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Page 13 of 28 |
Creative
Explosion: |
Walt's Children |
Walt and Diane
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In 1933, after two miscarriages, Lillian gave
birth to Walt's first daughter, Diane. Several years later,
the couple adopted a second child, Sharon. Walt's role as father
was one of the most important in his life. He treated his daughters
with a loving patience, kindness, and tolerance that was different
from the impatient drive for perfection with which many of his
staffers were familiar. The two girls were shielded from publicity,
and their father enjoyed their company immensely. Weekend jaunts
to amusement parks or merry-go-rounds were common. Fortunately
for the world of entertainment, Walt's mind was capable of operating
on several levels at once. So even as he was taking pleasure
in his daughters' play, he was thinking of ways to reinvent
the way young people were entertained. This thinking led, in
large part, to the development of Disneyland. Though this period
of Walt's life included some of his greatest successes -- including
Snow White -- it was also a turbulent time in many ways. His
mother died, tragically, in 1938, asphyxiated by gas fumes in
a house Walt and Roy had given their parents. World War II put
a virtual halt to many of Walt's grand plans for advancing the
work of his studio. And the studio strike in 1941 left Walt
disillusioned about his staff; bitter feelings from this episode
were to last formany years and influence his thinking about
people and politics. |
In 1933, after two miscarriages, Walt was
happy that Lilly was pregnant again, but apprehensive about
the results. In September he wrote his mother, who was then
living in Portland, Oregon, "Lilly is partial to a baby girl.
. . . Personally I don't care -- just as long as we do not get
disappointed again." A few weeks before Diane's birth, Walt
wrote his mother again. "The spare bedroom where you and Dad
stayed is all fixed up like a nursery. We have a bassinet and
baby things all over the place. On the dresser, bed, and everywhere
else are all kinds of pink and blue "tinies" that I don't know
anything about. . . . I presume I'll get used to it and I suppose
I'll be as bad a parent as anybody else. I've made a lot of
vows that my kid won't be spoiled, but I doubt it -- it may
turn out to be the most spoiled brat in the country."
On December 18, in the middle of a
ceremony at the studio in which he was getting an award from
"Parents" magazine, Walt got word that Lilly was about to deliver.
He bolted from the ceremony and arrived at the hospital just
in time. The last thing Lilly remembered, before going under
the anesthesia, was Walt's nervous cough. When Diane was born,
the family rejoiced. |
At long last: Walt and Lilly as the
proud parents of baby Diane
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Diane and her new baby sister, Sharon,
adopted in 1937
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The studio went wild with the news. Marjorie,
away at boarding school, remembered that all the occupants of
her dormitory floor cheered. Only Sunnee, the family's chow
dog, was not pleased. "I guess its heart was broken when I was
born," recalled Diane. "It was their baby, before they had a
baby. I could never get near it." The family then lived in a
two-story English Tudor house in the Los Feliz district, not
far from the studio. It had a magnificent pool and a grand nursery.
Pictures of their first Christmas with a baby reveal a gigantic
sparkling tree, surrounded by a sea of presents.
Walt proudly brought the pictures to the studio to show off
his new little girl. Walt and Lilly wanted more children, but
after Diane's birth Lilly suffered another miscarriage. So they
decided to adopt. In January 1937, two-week-old Sharon Mae Disney
came home. Walt and Lilly were delighted. Diane was a bit disappointed
that this much-anticipated event culminated in the arrival of
a very uninteresting pile of baby. Obviously, all their friends
and family knew that Sharon was adopted. Even when Walt wrote
to old friends, like his 7th-grade teacher, Daisy Beck, he didn't
hesitate to detail Sharon's origins. |
But to the outside world, for many years, Walt
and Lilly downplayed the adoption. They loved Sharon, treated
her the same as her older sister, and wanted to protect her
from an outside world that would have drawn a distinction. Consider,
for instance, a biography of Walt written by Leonard Mosley
in 1985. In its index entry about Sharon, she is parenthetically
described as "Walt's adopted daughter." It may have been precisely
this kind of ridiculous differentiation that they sought to
avoid. One time, when Walt was driving Diane to school, she
asked him how babies were born. She may have been expecting
a little data about the birds and the bees, but Walt answered,
"There are two ways to have babies. You have them yourself or
you adopt them. Your mother had you and we adopted Sharon."
When Diane entered the school,
she repeated her father's words to her friends. Later, her parents
cautioned her that this was one piece of family information
that was not to be shared. "I was surprised later that it was
a secret," she said. "There was no difference between the two
of us. I was had one way and Sharon the other way." |
Diane displays her art work
while younger sister Sharon looks on
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