Years ago, I was inspired to become an author, in part,
because of friends who were also pursuing that path. Their delight in
writing and in having written was infectious. But what tantalized me most
were their interview subjects. Their book projects brought them into the
presence, sometimes into the living rooms, and occasionally into close
friendships with their childhood heroes. “Wouldn’t that be cool,”
I thought, “to spend time with the people who created Disneyland?”
However, one friend, Randy, whose passion was the movie comedy team Laurel
and Hardy, mentioned a dark aside that, two decades later, continues to
haunt me. In his book-writing efforts, Randy had come to track down and
become dear friends with dozens of old-timers who worked with Stan and
Ollie. The relationships brought joy both to Randy and to the once-forgotten
movie stars and craftsmen. The hard part, Randy remarked to me in the
early 1980s, was “these people are all in their 70s and 80s and 90s.
In 20 years, all my friends will be gone.”
Here we are, 20 years later and, just as predicted, all these friends
are gone. Somehow I thought it would be different writing about Disneyland.
When I began doing research for my first book about the park in 1987,
not only were the majority of the park’s pioneers still alive, they still
worked for Disney. But time passed. My interests and projects took me
into other, older areas of the company and became more history-minded.
Gradually, as many of these interview subjects became friends, it hit
me. I now regularly “talk shop” with a lot of people in their
70s and 80s and 90s.
So each year I lose a few more Disney friends. Sadly, 2004 hit especially
hard.
In tribute, here are some of Disney’s biggest losses over the past year—and
in the case of those I got to know, my loss as well.
13. Arthur Alsberg, 87 [August 7, 2004]
I met Mr. Alsberg in 1983, not to interview him about his string of Disney
writing credits (Hot Lead & Cold Feet, Gus, Herbie Goes
to Monte Carlo, No Deposit, No Return), but talk about his
work as a radio comedy writer in the 1940s. He had a handful of humorous
anecdotes, but what struck me were his desire to help a clueless college
kid and his genuine concern about my project. It was no surprise to later
learn of his fondness for teaching writing.
12. Richard Berger, 64 [October 6, 2004]
Although he spent only two years with Disney, the studio executive is
credited as having started the Touchstone Films subsidiary, which served
as an outlet for the company’s first movies for grown-ups, and served
as the Walt Disney Pictures division’s president. He was replaced by Jeffrey
Katzenberg in 1984.
11. Harry Holt, 93 [April 14, 2004]
His Disney career stretched from animator on Snow White & the Seven
Dwarfs to development on figures and elements on some of the most
famous attractions at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Yet Harry blessed
us everyday park visitors on a more personal level when, after his formal
retirement, he spent 10 years on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom, sketching
characters for the guests. Quite a far cry from today’s Disney World,
where you can’t even find real animators in the Animation Building.
10. Peter Ustinov, age 82 [March 28, 2004]
While Ustinov received far more accolades for his “serious”
acting, Disney fans will always remember him for playing the title character
in Blackbeard’s Ghost and providing the voices of Prince John and
King Richard in Robin Hood—and likely not remember him for
his role in One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing. Plus, he was to have
starred in Walt’s aborted film Khrushchev at Disneyland.
9. Gordon Cooper, 77 [October 4, 2004]
Again, another achiever better known for his work outside Disney. Outside
Earth, actually. Yet Cooper’s contributions were invaluable as a consultant
to the Imagineers creating Space Mountain and then officially joining
WED as a vice president of research and development in helping to plan
Epcot Center. Cooper and his “never-say-it-can’t-be-done” attitude
fit right in at WED. He appeared most recently at the opening of Epcot’s
Mission: Space.
8. Harry Tytle, 95 [August 19, 2004]
In a way, you could say I worked “alongside” Harry, who spent
40 years as a producer, director and “right-hand-man” for Walt
Disney. By alongside, I mean we would often be selling our books (his,
One of Walt’s Boys) near each other at Disneyana shows. Harry was
delightful to spend an afternoon with and was always gracious with his
time. It always amazed me how many showgoers would hurry past his table
with nary a glance, hot in pursuit of some highly prized pin, when here
was a real, live treasure right in their midst.
7. The Illustrators, 91 and 89
In the dark ages before VHS and DVD and omnipresent Disney Stores and
Disney channels, little kids like me who wanted to “take home”
our favorite Disney story would relive the tales at bedtime with Little
Golden Books. The first characters Western Publishing & Lithographing
licensed were Disney’s, and the publisher presented them in movie retellings
and original tales in hundreds of children’s books beginning in the 1930s.
After World War II, to elevate the quality of kids’ literature, Western
Publishing hired a batch of former Disney animators, including John Parr
“J.P.” Miller [who died October 29] and Jack Bradbury [who died
May 15].
Both had joined the Disney Studios in the early 1930s and worked their
way up to plum animating assignments on Pinocchio and other classics of
the early 1940s. Miller’s fame would come illustrating best-selling non-Disney
Golden Books (such as the still-in-print Little Red Hen). Bradbury’s
forte was established cartoon characters, with Pluto a specialty. Walt
was so confident in his talent that the studio reportedly gave standing
approval to everything Bradbury drew, sight unseen.
6. Mr. Lincoln, 40 [February 22, 2005?]
Granted, animatronic Abe’s demise is not a done deal; always-upfront
Disneyland promises he’s just getting a two-year respite while a 50th
Anniversary exhibit takes over the Opera House. Yet it’s no secret that
park management has been trying to permanently unplug the underappreciated
animatronic for more than 30 years. Also consider the sincerity with which
Main Street cast members—from Opera House hostesses to Omnibus drivers
to train conductors—have been pleading with guests over the last
few months to bump up Mr. Lincoln’s ride counts before a permanent decision
is made on the classic figure’s fate. If I were you, I’d go see Abe.
5. Sam McKim, 79 [July 9, 2004]
Seconds into first meeting Sam McKim I realized why he was the one whose
three decades at WED were best known for his souvenir maps of Disneyland.
The niceness, the neatness, the whimsy, the warmth, the vividness in storytelling,
everything about him was accessible and detailed.
4. The Club 55 Custodians, 70s and 80s [Summer, 2004]
Every time we lose another Club 55’er (someone who helped open Disneyland
in 1955), I can’t help but feel a little depressed. Sometimes it’s pain
for the loss of friends. But even with those I’ve never met, it hits me
that they’ve made it so close—but not close enough—to Disneyland’s
50th, the time when the company should finally give these long-neglected
pioneers their due.
Within 50 days this past summer, we lost three influential ones—the
Custodial department’s first chief, Chuck Boyajian, and his two lieutenants,
Tom Roppa and Roy Young. Fortunately, Disneyland has begun paying their
respects to these men of late in the best possible way—by helping
to keep the park pristine once again, to the standards they established
primarily to satisfy Walt.
3. Frank Thomas, 92 [September 8, 2004]
And then there was one. Ollie Johnston is now the last of Walt’s Nine
Old Men, with the death of his best friend. Although I never had the opportunity
to meet Thomas, I was touched more deeply by his work than by any other
animator’s. I think about the “-est” scenes in Disney animation—the
sweetest (a wee rabbit giving a deer ice skating lessons), the most romantic
(two dogs sharing a plate of pasta), the most joyous (Pinocchio delirious
that he’s “Got No Strings,” Dick Van Dyke cavorting with penguins),
the most sad (Baloo evicting Mowgli from the jungle, a lovesick squirrel
getting dumped)—and they’re all Thomas.
2. John Hench, 95 [February 5, 2004]
For many a blushing waitress, they knew him only as a dashing gentleman
who asked to read their palm. In fact, during his 65 years at Disney,
Hench left his fingerprints all over most every prestige Disney project—as
an artist on Fantasia through Peter Pan, in special effects
on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, in creating Disneyland’s first
Tomorrowland, in supervising the development of the Magic Kingdom and
Epcot Center, and in designing Tokyo Disneyland. Note that wherever Walt’s
passion was at a particular time (feature animation in the late 1930s
and 1940s, live action in the early/mid-1950s, theme parks in the 1950s,
Imagineering in the early 1960s, city planning in the mid-1960s), that
was where Hench was working. He was even the official portrait painter
of Mickey Mouse.
What I appreciated most about him was that he seemed to understand “Disney”
on a deeper level than anyone else I’ve ever listened to; he had a reason
for everything—why a bench was a certain color or a door was a certain
width or a curb was a certain shape. Not money reasons. Not random choices.
Listening to John Hench, everything made sense.
1. Disney Feature Animation, 66 [April 2, 2004]
As predicted, the beloved artform and legacy that began with Snow
White ended not with a bang, but a whimper, with the release of Home
on the Range. Disney executives were likely relieved at the film’s
mediocre performance at the box office, reasoning that it justified their
short-sighted decision to scrap 2-D.
So, for now, traditional feature animation is gone. It’s a shame, since,
in part, 50-year-olds like Cinderella and Tinker Bell have remained current
because we knew that artists remained busy dreaming and animating these
characters’ descendants. Now, a chain that lived from Snow White through
Little Mermaid and Tarzan has for the first time been broken.
The saddest part about this loss of a lifelong friend of all of ours
is its death was not of natural causes.
