength. He couldn't stop that drinking. Terrible."

No newspaper articles covered the event at the time - nor did any of the subsequent Felix press coverage and numerous interviews Sullivan received during his life ever mention his rape conviction - and for many decades Sullivan's crime was merely an urban legend amongst animation industry veterans. It wasn't until animation historian John Canemaker was conducting research for his 1991 book, Felix: The Twisted Tale of the World's Most Famous Cat, that he uncovered letters and court documents revealing Sullivan's crime.