18. Walt Disney Productions, 1947 annual report, 5, RKO.
19. “Atlas Buys 25,000 Shares of Disney Productions,” New York Times, June 16, 1945, 22. In August 1945, preferred shareholders got the opportunity to exchange their shares for debentures and common stock, and most did so. Several years later, though, the Disneys still owned more than half the common stock. Walt Disney Productions, 1951 annual report, 6, Baker.
20. Roy Disney, June 1968 interview.
21. A fourteen-page outline by Al Perkins, dated April 20, 1938, is titled “CINDERELLA—Outline of a proposed Walt Disney Storybook Version of the Fairy Tale—Story to Be Used as a Basis for a Feature Motion Picture Production,” WDA.
22. Tytle, One of “Walt’s Boys,” 150.
23. Adelquist, story inventory report.
24. Thomas F. Brady, “Walt Disney to Do a Film on Alaska,” New York Times, August 12, 1947, 27.
25. Sharon Disney Brown, Hubler interview.
26. A. H. Weiler, “By Way of Report,” New York Times, April 18, 1948, sec. 2, 5; “Documentary Series of Travelogs for Disney,” Variety, April 21, 1948.
27. Thomas F. Brady, “Hollywood Arms,” New York Times, June 6, 1948, sec. 2, 5.
28. William H. Clark to Gordon E. Youngman, May 13, 1949, RKO.
29. James Algar, “The Animated Film: Fantasy and Fact,” The Pacific Spectator, Winter 1950, 18–19.
30. Hedda Hopper, “Disney Marches On,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, December 26, 1948, AMPAS.
31. Walt Disney Productions, 1950 annual report, 3, Baker.
32. Winston Hibler, interview with Hubler, April 30, 1968, WDA.
33. Thomas, Walt Disney, 213.
34. Johnston, interview with Finch, June 2, 1972, WDA
35. Michael Broggie, Walt Disney’s Railroad Story (Pasadena, 1997), 45.
36. Roger Broggie, interview with Hubler, July 16, 1968, BU/RH.
37. Lillian Disney, Hubler interview. Disney’s deed to the lot, purchased from Janus Investment Corporation, is recorded in book 27503, p. 279, of Los Angeles County’s real estate records. Broggie, Walt Disney’s Railroad Story, 109, dates the purchase one year later, on June 1, 1949—a particularly unfortunate error, since it throws off the chronology of Disney’s rapidly growing interest in railroads in other respects.
38. Karal Ann Marling, “Imagineering the Disney Theme Parks,” in Designing Disney’s Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance, ed. Karal Ann Marling (Paris, 1997), 43.
39. Patrick A. Devlin, who is listed in the program for the pageant as Pat Devlin, in a letter published in the Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock), December 31, 1966.
40. Marling, “Imagineering the Disney Theme Parks,” 43.
41. Official Guide Book and Program for the Pageant, “Wheels a-Rolling,” Chicago Railroad Fair, 1948; the Santa Fe published a thirty-six-page souvenir booklet describing its Indian village, AC.
42. An extensive excerpt from the memo is reproduced in Broggie, Walt Disney’s Railroad Story, 88–91.
43. Roger Broggie, “Walt Disney’s The Carolwood-Pacific Railroad,” The Miniature Locomotive: The Live Steamers Magazine, May–June 1952, 15; courtesy of Hans Perk.
44. Diane Disney Miller, Martin interview.
45. Lloyd Settle, “Railroading with Walt Disney,” Electric Trains, December 1951, 18, AC.
46. Roger Broggie, Hubler interview.
47. Davis, interview with Hubler, May 21, 1968, BU/RH.
48. Amy Boothe Green and Howard Green, Remembering Walt: Favorite Memories of Walt Disney (New York, 1999), 183.
49. Sharon Disney Brown, Hubler interview.
50. Diane Disney Miller, Martin interview.
51. Johnston, Bob Thomas interview.
52. Diane Disney Miller, Hubler interview.
53. Hedda Hopper, “Disney Lives in World of Ageless Fantasy,” Los Angeles Times, July 29, 1953, AMPAS.
54. Broggie, “Walt Disney’s The Carolwood-Pacific,” 15.
55. Lillian Disney, “I Live with a Genius,” 103 (see ch. 2, n. 27).
56. David R. Smith to author, e-mail, October 31, 2005.
57. Broggie, “Walt Disney’s The Carolwood-Pacific,” 16.
58. Broggie, Walt Disney’s Railroad Story, 173.
59. Starting in its May–June 1953 issue, Miniature Locomotive offered (for 35 cents) a catalog that included “everything needed to complete” a copy of Disney’s Lilly Belle.
60. Lillian Disney, “I Live with a Genius,” 103. “Walt Disney’s Barn” was eventually moved to Griffith Park in Los Angeles, where it is open to tourists once a month.
61. Roger Broggie, Hubler interview.
62. Green and Green, Remembering Walt, 33.
63. Roger Broggie, Hubler interview.
64. Lillian Disney, “I Live with a Genius,” 103.
65. Roger Broggie, Hubler interview.
66. Johnston, interview with Finch and Linda Rosenkrantz, June 2, 1972, WDA.
67. Transcript of meeting, “Discussion of New Studio Unit Set-Up,” October 24, 1938, WDA.
68. Frank Thomas, interview with Bob Thomas, May 19, 1973, WDA.
69. Thomas and Johnston, The Illusion of Life, 331.
70. Cinderella meeting notes, December 13, 1948, WDA.
71. Davis, 1976 interview.
72. Frank Thomas, 1987 joint interview with Johnston.
73. Cinderella story meeting notes, January 15, 1948, WDA.
74. Cinderella meeting notes, February 28, 1949, sequences 01.2, 01.4, 01.5—review of cuts; timing according to a “Revised Cinderella Sequence Breakdown,” dated September 28, 1948, WDA.
75. Frank Thomas, interview with Bob Thomas, May 17, 1973, WDA.
76. Larson, 1976 interview.
77. Jackson to author, September 30, 1975.
78. Johnston, 1987 joint interview with Frank Thomas.
79. Jackson, September 30, 1975.
80. Jackson, May 3, 1977.
81. Edwin Parks, interview with Gray, January 30, 1977.
82. John Mason Brown, “Recessional,” Saturday Review, June 3, 1950, 29.
83. “Disney Home After Making British Film,” Los Angeles Times, August 29, 1949, AMPAS.
84. Cinderella meeting notes, “Sweatboxed Ham’s sequences with Walt upon his return from England,” August 29, 1949, WDA.
85. “British Court Upholds Bobby Driscoll Fine,” Los Angeles Times, September 28, 1949; “ ‘Treasure Island’ Started in England,” Hollywood Reporter, July 20, 1949, 4, AMPAS.
86. Joe Adamson, Byron Haskin (Metuchen, NJ, 1984), 177.
87. Gus Walker, interview, June 23, 2004.
88. Sharon Disney Brown, Hubler interview.
89. Walt Disney Productions, press release, January 13, 1950, RKO.
90. “Disney Execs to Britain on ‘Robin Hood’ Pic,” Variety, January 10, 1951, AMPAS.
91. Hedda Hopper, “Disney Data Up to Date,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, May 11, 1952, AMPAS.
92. “British Court Upholds Bobby Driscoll Fine.”
93. Richard Todd, interview, June 22, 2004.
94. Richard Todd, Caught in the Act (London, 1986), 282.
95. Ken Annakin, So You Wanna Be a Director? (Sheffield, England, 2001), 46.
96. Walt Disney to Perce Pearce and Fred Leahy, memorandum, March 6, 1951, WDA.
97. Todd interview. The timing of Disney’s trip was dictated in part by the world premiere of Alice in Wonderland, which took place in London in July 1951.
98. “Walt Disney Net Dips to 196,” Daily Variety, May 20, 1952, 1. Walt Disney Productions, 1952 annual report, 4, AC; and 1953 annual report, 4, Jackson Library, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
99. “Disney to London,” Daily Variety, June 24, 1952, 11; “Walt Disney Debarks,” September 4, 1952, 15.
100. “Words of Encouragement from Our Foreign Friends,” The Miniature Locomotive: The Live Steamers’ Magazine, September–October 1952, 23, AC; “Walt Disney Discovers Live Steam in the Alps,” The Miniature Lo
comotive: The Live Steamers’ Magazine, September–October 1953, 12–13, AC.
101. Annakin, So You Wanna Be a Director? 57; Richard Todd, In Camera (London, 1989), 22.
102. Todd, In Camera, 28.
103. Ken Annakin, interview, June 25, 2005.
104. Todd interview.
105. “An Interview with Harper Goff,” The “E” Ticket 14 (Winter 1992–93): 4–5.
106. Copies of the relevant correspondence are part of the Wilbur G. Kurtz Collection, AMPAS.
107. Walt Disney Productions, 1951 annual report, 3, Baker.
108. “$20,000,000 Disney Three-Year Slate,” Daily Variety, June 20, 1952, 1.
109. Edwin Schallert, “Busy Future Outlined by Disney as Mickey Mouse Turns 25 Years,” Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1953, AMPAS.
110. “Walt Disney Building 3d Stage at Studio,” Daily Variety, April 24, 1953, 3.
111. Joel Frazer and Harry Hathorne, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: The Filming of Jules Verne’s Classic Science Fiction Novel,” Cinefantastique, May 1984, 35–36.
112. “Disney Cancels Annual Live Prod’n in Britain,” Daily Variety, September 1 1953, 1.
113. A. H. Weiler, “By Way of Report,” New York Times, October 14, 1945, AMPAS.
114. Tytle, One of “Walt’s Boys,” 113.
115. Bill Walsh, interview with Hubler, April 30, 1968, BU/RH.
116. Walt Disney Productions, 1950 annual report, 2, Baker.
117. Tytle, One of “Walt’s Boys,” 114.
118. Walt Disney Productions, 1951 annual report, 7, Baker.
119. “Disney Producing Spot Telepix Blurbs,” Daily Variety, September 22, 1952, 1.
120. Hopper, “Disney Data Up to Date.”
121. Tytle, One of “Walt’s Boys,” 115–16.
122. Thomas, Walt Disney, 248.
123. “Call sheets” for the live-action shooting are part of the Alice files at the Walt Disney Archives.
124. Stephen Birmingham, “Once Upon a Time . . . ,” McCall’s, July 1964, 121.
125. Frank Thomas, joint interview with Johnston, October 28, 1976.
126. Frank Thomas, interviewed by Christian Renaut in 1987 and 1998, in Didier Ghez, ed., Walt’s People: Talking Disney with the Artists Who Knew Him (2006), 2:209.
127. Those dates are part of the extensive correspondence in the George Cukor Collection, AMPAS, in regard to a never-made live-action version of Peter Pan that would have starred Audrey Hepburn.
128. Peter Pan story meeting notes, May 20, 1939, WDA.
129. Roger Broggie, Hubler interview.
130. “Disney to Unveil Feature at California Living Fete,” Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1952, 25.
131. Tytle, One of “Walt’s Boys,” 128. Photographs of Disney’s collection accompany “The Story of Walt Disney’s Private Collection,” Small Talk: All about the Exciting World of Miniatures, February 1978, 4–13, AC.
132. Bruce Gordon and David Mumford, Disneyland: The Nickel Tour (Santa Clarita, 2000), 12.
133. “Interview with Harper Goff,” 5.
134. “Walt Disney Builds Half-Pint History,” Popular Science, February 1953, 119.
135. Walt Disney to Ruth Disney Beecher, December 4, 1952, posted on the Walt Disney Family Museum Web site in 2003.
136. Blair Howell, “Harper Goff,” StoryboarD, September–October 1988, 10.
137. “Interview with Harper Goff,” 5–6.
138. Broggie, Walt Disney’s Railroad Story, 195.
139. “Walt Disney Make-Believe Land Project Planned Here,” Burbank Daily Review, March 27, 1952, 1; courtesy Burbank Public Library. There is scant evidence of any movement toward making the park a reality. A September 2, 1952, article, “Disneyland to Be Discussed at P-R Board,” says that Disneyland is to be discussed at a meeting of the Board of Parks and Recreation and quotes a board member as saying the project is “very much in the planning stage. No commitments have been made.”
140. “Rare Sardinian Donkeys Imported by Walt Disney,” Los Angeles Times, December 3, 1951, AMPAS.
CHAPTER 8 “He Was Interested in Something Else”
1. Chris Merritt, “60 Years in the Amusement Business . . . Bud Hurlbut,” The “E” Ticket 35 (Spring 2001): 20.
2. Charles Luckman, Twice in a Lifetime: From Soap to Skyscrapers (New York, 1988), 109. It is most unlikely that Disney was talking about a monorail in 1952; what Luckman was probably remembering was a reference by Disney to a miniature train of the kind that was always part of his plans for a park.
3. Sheilah Graham, “Just for Variety,” Daily Variety, October 27, 1952, 2.
4. “Stockholder’s Suit Attacks Salary Paid Walt Disney,” Daily Variety, June 18, 1953, 3; “Disney Contract Is Target of Suit,” New York Times, June 18, 1953, 38.
5. From the articles of incorporation filed with the California secretary of state.
6. Richard Irvine, interview with Hubler, May 14, 1968, BU/RH.
7. “Disneyland Art Director . . . Bill Martin,” The “E” Ticket 20 (Winter 1994–95): 10. Winecoff, in Harrison Price’s words, “was a movie guy at Fox who was hanging around Walt to help him with this idea of the park. . . . He went on the staff. But he was like an independent contractor; he was a guy that Walt was using for ideas, for a while. He was there to worry about the doing of the park, but he had no line function.” Price, interview, September 24, 2003. Winecoff signed corporate documents as the secretary of Walt Disney Incorporated (later WED Enterprises) in November 1953. There is apparently no way to confirm the exact dates when the earliest WED employees were hired, since the company was separate from Walt Disney Productions at the time.
8. “Planning the First Disney Parks . . . A Talk with Marvin Davis,” The “E”Ticket 28 (Winter 1997): 9–10.
9. Karal Ann Marling, “Imagineering the Disney Theme Parks,” in Designing Disney’s Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance, ed. Karal Ann Marling (Paris, 1997), 149.
10. “A Talk with Marvin Davis,” 8–9.
11. “Disneyland Art Director . . . Bill Martin,” 15.
12. Irvine, Hubler interview.
13. Charles E. Davis Jr., “Disneyland Schedules Two Major Projects,” Los Angeles Times, March 1, 1965, 3.
14. Thomas, Walt Disney, 228.
15. Lillian Disney, Martin interview.
16. Price interview.
17. June 3, 1953, is the date in Disney’s desk diary, Robert Tieman (Disney archivist) to author, e-mail, April 20, 2006. Harrison “Buzz” Price, Walt’s Revolution! By the Numbers (Orlando, 2003), 26, places the meeting in July—clearly too late, especially since Disney left for Europe on July 1 and spent the rest of the month away from the studio—whereas Bob Thomas, in Building a Company, 186, places it in April—clearly too early, again because Disney was away from the studio, this time for all but the first few days of the month.
18. Price, Walt’s Revolution! 26–27.
19. Price interview.
20. The Disney legal department holds a copy of the June 5, 1953, proposal. David R. Smith to author, e-mail, November 1, 2005.
21. Thomas, Building a Company, 186; Price, Walt’s Revolution! 26, says: “I drafted two proposals, one on site location and one on economic planning, involving 12 weeks of work with a budget of $25,000, a big fee for 1953.” Since the feasibility study extended into the fall of 1953 (it was essentially irrelevant by the time it was completed), the two figures are not necessarily inconsistent.
22. Harrison A. Price, William M. Stewart, and Redford C. Rollins, “Final Report: An Analysis of Location Factors for Disneyland,” August 28, 1953. A copy of the report is in the Earnest W. Moeller Collection in the Anaheim History Room at the Anaheim Public Library.
23. Price interview.
24. Howell, “Harper Goff,” 10.
25. Kirk Douglas v. Walt E. Disney, Superior Court, Los Angeles County, no. C664346 (1956). Douglas sued Disney over unauthorized use on the Disneyland show of film showing Douglas and his sons ridi
ng the miniature train at Disney’s home. Disney contended successfully that his use of the film was acceptable as publicity for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
26. “Interview with Harper Goff,” 5.
27. “Peter Pan, Captain Hook and . . . Frank Thomas,” The “E” Ticket 26 (Spring 1997): 39.
28. Todd interview.
29. Todd, In Camera, 52.
30. Disney attended a board meeting regarding Disneyland on that date. David R. Smith to author, e-mail, October 25, 2005. Thomas, Walt Disney, 245, reproduces what appear to be quotations from a transcript of that meeting.
31. Irvine, Hubler interview.
32. David R. Smith of the Walt Disney Archives provided the dimensions, Smith to author, e-mail, November 16, 2005. One of the best reproductions of this often-reproduced map is in Bruce Gordon and David Mumford, eds., A Brush with Disney: An Artist’s Journey, Told through the Words and Works of Herbert Dickens Ryman (Santa Clarita, 2000).
33. From a photocopy of the “pitch kit” that originated in the “Info. Research Center” at WED Enterprises, AC.
34. “Disney to Use ’Scope Widely on New Films,” Motion Picture Daily, November 23, 1953, 1.
35. Thomas, Building a Company, 184.
36. Leonard H. Goldenson with Marvin J. Wolf, Beating the Odds: The Untold Story Behind the Rise of ABC: The Stars, Struggles, and Ego That Transformed Network Television by the Man Who Made It Happen (New York, 1991), 122–23.
37. “Its Deal with Disney Precludes ABC Tapping Theatrical Film Lode,” Daily Variety, April 6, 1954, 1.
38. “Disney Warns Major Studios Entering TV Not to Give Medium Stepchild Treatment,” Daily Variety, May 11, 1955, AMPAS.
39. A request to the California secretary of state produced only Disneyland incorporation papers of later date, but according to David R. Smith of the Walt Disney Archives, “It was in business on August 17, 1953, when the Division of Corporations issued a permit to authorize the sale of securities.” Smith to author, e-mail, January 13, 2006. By October 1953, Disneyland, Incorporated, was officially housed in the downtown Los Angeles law offices of Lloyd Wright, who was Disneyland’s president.
The Animated Man Page 53