Readers of this column may already have seen the installment, “The Cute Disney Story That Never Was” (link) If you haven’t or don’t quite remember reading it, then I would recommend that you take a look at it before you read today’s column.
The moral of that column was not to believe everything you read about Walt Disney even if it seems to come from a reliable source and was published during Walt’s lifetime so that supposedly Walt saw the information or could refute it. The moral of today’s column is that there is always more to the story.
I wrote the previous column to try and set the record straight about a cute Walt anecdote that was completely false so that the true story would be in print for future researchers. Since that column appeared, Diane Disney Miller has continued to correspond with me about that particular trip she took with her dad and shared with me the letter that her dad wrote to his little sister, Ruth.
Walt wrote several letters to his sister and these letters have been donated to the Walt Disney Museum in Marceline. In a two-page letter written by Walt on October 3, 1952, he goes into great detail about his European trip with five women:
“We had quite a trip to Europe this summer—sometimes I wonder how I did it—I mean looking after five women for 10 weeks—baggage, passports, reservations and what have you. In addition to my own three, we took with us Lilly’s niece, Majorie Bowers, and a girlfriend of Diane’s, Karen Bergstrom.
“We left here June 21 spent a week in New York and sailed on the Queen Elizabeth July 1. While on the boat, Diane and Karen got the idea that they would like to see the Olympic Games, so arrangements were made and they flew from London to Helsinki and were there for 10 days. They had a wonderful time. The rest of us stayed in London and while there spent a weekend at Stratford-On-Avon, and another weekend up in Scotland. Then we all flew to Paris, Diane and Karen coming in from Helsinki. We stayed there the better part of a week and then went to Switzerland by train, making our headquarters by Lucerne. Everybody loved Switzerland—scenically, it’s very beautiful and it’s clean and things are growing everywhere, yet only a small percentage of its area is productive because so much of the country is mountainous. There’s no impoverishment and the people are happy.
“We went into Germany by automobile and stayed at Munich. Then we drove through the Bavarian Alps into Austria and spent some time at Salzburg and Innsbruch, returning to Lucerne. Another wonderful spot was Zermatt, high up in the Swiss Alps, which seemed to be completely a bloom with yellow crocus. From here we went on to Geneva and while there they were holding their annual fete called ‘The Battle of Confetti.’ It was very picturesque and exciting. At night everyone was in costume and confetti was everywhere. During the day there was a parade which consisted of beautiful floral floats similar to your Rose Festival. We enjoyed it very much.
“At this point, I flew back to London to see how production was getting along on The Sword and the Rose, and Lilly and the girls went on to Italy, visiting Milan, Florence and Rome, where I met them again, and then to Naples where we boarded the American boat, the Independence. This is the long way home, 10 days to be exact. About half way across we touched on the fringe of a hurricane, which was pretty exciting and things got pretty rough. Can’t say that the girls enjoyed it, but they did live through it, despite their seasickness. I seem to be immune to such stuff. All in all, the trip was a complete success.
“Diane and Sharon thought they got more out of this one than they did from either or their previous trips. But everyone was glad to get back again, and Marjorie particularly, who left her three little youngsters at home.”
While Walt seems to be quite casual about sending Diane and her girlfriend to the Olympics, there was much more involved as Diane shared with me:
“Think about how difficult it must have been for my dad to get tickets and accommodations for his daughter and her friend for the 1952 Helsinki Olympics… not much more than one week before the games started. The apartment we stayed in was vacated by its owners, who moved to their little place in the country, which, as I recall, had no running water or electricity, just a simple summer cabin. They both worked in the city. Dad must have paid them well.
“Think about the uproar and flurry of activity in the various offices of Walt Disney Productions, trying to set this trip up for us. Karen was so adamant about wanting to go, and I am glad we did, because it was a wonderful Olympics. But I think about the hassle that it had to have been for my dad to arrange it .. and he never said “Look. Are you crazy? We can’t do that now!” He made it happen for us. I am certain that when he saw us onto our aircraft with our passports in our own hands (he had charge of them at all times during the trip) he must have feared that he’d never see us again. I don’t even recall the flight, or the airport experience. We must have been met by somebody, because that was the Disney way. We did no sight seeing, just went to the games, bought food for meals, and back to our apartment. Later, Karen and I would ponder this, and wonder why we hadn’t done more exploring of Helsinki, taken more advantage of being there. But it was all about the games.”
Diane told me that she didn’t think any of this information was worth another column but I responded that the readers of this site are deeply interested in everything about her dad and would have loved to know what it was like to travel with Walt.
As long as we are examining stories, let’s take a look at another more famous legend of Walt creating Mickey Mouse on the train ride back from New York after he had lost Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and wanting to name the new mouse character “Mortimer” until his wife, Lilly, objected. In recent years, it has been debated that this was merely another cute story and that it wasn’t until Walt returned to Los Angeles and worked with animator Ub Iwerks that Mickey Mouse was truly created.
Diane has a very forceful opinion about this new version of the old story.
“That story never varied when my parents told it. It was an integral part of that whole rather dramatic journey to New York. This trip was the first time that mother had accompanied him [to New York]. The news from Mintz was devastating. We all know the content of the cable that dad sent to Roy. The train ride from New York took three or four days as I recall from my own experience. It is not likely that dad spent those days looking out the train window at passing scenery. Everything that he had worked at for the past few years had just been stolen from him, and he was challenged to come up with something new, a new beginning. He’d cabled Roy that everything was fine. Mother was with him..a perfect companion and sounding board.
“Mice were familiar to him as subjects of animation. They are present in many of the Alice films. How can anyone even question his testimony about this matter? I do not doubt that Ub Iwerks drew the mouse. But, knowing my dad, I also feel certain that, as he began to describe this new character to mother and himself, he must have had a pencil in hand, and something to scribble on. I would not doubt that these scribbles were in his hand, or pocket, when he went in to Ub upon his return to the studio.
“My dad sometimes exaggerated a story, or embellished one, but never to the point of distorting it, or being dishonest about it. This was not a tale created by a publicity department, but part of the saga of his life that he so eagerly shared with his family and anyone was interested in it. Mother was so proud of her part in it.”
I certainly agree that Walt was not the type of personality to sit calmly and relax on any trip. There are many stories from Walt’s travelling companions over the years of Walt’s restlessness and finding things to do. In addition, there are many stories of Walt scribbling down sketches of his ideas from the design of Tom Sawyer’s Island to the original concept of Epcot on napkins or scraps of paper. I don’t doubt that Iwerks refined Walt’s idea of Mickey Mouse but I also have no doubt that the idea was always Walt’s. As has been said, Mickey Mouse was Walt and Walt was Mickey Mouse.
