I was conducting some research this weekend and stumbled upon this never-seen-before photo of Walt shot in the Summer on 1935 in Paris. The man on the right is journalist Pierre Ogouz.

This just in from Michael Goldberg:

[The link below is to the Los Angeles county Library data base of Menus (they have thousands)

I happend on this one honoring Prince Philip in March 1966, and noticed Walt Disney as one of the sponsors.

Thought this might be of interest to you!

 

http://dbase1.lapl.org/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll

 

RestaurantBANQUET HONORING HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE PHILIP, DUKE OF EDINBURGH, K.G. Address
Los Angeles, CA,
Date
March 14, 1966 Cuisine
French.
Noteslocation of event not given
Velveteen-covered booklet includes a letter from the Prince, a photo, Programme, Menu, Command Performance entertainers, Sponsors, and Banquet Committee Meal
Dinner]

This great letter just in from Jim Korkis.

Here is a rare Spanish interview with Walt released in the August 5, 1965 issue of La Actualidad Española.

Two highlights:

"Walt: Of course, I am not Spanish. I was born in Chicago. But I love Spain and the Spanish people." [And yet the canard about Walt being born in Mojacar, Spain lives on to this day!]

"And Walt tells us about his latest trip to our country: 'I was on the Costa Brava, in Barcelona, in Madrid, and in Algeciras. From there I took the boat to New York. I arrived in Port Lligat without warning to make a surprise to my great friend Salvador Dalí. You know how it is: if someone is warned about your visit they have to worry about all the things to prepare, so I did not warn him.
"Gala, Dalí's wife, was fishing in a rowing boat. The house was empty and I finally found Dalí among the rocks, spread out under the sun, with his huge whiskers all wet, points down."

This just in from Garry Apgar:

[Yesterday I finally had a chance to see "The Artist."

One thing that struck me about the film was how much its star, Jean Dujardin, resembled Walt at about the same age. Dujardin, 39, is a virtual dead ringer for Walt, circa 1940. He doesn't quite have the angular, aquiline nose of Walt, ... but the dark, slicked-down hair, the mustache, the smile, the buoyant personality, the intensity, .... the constant smoking! ... of the character he plays are all almost a perfect match.

A few days ago one of your readers, Jeffery Butler, nominated Dujardin for the starring role in "Walt," the imaginary film depicted on that faux movie poster by Pascal Witaszek, set around 1928, with Ryan Gosling as Disney. Prompted in part by Witaszek's fragmentary vision, and now, especially, by "The Artist," one can readily imagine a compelling but factually faithful bio-pic of Walt's early years along the lines of "The Artist," ... in black and white, perhaps, with the same careful attention to detail, casting, locations and settings. Think of the stylish way Walt dressed, of him staying at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, as he tried to get "Steamboat Willie" off the ground (sharing a room there with Carl Stalling, rinsing their socks out in the same sink), of Walt conferring with Pat Powers in his office in midtown Manhattan, with Jack Alicoate, the editor at "Film Daily," etc. Even the tomfoolery of Walt and his young pals in the Kansas City days, with Laugh-O-gram, and, later on, playing polo with Spencer Tracy and Will Rogers, would be very cinematic, particularly if the jazz-era music on the sound track were as artfully selected and paired with the action as it is in "The Artist" (and in so many of the early Mickey Mouse cartoons).

There ought to be enough drama in the characters Walt came in contact with, the locales he operated in, and the very real challenges he met and surmounted, to allow for a commercially viable cinematic vehicle. Far flimsier stuff has been spun into motion picture hagiography by Hollywood -- telling the story of far less consequential figures in show business or American culture.

Among the many realistic little touches in "The Artist," incidentally, were those old-fashioned two-button light switches like the one seen on the wall in that familiar photo of Walt, circa 1930 (above).]

This just in from Are Myklebust:

[I did set up a list over some of the famous people Walt Disney met through his lifetime lately.
Thought it might have some interest for you.
Please be free to publish it on your "Disney History" blog.

Walt Disney met a lot of world famous people through his lifetime.
Here’s a list of some of the names (in alphabetical order):

Louis Armstrong (1900 – 1971), American jazz musician.
George Balanchine (1904 – 1983), Russian/ American choreographer.
Robert Benchley (1889 – 1945), American author and humorist.
Ingmar Bergman (1918 – 2007), Swedish film director.
Ray Bradbury (1920 - ), American science fiction author.
Charlie Chaplin (1889 – 1977), British actor and film director (active in U.S.).
Roald Dahl (1916 – 1990), British RAF pilot and later author.
Salvador Dali (1904 – 1989), Spanish artist (surrealist painter).
Dwight Eisenhower (1890 – 1969), U.S. president.
Sergei Eisenstein (1890 – 1948), Russian film director.
Kirsten Flagstad (1895 – 1962), Norwegian singer.
Henry Ford (1863 – 1947), American industrialist (founder Ford Motor Company).
Amadeo Pietro Giannini (1870 – 1949), American banker (founder Bank of America).
Billy Graham (1918 - ), American evangelist.
Edwin Hubble (1889 – 1953), American astronomer.
Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963), British author.
Julian Huxley (1887 – 1975), British biologist, author and humanist (and brother of Aldous).
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908 – 1973), U.S. president.
Ray Kroc (1902 – 1984), American businessman (McDonalds).
Louis Lumiere (1864 – 1948), French film pioneer.
Thomas Mann (1875 – 1955). German author (Nobel Prize winner).
Richard Nixon (1913 – 1994), U.S. vice president and later U.S. president.
Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004), American actor, later U.S. President.
Norman Rockwell (1894 – 1978), American painter and illustrator.
Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971), Russian composer (active in France and U.S.).
Leopold Stokowski (1882 – 1977), British-American conductor.
Deems Taylor (1885 – 1966), American music critic.
Shirley Temple (Black) (1928 - ), American child actor (and later diplomat).
Wernher von Braun (1912 – 1977), German aerospace engineer (in U.S.).
Sir Herbert Wilkins (1888 – 1958), Australian aviator and Arctic explorer.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 – 1959), American architect.

+ many famous entertainment personalities, Hollywood celebrities
and film makers in Britain and U.S.]

The above photo shows Walt with Robert Moses and Henry Ford Jr.

This just in from Jim Korkis:

[When the New Year falls on a Sunday, the famous Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California is held on Monday, January 2nd as it was this year. The first and last visit Walt made to the Rose Parade (before he was Grand Marshall in 1966) was on January 2, 1939. The Disney Family Museum has a photo on display of that historic moment of Walt, his wife Lilly and daughter Diane standing on the balcony of the Constance Hotel to watch the parade.]

Disney Historian Jim Korkis has been communicating with Diane Disney Miller for a few years and every now and then, she shares a wonderful story that doesn't fit into an article or project that Jim is working on at the moment. Just this last week, Diane shared one of those stories about her father, Walt Disney, and we thought it might be nice to share with the rest of you since it gives another little insight into the life of Walt. It is not an earthshattering revelation but just an interesting glimpse into the private home life of Walt.

Here is what Diane wrote to Jim: "There's another incident in dad's life that's never talked about, but that reveals a lot about his nature. One summer ... maybe 1944, because Sharon would have been at least 7, and I could have been 10 going on 11. He built a trail around the the hillside of our "canyon", the lower part of the lot at 4053 Woking Way. The canyon was landscaped, with flagstone steps descending to the bottom, where the badminton court was, and the screen-enclosed shed with the lifesize wooden horse from which he would have practiced polo shots. This was always locked, in my memory, and we were forbidden entry because of the threat of black widow spiders that, indeed, probably lurked within. I really wanted to be able to climb up on that horse and pretend it was a real one.

"Anyway, he decided to build this trail ... he called it the 'Burma Trail', which should help date it. He labored energetically all summer on weekends. He had Sharon enlisted to bring him root beers at intervals to keep him going. He was drenched in sweat and dirt at the end of the days. There was absolutely no need for this trail. He just wanted to do it. He relished the hard work. He would have been in his early 40's then. I don't know if this has ever been mentioned, and I'm the last person alive who would know about it, and, though it is not an important thing , everything he's ever done is brought up, examined, discussed, and all kind of conclusions drawn. about it. Looking at it historically in his life, it was the post-war period .. He craved intense physical activity, as most of us do. He was home-centered. As he labored on the hillside on the construction of this trail he was concentrating on the job, the placement of each board to support the trail ..each shovel full of earth .. and, at the end of the day, exhausted but satisfied with his day's work, he'd shower and join his family for dinner .. perhaps the scotch mist with mother on the terrace. What was I doing? Swimming, reading, playing the piano .. but I wasn't too curious about the progression of the trail project. I did use it, though."

Jim adds: [When you print Diane's story you may want to include this link that reprints the first of eight installments of Diane and Pete Martin writing about Walt Disney. The eight installments were later gathered together and re-edited and released as the first Walt biography.]

Jorge Fonte, author of the upcoming book about Disney and Iberia sent me a few days ago one of the very last interviews of Walt conducted by Warwick Charlton and published in a Spanish newspaper. Nothing really surprising in the interview (nothing at all in fact), save for this short story about the making of Bambi:

"I saw so many movies and documentaries about wild animals that I started having dreams with bears, lions and crocodiles. My wife was amused and would ask every morning: 'Did that tiger eat you again?'

I have just received the transcript of an interview I conducted recently with Carl Bongirno, former head of WED / WDI and that I will release in a future volume of Walt's People. That interview contains quite a few nuggets, but here is the story I consider as the best about Walt, money and creative people. Enjoy.

[Carl Bongirno: I had moved to Imagineering in February of 1965. I actually joined the company in November of 1963. So we were working on bringing these shows to life in Disneyland. Many of them were in Circle Vision.
Walt had asked at one point how we were doing cost wise. I estimated the cost for that Circle Vision show. He had already surmised that based on the plans that were being developed at Disneyland that it was going to be over what we had budgeted for that project. So he wanted a presentation on it. When he showed up I gave him a 10 or 15-minute presentation with the cost to date, estimate cost to complete compared to the budget. We were over as I recall from $200,000 to $300,000. He pounded his fist on the table. He said, "You God damn finance guys. You don't know how to control costs around here." He stood up and he said, "You follow me and I will show you how to control costs." I thought, "Oh, my God he is going to go downstairs and raise holy hell with all the creative guys and then I'm going to have a problem dealing with them in the future." I was trying to establish a relationship with them so that they would have confidence in me and that they would work with me. I was trying to control costs and trying to be sure that we completed the projects on time.
So we went downstairs and the large group of creative people was around a large conference table in one of our main conference rooms. They were all around the table and he usually sat against the wall along with his other non-creative guys who watched the proceedings. They went through project after project laying out the plans and certain creative people stood up and using the storyboards in talking to Walt about what the particular projects would be the makeup of the project and the storyline. Walt got up on a couple occasions using voices of characters and pointing to the storyboards, correcting and suggesting changes. After a couple hours, maybe three hours, he starts to stand up and he puts his sweater back on and he starts to walk to the door. I think, "He forgot about the Circle Vision and the cost problem." He got about half way to the door and he turns around and he say, "Oh, by the way we haven't reviewed that Circle Vision project for quite a while. Why don't we take a look at that real quickly?" He said, "Do you have the plans handy?" We always had the plans handy. So I rolled them out on the table and he said, "Boy you guys have just done a wonderful job here." He said, "Marc, you know this post show area? You know it is just getting too big. When people come out of that theater they are going to be lost in here. If you are going to have an intimate environment we need to bring it down. We need to make it more inviting instead of this big open area. He said, "Let's confine that." And he gave some dimensions. Move this wall in and move this wall in. He said, "You know that Audio- Animatronics figure at the post show? That is so good. That is so wonderful. We don't want to use it here. Let's save that for some other project. It is just too good for this project. I want to use it in some other project where we really need a great show because that what it is." Then he did one or two other things and he turned to Mel and he and myself said, "You finance guys, I don't care how much more this is going to cost. We are going to make these changes because they are the right thing to do." And he walked out of the room. I knew exactly what he had done. He had eliminated $300,000 from the project.]

This just in from Are Myklebust:

[Hi Didier!

Some of the first cartoons Walt made as a young boy, was copies of the cartoons and comic strips in the American socialist newspaper “Appeal to Reason” that his father, Elias Disney, subscribed to.

You can find some information about this newspaper here.

And further you can find some information about this newspapers main cartoonist, Ryan Walker (1870 – 1932), including examples of his work, here.

And finally you will find an exampel of young Walt’s own early drawings here.]

Disney Historian Jim Korkis wrote two articles about Walt Disney’s connection with Environmentality still available at this link.

During his research, he ran across some interesting photos (including the fact that an adult Bambi promoted prevention of forest fires before Smokey the Bear was created). However, all of that research got him interested in the various Public Service Spots that Walt did in the late Fifties and early Sixties including ones for Toys For Tots and the National Society of the Prevention of Blindness. So Jim is looking for more information on what Public Service Spots Walt did and copies of the content. If anyone can help, please leave a comment.

Here is one of the ones in Jim’s collection:

“You’ve probably heard people talk about conservation. Well, conservation isn’t just the business of a few people. It’s a matter that concerns all of us. It’s a science whose principles are written in the oldest code in the world, the laws of nature. The natural resources of our vast continent are not inexhaustible. But if we will use our riches wisely, if we will protect our wildlife and preserve our lakes and streams, these things will last us for generations to come.” –Walt Disney National Wildlife Federation television Public Service Spot 1956.

Here is a fascinating document sent to me by Philippe Videcoq as part of a much larger "memo" about Future Fantasias. Some of the ideas considered made it in Fantasia 2000.

I have reposted everything as the pages I posted last Wednesday were unreadable.

This just in from Jim Korkis:

[Does anyone know anything more about this? Who is playing Walt and what does he say for 45 minutes?]

Didier: the actor playing Walt will be Bill Worley, apparently. Check this link for more details.]

["Disney," "Edison" to Appear in Kirkwood

KIRKWOOD, Mo. (West County Journal) – Walt Disney, Thomas A. Edison, Margaret Mitchell and P.T. Barnum will be in Kirkwood this week. The Kirkwood Public Library and the Missouri Humanities Council are inviting the public to take a journey back in time as Chautauqua 2008, "That's Entertainment," arrives Thursday for a four-day appearance. Actors from across the country will grace the stage; the performers have been compared to scholars who have completed in-depth research of their characters. Each night, there will be an opening act, such as the Moolah Shrine clowns, Dan Rubright's and Steve Schnekel's "New Sounds," and Joe Thompson's Dixieland Band. Then, the actors will bring their characters back to life with a 30- to 45-minute in-character monologue covering their accomplishments, place in history and impact on public entertainment. Following the performances, the actors will step out of character and answer questions from the audience with their historical knowledge. The events are free and will take place in the Lions Amphitheater in Kirkwood Park. A different character will make an appearance in each program, beginning with Walt Disney Thursday, Thomas Edison Friday, Margaret Mitchell Saturday and Phineas Taylor Barnum Sunday.]

This just in from blog reader Francesco Diella:

[I would like to know if you have or know where I can find theblack and white CBC interview with Walt Disney in video form.]

Could someone help him?

James D. Marks submited the following two questions to me a few weeks ago.

[Please ask Diane if Walt shopped for the clothes he wore or did someone purchase them for him. His clothes were always very fashionable. He put together shirt, tie, jacket and pants which most of us wouldn't think of combining. He looked GREAT, always.

Also, did Walt stand on his tip-toes when photographed so he would appear taller? (I read that somewhere)]

Diane answered:

[Dad shopped for himself. He cared very much about his appearance, and often fretted with me that I was too casual about my attire. We see how, when success happened in the late 20's and early 30's, he became a really natty dresser.

He was much more conservative during my life with him. Have you seen the photo of him attired in an array of checks? With the black and white wing tip shoes? Quite dashing! Dad stood on his tiptoes sometimes in a humorous manner when standing with me and my sister when we were grown .. Sharon was 5'8". He also did so in our wedding photo, to see eye to eye with my husband, who is 6'5".

I appreciate your reader's observations!]

I had seen quite a few drawings of Mickey by Walt, but this is the first Donald by him I ever came accross. This drawing currently being sold on ebay through Phil Sears. Thanks for Jim Korkis who once again noticed it for us!

Quick update by Jim Korkis:

[The person who commented on the Mickey Macaroni and Cheese recipe and wondered about the chili recipe could be directed here.]

This just in from Jim Korkis:

[From the Boston Globe 1977, then 52 year old artist Edward Gorey admitted he was a big "Star Trek" (the original) fan and the above paragraph.]

Walt Disney's daughter, Diane, has stated that many early years of trying to save money resulted in her dad developing “a hash house-lunch wagon appetite. He liked fried potatoes, hamburgers, western omelets, hotcakes, canned peas, hash, stew, roast beef sandwiches. He doesn’t go for vegetables, but loves chicken livers or macaroni and cheese.”

While Walt's famous chili recipe has appeared a number of times, Disney Historian Jim Korkis recently discovered one of Walt's favorite recipes for macaroni and cheese that has never, ever been reprinted. In appeared in the February 1934 issue of the magazine "Better Homes and Gardens".