Herbert Thomas Kalmus never acted, never danced, and if he ever stood behind a microphone, it was more likely to deliver a lecture to his students at MIT than to sing. Yet he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, because he first brought color to Hollywood. His patented “Technicolor” process (the “tech” added in honor of his alma mater) first rendered films in red and green, but his discovery of a three-strip full color process convinced Walt Disney to scrap work on the black and white version of a cartoon short and make a Technicolor one.

On this day, July 30, in 1932, Disney’s Flowers and Trees appeared, in full Technicolor. A perfect marriage of a process that produced saturated, dream-like colors, to a children’s cartoon short.

Kalmus stood to gain much from Disney’s use of Technicolor, so Disney negotiated an exclusive right to use the three-strip version for an entire year, releasing a line of Silly Symphonies cartoons in full color. His competitors had to settle for the less refined two-strip red and green process, else try their luck with one of Kalmus’ competitors like Cinecolor.