Hidden Mickey 5: Chasing New Frontiers

by David Smith

  “You sounded superb,” Genevieve said, almost singing the praise over the noise within the room. Genevieve was a strong-willed woman—with even stronger vibrato vocal chords—in her mid fifties who had been in the music business for decades. She herself had been in a number of commercials and even had some speaking parts in movies when she was a young lady. Trying to maintain her youth, both in appearance as well as her social status, Genevieve never tried to hide the fact that she was living vicariously through her newly-famous star, Malaysia Hosner. Yet, it was indeed Genevieve Schroder who helped choreograph Malaysia’s rise in the music world, and for that, Malaysia and her family were grateful.

  “Thanks, Gen,” Malaysia shouted over the din. She was looking over her manager’s shoulder for Laura.

  “Hey, Mal…Don’t forget the L.A. Times has a reporter covering your show that wanted to ask you a few questions before we head back to the hotel,” Genevieve said, resting a hand on Malaysia’s shoulder. “It is great to get this kind of coverage,” Genevieve suggested, knowing Malaysia’s aversion for doing interviews.

  “Yeah, sure, Gen.” Malaysia wasn’t looking forward to the interview. It would be her first in the States and she felt sure she would say something that would label her a typical blonde pop star with more pop than brains, or something like that. “Let me talk to Laura and I’ll be right there.”

  “Okay. I’ll let the guy know.”

  Malaysia received several other accolades with handshakes and pats on her back before she eventually pulled alongside her sister.

  “Hey Mal!” Laura said with a hug and a pair of cheek kisses.

  “Oh my gosh, Sissy,” Malaysia said slipping her arm around her sister and calling Laura by her own real name while looking over the throng of people. Sissy adopted the stage name “Laura” when she was asked by Malaysia to accompany her band as they embarked on this initial tour of the United States. Sissy and Johanna had often sung together as teens and now, as ‘Laura and Malaysia,’ part of the Malaysia Hosner Band, they were doing it as professionals. “Hey, you sounded great tonight,” Malaysia said to her sister who sang backup as well as two songs that the sisters sang as a duet.

  “Oh, Mal! You’re just saying that! Thank you, though! You were a real star, Mal. You had the crowd really going!”

  “I had no idea we would be this well received here in California!” Malaysia said, with equal levels of pride and astonishment. She leaned over to a counter next to them and picked up a fresh bottle of Perrier water and cracked open the sealed twist-off lid. “I guess I didn’t know what I expected,” Malaysia said after taking a quick sip of water.

  “Well, I have a feeling this is just the start,” Laura said, nodding in the direction of the crowd which had grown as more people had joined in. “I think the whole audience is in here!” Laura said looking over the almost wall-to-wall guests, most of whom neither Laura nor Malaysia knew at all. Secretly, Laura was thankful there were plenty of bouncers and security guards visible.

  “Are you ready to go? I’d like to get out of here,” Laura said. There was a slight edginess to her voice, a hint of discomfort.

  “Oh, wait,” Malaysia said to her sister, tugging at her elbow. “I’ve got to go over to do this interview with some reporter,” Malaysia said, turning to look for Genevieve who no doubt was waiting for her.

  “Well, don’t be too long…unless, of course, the reporter is cute!”

  Malaysia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and especially if he has an even cuter friend with him.”

  “Well, we could take them to Disneyland tomorrow!” Laura said with a grin.

  Malaysia brought her hand quickly to her mouth. “Gosh, I forgot all about that! How fun is that going to be…just you and me at the ‘Happiest Place on Earth!’” Malaysia took another sip and then added, “I hope it is as good as everyone says it is.” It was impossible to hide her excitement.

  “We’ll find out. But remember, don’t mention it to Gen! She might go ballistic if she knew what we were doing,” Laura warned. “Go do your interview and then let’s hit the road to the hotel…big day tomorrow!”

  Malaysia nodded. “Okay. See where we need to go to get our ride. I’ll meet you out in front.”

  “Sounds good,” Laura said as she watched Malaysia turn and wade through the maze of people in the room.

  “Are you shocked at the response you have had in your first appearance on U.S. soil?” Mark Maddox of the Los Angeles Times asked. He was standing next to Malaysia near the double doors that led out to the parking areas outside the Green Room. Several limousines could be seen outside lined up. The reporter, very short in stature, had a pad of paper out and a small, hand-held recorder being held under the pad. Looking up, he waited for the singer to answer.

  Malaysia smiled, her white teeth gleamed like a toothpaste commercial in the light of the room. “I loved it! That was such a great crowd,” Malaysia said honestly. “They were singing with the band…singing my songs,” she paused to collect her thoughts. “How awesome is that?”

  Maddox smiled while feverously taking notes in a sort of shorthand. “One last question, Malaysia; I know you need to go and you have had a big night. But, having just played to a sold-out crowd here at the Hollywood Bowl, what are you going to do next?”

  Malaysia looked out the door and caught a glimpse of her sister standing next to a long, black limousine. She smiled and said, “Well, Mr. Maddox,” Malaysia lowered her voice to a conspiratorial level. “Just between you and me, I’m going to Disneyland.”

  “Disneyland is a work of love. We didn’t go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.”

  Walt Disney

  CHAPTER 4

  Visions

  April 18th, 1954

  10:18am

  Burbank Studios; WED Offices

  “I don’t want something big, just comfortable, where I can sleep overnight when I am at the Park,” Walt Disney said to Joe Fowler, the retired Naval Rear Admiral turned Construction Supervisor for the prodigious undertaking Walt was calling “Disneyland.” Fowler, who had just been hired by Walt less than ninety days before construction was to begin on Disneyland, was looking over one of the renderings of the Park painted by movie matte artist, Peter Ellenshaw. Disney was trying to convey that size was not his concern for an apartment Walt wanted at the Park, just practicality.

  “Sure, Walt,” Joe said nodding in understanding. He turned from Walt and began looking over a large four-by-six foot poster-sized rendering of Disneyland in full color that was hung up in the WED design office. Rubbing his chin for a moment while specifically looking at the lower portion of the detailed picture, Fowler suddenly snapped his fingers and pointed to the left side of where Main Street was depicted, specifically at a structure that was labeled ‘Fire House.’ “We can put it here on the second floor above the fire station. Originally we had that scheduled as the office for Main Street Operations. Remember, we moved that across the Main Street, closer to the Administration Offices.” Fowler looked pleased for a moment, adding, “That way you can look out over the Main Street Plaza from the apartment.”

  Walt smiled; using his imagination, he thought of looking out of his apartment windows and seeing the thousands of guests as they first came into Disneyland. He was thinking of the initial perception these guests would have, wanting to have a front-row seat to seeing those first impressions.

  “Joe, that is perfect,” Walt said, his eyes twinkling. “I just want a single room, cozy but with a small kitchenette and an area to sit, like a small living room that can have a pullout bed on one of the couches,” Walt added. “And, of course, I want a window facing Main Street, several in fact.”

  “Can do,” Fowler said, characteristically, without batting an eye.

  Unlike many of the WED “imagineers” who had been commandeered to work on Walt Disney’s grand scheme, Disneyland, Joe saw the vision that Walt saw. Or, at least he pretended to.

  WED was the acronym for Walter Elias
Disney. The name had been changed from “Walt Disney Incorporated” to WED so that the name “Walt Disney” was not being used in an unauthorized way, a policy that even Walt was not allowed to change according to the stockholders agreements at the time.

  WED was the “think-tank” for the dreams that Walt had for his “little Park.” He wanted the best people with the best imagination and ingenuity working in his WED division.

  It was two years earlier that a memo went out to a select number of supervisors of the newly formed WED organization:

  “Due to the complex nature of its highly specialized services, only experts who possess vision and maturity, and who are capable of providing the end results are to be sought by WED Enterprises, Inc.”

  “Walt has really lost it this time,” Ken Anderson was thinking while sitting in the first design meeting earlier that week with the specifically selected WED Enterprises personnel for the new “Disneyland Project.” All of the WED members were present at this initial outlining-meeting of Walt’s new vision. This team that Walt Disney formed was to be responsible for the design, architecture, construction, and operation of this new dream that Disney wanted to turn into a reality…an undertaking that not only pushed the limits of one’s imagination, but from logistics, cost, and scope, it was just huge.

  Uncertainty reigned with not just the bankers helping to fund this dream—and that was exactly what it was labeled, Walt Disney’s ‘Dream’—but even the Disney design team themselves were trying to wrap their hands around this new concept that Walt was calling a “Theme Park.” Most of those in the room had expertise in making movies, both animated and live-action…not designing, building, or running a massive entertainment park. Heaven forbid anyone in the room call Disney’s Park an “amusement park”…a term that Walt specifically didn’t want tagged to his Park. In his mind, Walt saw amusement parks as dirty, run-down, momentary distractions for patrons. No, Walt Disney wanted something far more memorable, something more magical, something far more enduring and endearing.

  After the meeting concluded with Walt, Ken Anderson and Joe Fowler were last to walk out of the Burbank Studio’s screening room that was now doubling as the WED conference room.

  “Can we do it, Joe?” Ken asked pensively about the massive undertaking just described by Walt at the meeting as the two walked slowly back to their own offices in the large Burbank complex.

  Joe stopped in the hallway. Ken stopped with him. With quiet confidence, Joe replied, “Yes, Ken. We can.”

  Ken looked at Admiral Joe with a grin. “I believe you, Joe.”

  “Good, because I believe Walt believes we can,” Joe said, smiling back at Ken, patting the man on the back as they resumed walking.

  It wasn’t perfect, it was far from complete, but 257 working days—and exactly one year and one day after the ceremonial groundbreaking on July 16th, 1954—Walt Disney had his dream.

  July 17th, 1955, Disneyland was officially open.

  Wednesday, June 15th, 1966

  6:25am

  Disneyland: Anaheim, California

  Nathan Duncan waited.

  In the stillness of the tranquil, early morning hour, Nathan stood transfixed in the cherry picker basket, staring into Walt Disney’s apartment. What was formulated in his mind was something that he hadn’t thought about for a very long time—stealing. And the thoughts coming forth made something in his stomach leap. Excitement? Anticipation? He wasn’t sure this time since it had been a number of years since he had done anything like that which he was thinking.

  The feeling in his gut reminded him of the time when he and his sister, Evelyn, when they were very young, rode their bicycles across town and snuck into the brand new Gem Theater in Garden Grove through the back exit doors to see the movie Singing in the Rain. Nathan was eleven years old, Evelyn was nine. Throughout the movie, they kept waiting for the rear theater doors to burst open and the entire police force of Garden Grove, which probably was a total of three at the time, to come in to haul them away. No such thing happened, but the two sat during the whole movie hunched down so low in their seats that they could barely see over the heads of the people in front of them. No one caught them, and afterwards, neither Nathan nor Evelyn ever spoke about their escapade with anyone except themselves. They knew that if their father had found out, especially if he found out after he had been drinking over the weekend, they would probably be found dead—or at best, missing a limb or two.

  But sneaking around and getting away with things would later become a habit for Nathan and Evelyn too. From cheating on tests in math class in junior high to stealing candy at the store using the “five-finger discount” method, Nathan almost never got caught. It wasn’t the goal of getting a better grade or even enjoying the things he stole. For Nathan, the excitement of the plan, the execution, and the accomplishment, if you could call getting away with such things an ‘accomplishment’, was the thrill and the high. The recreational drugs of the 1960’s couldn’t hold a candle to the rush Nathan felt when his plans were successful.

  For Nathan, the skills of accomplishing such tasks were less dependent on any inherent “skill” or ability and more dependent on the Duncan Family Genes. No, for Nathan, the only inherent thing was the fact that he was almost invisible to most people.

  Some people had ‘the look’…that quintessential appearance that would make bystanders take a second look at someone or find someone attractive or appealing. Nathan had seen this early, when girls in high school would talk about the class “studs” right in front of him as if he wasn’t even there. On the other hand, Nathan had seen people who had unique or even unpleasant features that would make people stare, even though they knew it was impolite or rude. Like seeing a car accident across the road, some things in some people just forced them to want to look. Nathan felt lucky he didn’t possess such abnormalities or handicaps.

  But he also knew he would never be one of the “Studs.”

  Nathan Duncan lacked both ugly and pleasant features. If he were a woman, he would probably earn the nickname, “Plain Jane.”

  When they were kids growing up, Nathan would let his sister in on his plan. She would sometimes play the role of the stooge, the misdirection, as magicians might call it, of helping him execute his plan. As she got older, and unlike Nathan, became relatively better looking, she had to do less to gain the attention of people, especially from the men Nathan wanted to steal from. Evelyn had developed early; at thirteen, she had a slender frame like Nathan’s, but a mature looking woman’s figure. Nathan would have her unbutton her blouse an extra button and then have Evelyn ask a question of a clerk or salesman. She didn’t seem to mind since Nathan usually gave her half of anything he pilfered. She too got a rush, not from the theft necessarily, but usually from the attention she could generate her way at such a young age.

  When they were younger, their dad used to make the siblings drag boxes filled with empty soda bottles a mile to the local grocery store where they would get three cents for every returnable bottle. It was times like this that the pair often wished for—and prayed at night for—another brother or sister. They felt that it was just them against their dad’s tyrannical fathering.

  The money they earned from turning in soda bottles or when Nathan mowed neighbor yards with the family push-mower for a buck, all went into an empty flour canister in the kitchen. Still working at the Sunkist Packing house at the time, their father would use the built-up change in the flour canister to help pay for a six-pack of Budweiser every other Friday night.

  Nathan didn’t mind doing things with his sister; just the opposite. They were not allowed to play with neighbor kids so the two became inseparable at school and on weekends. The fact that they go to do such things together, like selling empty soda bottles for their dad, while seemingly unfair to the pair was a reward in their minds.

  Keeping their dad happy with the “King of Beers” over the weekend was incentive enough for the two siblings. When he wasn’t happy, there was
always a price that had to be paid. However, when he drank, his alcohol-induced happiness was often short lived and Mr. Duncan could become far more violent than when he was sober and mad. Their mother, Elizabeth, worked long days as a bookkeeper for Danager Brother’s furniture store in town and didn’t dare question her husband’s authority.

  It would be years later that Nathan and Evelyn would understand why Elizabeth left their father. But at the time, she was their only refuge. But even that didn’t help. Elizabeth didn’t like it when Paul would force the kids to spend a Saturday selling the bottles they found in and around the dumpsters near their little home in west Anaheim. Only once did she question his authority. And that was the same time that she became “sick,” staying in her bedroom for days. While the swelling subsided, her make-up could not fully hide the darkness under her eye or the black and blue marks on her arms.

  At the time, there was no Disneyland, no Santa Ana Freeway, (which would end up running right through their neighborhood when it was extended south into Orange County in 1964), and certainly no way out of the life they were born into.

  Nathan and Evelyn learned to never complain. They had their own means of providing for themselves and they became closer over time.

  Nathan lowered the cherry picker basket and moved the entire machine to the south, just on the other side of Walt Disney’s patio that was cantilevered out over the back side of his apartment that sat above the Fire Station. Nathan positioned the cherry picker so that it was up against the building just below the second window to the right of the patio. Nathan got back in the basket and brought himself up level with the patio. Looking around, Nathan knew he was protected from view in several directions; he was behind the Fire Station which blocked him from anyone who might be working in the Park; the eucalyptus trees and Jungle Cruise foliage blocked him from view in the opposite direction; the patio which he was now up against blocked him from the back of the Emporium building, directly north of him. Only below him and for a short distance to the south, along the little-used service road, could he be observed. And at this early hour, no one was anywhere around that portion of the backstage area.