Early life Born April 22, 1895 in
Austria-Hungary, Margaret Winkler immigrated with her family to the
United States as a child. Her brother George assisted her in her film producing career.
Career Winkler began her career as the personal secretary of
Harry Warner, one of the founders and then-leader of
Warner Bros. Pictures. Through most of the
silent era, Warner Bros. was strictly a
film distributor, and Harry Warner, as president, made the distribution deals. In 1917, Warner Bros. began distributing animated cartoon short films featuring
Mutt and Jeff in
New York and
New Jersey. Warner was impressed with Winkler's talents. In 1921, animation producer
Pat Sullivan approached Warner, seeking distribution for his new
Felix the Cat cartoon shorts. Wanting to withdraw from distributing cartoon shorts (at the time experiencing a lull in popularity), Warner, who disliked cartoons but was impressed by Winkler's competence, encouraged her to start her own company and distribute Sullivan's series. Winkler founded
M.J. Winkler Productions. As one of the few women executives in the film industry, Winkler named her company - and signed her name - as "M.J. Winkler" to disguise her gender Lacking a middle name, she'd added the "J" initial for professional use. In 1922, Winkler signed with Pat Sullivan Productions to distribute the
Felix the Cat cartoons. The following year, she signed another contract to distribute the
Out of the Inkwell series for
Max and
Dave Fleischer's
Inkwell Studios. Winkler was intrigued with the idea of a live-action girl in a cartoon world, and signed Disney in October 1923 to a year-long contract to produce an
Alice Comedies series. Walt Disney did not inform Winkler that
Laugh-O-Gram Studio, where he had made ''Alice's Wonderland
, was now bankrupt, and Disney had moved to Los Angeles. He instead quickly formed a new studio, Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, with his brother Roy, and recruited his Laugh-O-Grams partner Ub Iwerks and many of their animators - Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, Carman Maxwell, and Isadore "Friz" Freleng - to come to Hollywood and work for them. Disney Brothers was the first cartoon studio in Hollywood and eventually changed its name to Walt Disney Productions. Disney was helped by the tutelage of Winkler, who insisted on editing all of the Alice Comedies'' herself. One of her suggestions was the addition of a suspiciously Felix-like anthropomorphic cat character called Julius. This was apparently the "straw that broke the camel's back" for Sullivan, who parted company with Winkler and signed with rival distributor
E. W. Hammons of
Educational Pictures in 1925. In 1925, she began self-producing a series of
Krazy Kat cartoons with
Bill Nolan as the creative producer/director.
Marriage and retirement In November 1923, Winkler married
Charles Mintz, a film distributor who had been working for her since 1922. Charles Mintz would continue running the business, breaking in 1928 with Disney. In 1930, Mintz and Margaret Winkler moved their family to California, where Mintz reincorporated Winkler Pictures and the relocated Krazy Kat studio as the Charles Mintz Studio. The Mintz studio produced cartoon shorts series, primarily for
Columbia Pictures, which included
Krazy Kat, Scrappy, and the
Color Rhapsodies. To resolve debts, the Mintz studio was acquired in pieces during the 1930s by Columbia and became known as
Screen Gems. Mintz died in December 1939, and Screen Gems continued producing cartoons for Columbia, most notably
The Fox and the Crow, until 1946.
Death Winkler died on June 21, 1990, in
Mamaroneck, New York at the age of 95 years old. == Filmography ==