








|
|
|
|
|
NEW HORIZONS, 1946-1960
by Katherine and Richard Greene
|
|
Walt shares his kingdom with his first grandchild, Chistopher Miller
|
With the end of the Second World War, someone watching Walt's career from the outside might have thought he was slowing down. His first films were not remarkable, and his studio seemed to be losing direction. At the same time, Walt's love of trains transformed itself into a hobby that was to fascinate him for years to come. He started building miniature trains and eventually had a ride-it-yourself steam engine on the grounds of his home -- a home that also featured a soda fountain, which entertained so many of his daughters' friends that he happily groused that he was "supplying the whole neighborhood with sodas." But of course Walt was far from heading into a life of ease and leisure. During this time he was to break into live-action films and nature films. And in 1955 he opened the attraction that was to be one of his greatest loves -- Disneyland. At the same time, his entrance into television altered Walt's life in a dramatic way. Though his name had been famous for years, now fans recognized his face from blocks away. Of course, as Diane and Sharon entered their teen years, the days of happy jaunts to the merry-go-round came to an end. Although this was a disappointment for Walt, it was just a waiting game. In time, both
girls got married and set Walt forth on another road in his family life: that of grandfather.
|
|
The men and women
who worked for Walt never tired of trying to figure him out. In off hours
at work, on weekends, or over lunch, often the conversation centered around
this man who was an enigma to many of them. His midwestern roots were
far from remarkable. His education had ended with one year of high school.
He didn't have any formal training in music, and he had long before conceded
that his artists were better than he. And yet there was little question
that Walt was the one indispensable man in the Disney organization. To
be sure, his staffers were capable of producing top-notch work without
him ("Dumbo," for example, was created with relatively little input from
Walt). But day in and day out, most of them would concede that it was
Walt's clear vision of the work that separated Disney animation and films
-- and later Disneyland -- from anything being done anyplace else. And
Walt knew it. His faith in himself was remarkable. When Roy or Lilly were
dubious about his plans, he pushed forward anyhow. When critics complained
about his work, he dismissed them. Critics are "odd creatures," he said.
"I can't figure out what they want. . . . I've just never built anything
for them. . . . To hell with them. . . . It's the public [that counts]."
|
|
It unquestionably
took all the resolve Walt could muster to recover from the twin blows
of the strike and World War II. The strike had shaken his faith in his
staff. The war -- and the accompanying loss of European markets -- had
turned even a masterpiece like "Pinocchio" into a financial drain. At war's
end, the studio was under a mountain of debt, and Roy was nervous about
plunging into new, expensive projects. While Walt lived in a world of
fantastic new ideas and wonderful creations, Roy had to confront stern-faced
bankers and anxious stockholders. "The company was about two inches from
going under," said Roy's son, Roy Edward, who remembered his father's
sleeplessness at the time. "He had a bicycle downstairs and he would get
up in the middle of the night and ride the bicycle for an hour." In the
next several years, Walt produced some of the most disappointing works
of his career -- grab-bag films that consisted of packages of short pieces
tied together by negligible plots. Even "Song of the South" was not well
received, and it was the most ambitious effort the studio was to mount
for several years after the war. Although he and Roy had bitter arguments
about the future of their company, the disappointments only toughened
Walt's resolve to diversify and improve. So several years in the doldrums
were followed by yet another growth burst as the studio got involved in
live-action films, True-Life Adventures, and a trio of ambitious animated
features that included "Cinderella," "Peter Pan," and "Alice in Wonderland."
|
|
As the energy
level in the studio began to return to a higher level, Walt's own desire
for play seemed to reach a new high. By the late 1940s, Diane was getting
a little old to be her daddy's playmate. But Sharon was still happy to
follow him around wherever he went. Generally, that just meant trips to
the studio or excursions to museums. But in August 1947, she almost followed
him off the edge of the earth. The Disney family had been invited on a
flying tour of Alaska by a friend named Russell Havenstrite. Diane was
away at camp, and Lilly thought the trip too difficult to make herself.
So Walt and Sharon went off into the wild blue yonder together. By and large it
was a wonderful adventure, but at one point on their way to the tiny community
of Candle, things turned a bit alarming. The plane was in thick clouds,
and the pilot told them that the radio had gone dead and there wasn't
sufficient visibility to land. Meanwhile, Walt and Havenstrite drank.
In part they were toasting the recent birth of a grandson to Havenstrite,
but Diane later speculated that their drinking was also out of concern "that
they might not ever see any of their loved ones again." A half-hour trip
turned into two hours, and the plane was running low on fuel. So the
pilot decided to take his chances and descend into the clouds. When Earth
came into view, the plane was right over Candle. Walt finally emerged
from the plane, tripped, and fell on his face. Later he said, "I don't
know whether I kissed the ground -- or fell on it."
|
|
That fall Walt wrote
to his sister Ruth to inquire as to whether her son -- named Ted, after
his father -- might like a train set for Christmas. According to "Walt
Disney's Railroad Story," an absorbing book about Walt's love affair with
trains by Michael Broggie, "He made the same offer to his niece Marjorie
Davis, for her son Geoffrey, and his brother Herbert's grandson, David
Puder. Underscoring this gift suggestion was Walt's desire to create a
railroad hobby for himself. If the hobby also provided an opportunity
to share trains with kids in the family, so much the better."
|
|
That Christmas he
wrote Ruth again. "I bought myself a birthday-Christmas present," he proudly
reported, "something I've wanted all my life -- an electric train. Being
a girl, you probably can't understand how much I wanted one when I was
a kid, but I've got one now, and what fun I'm having. I have it set up
in one of the outer rooms adjoining my office, so I can play with it in
my spare moments. It's a freight train with a whistle, and real smoke
comes out of the smokestack -- there are switches, semaphores, station,
and everything. It's just wonderful!" Walt had given up on polo a few
years before -- after an accident that crushed four of his cervical vertebrae --
so he had time to throw himself into his new hobby. He built miniatures
-- many of which complemented his trains -- that required hours of painstaking
effort, and took great pride in his handiwork. "He'd come up to the dinner
table," recalled Diane, and "bring this little piece of wood he had [been
working on], and sit there all through dinner and be so proud of it. He'd
pass it around for inspection." It was a natural hobby for Walt. He had
loved trains since his childhood, waiting for his Uncle Mike Martin, a
railroad engineer, to emerge with bags of candy from the line that passed
by Marceline. As an adult, Lilly remembered, "We'd go over and stand and
watch the trains coming in. And after they'd go by he'd watch the vibrations
on the tracks . . . that was recreation."
|
|
In 1948 he took
one of his animators, Ward Kimball, on a trip to the Chicago Railroad
Fair. This was an ideal choice; Kimball was a railroad fan too, and
he loved toys of all kinds. "In the mornings, we'd go down there and the
locomotives would be worked on, getting greased and ready for the first
performance," Kimball said. "They let us run them. We were like little
kids, running famous locomotives like the Lafayette, the John Bull, and
the Tom Thumb." Kimball wanted to go to hear jazz after the fair closed
down for the day. But Walt insisted on taking long trips on the elevated
trains with him. Kimball: "He'd be looking out the window and reliving
his childhood." After they left the fair, the two men visited Greenfield
Village in Michigan -- a "museum of buildings" founded by automobile
pioneer Henry Ford. Unrecognized by the crowds, Walt and Kimball were
happy tourists, taking home movies and enjoying the enormous collection
of cottages, barns, and antique buildings that Ford had assembled there.
Soon after arriving home, Walt wrote a memo to Dick Kelsey, a production
designer at the studio. According to Broggie, "for the first time, Walt
described a revolutionary idea he called 'Mickey Mouse Park,'" the first
of many concepts that would ultimately lead to Disneyland.
|
|
In the summer of
1949, Walt, Lilly, Diane, and Sharon took a memorable trip to Europe, where
he was working on "Treasure Island" -- the studio's first all-live-action
film. They enjoyed five weeks in England, three weeks in France and Switzerland,
and a few days in Ireland. Diane recalled one afternoon when Walt returned
to their Paris hotel room, heavy laden with boxes full of little mechanical
toys -- tiny wind-up gadgets of all kinds. He set them going on the hotel
room floor and stared with the intensity for which he was famous. "Look
at that movement," he said, "with just a simple mechanism. Look at that."
Was he beginning to think about Audio-Animatronics? It's impossible to
know, of course. But given Walt's famous capacity for storing away information
for years, it's not unlikely. The family all had a good time, and Walt
particularly enjoyed revisiting some of the locations he had known when
he was in the Red Cross. He even tried out his not considerable command
of the French language on more than one occasion.
|
|
To be sure, the girls did enjoy the soda fountain . . .
|
|
The next year, Walt and
Lilly celebrated their 25th anniversary, and they decided it was time to build
a new house. They selected a site on Carolwood Drive in Holmby Hills, an elegant
location between Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Though there was space for a projection
room, it wasn't an enormous house and was designed in a way that would simplify
housework, making a large staff unnecessary. As Walt wrote, "It's built to
conform to our present needs, and I know we're going to like it very much.
There's a playroom with a soda fountain . . . where the girls can entertain
their friends without disturbing the rest of the household." To be sure,
the girls did enjoy the soda fountain, prompting Walt to later happily gripe about
"supplying the whole neighborhood with sodas at my expense."
He was delighted to have the girls bringing their friends home rather than
gallivanting around. What's more, Walt seemed to enjoy his sweet laboratory
too. "He'd experiment," said Sharon. "He'd go out there and make these weird
concoctions that nobody would eat, including himself. I remember one time,
trying to make a champagne soda. It was the most awful thing. He couldn't
get anybody to taste it and he agreed it was pretty bad."
|
|
But perhaps the most
outstanding attribute of the new house was that it contained property appropriate
to the construction of a half-mile circle of one-eighth-size train tracks,
upon which Walt intended to ride his own miniature steam engine. "Walt was
not so much interested in a new house as he was in the property so that he
could build his train on it," said Lilly. Lilly was concerned that Walt's
train not destroy her plans for beautiful flower beds. So Walt had a 90-foot
tunnel dug that ran underneath the garden. He even had a studio attorney draw
up a facetious legal document, giving him the right of way to run his train
through the property. In its mock legalese, Walt was described as the "first
party," Lilly was the "second party," and Diane and Sharon were the "third
parties."
|
|
Walt equipped the property with a red barn
(modeled after his family's barn back in Marceline) with woodworking
and machine tools and enlisted the aid of studio staffers like Roger Broggie,
who had established the Disney Studio machine shop (and whose son is author
Michael Broggie). He decided that it would be more exciting if the tunnel
were shaped like an S -- so that riders wouldn't be able to see the light at
the end when they entered it. One worker thoughtfully advised Walt that it
would be cheaper to build the tunnel straight. "No," said Walt, in a classic
Disney response, "it's cheaper not to do it at all." Walt dubbed his train
the Carolwood Pacific Railroad, and he treated it like another child. Sunday
afternoons he would take visitors out for rides. This was a marvelous opportunity
for Walt to socialize. Walt really couldn't abide small talk and the kind
of inside-Hollywood gossip that consumed people's time at parties. But his
train provided a perfect way to entertain guests without actually having to
undergo the pointless chitchat. When he wasn't actually riding the train
around on its track he enjoyed working on it in his barn, creating his own
yellow caboose, among other things. "It's my pride and joy," he said, "and
I love it." In the early years with his wonderful new toy, Sharon was something
of a junior partner in the railroad. "He taught me how to run the thing and
how to fire it up -- get the engine going. I thought it was great fun," she
said.
|
|
Walt and the Carolwood Pacific Railroad.
|
|
As time passed, Sharon
joined her sister in the realm of teen interests that were out of her father's
grasp. As Walt recalled, "They reached an age where they fell in love with
horses. And their dad didn't count for much except to pay for the horses and
things. Then from horses, instead of getting them back they fell in love with
parties and all of the things that come when you get in that teenager bracket.
I was rather frustrated through there for awhile. I just didn't know what
was the matter with me. I'd get my kids. I'd say, 'Come on, let's go somewhere.'
'No, Daddy, we've got to stay home, or there's a prom on.' And they had to
go get their hair done and things." Bob Thomas tells a revealing story in
his biography of Walt. "Once, when he was visiting friends, a little girl
sat on his lap. Memories of the younger Diane and Sharon returned, and he
told the girl, 'I think you'd better get down, dear, or you're going to see
your Uncle Walt cry.'" Despite his quick temper at the studio, neither girl
feared him. "We would clash at times," recalled Diane. "I was very assertive.
But I was never afraid of him -- not ever. I challenged him all the time."
|
|
That didn't mean, of
course, that Walt never got angry with his daughters. If Diane's resistance
turned into insolence or disrespect, he was quick to let her know she had
gone too far. Ordinarily, he'd call Diane "kid," but she knew that if he was
referring to her as "sweetheart" something was amiss. As his older daughter
reported, annoyances weren't left to fester; "nothing was ever under the surface
in our family." Recalled Sharon, "One night [my parents] were going to bring
some people home from a restaurant. We had one telephone line and I was sitting
there on the phone. They tried to call our housekeeper to tell her to make
some coffee. They didn't have emergency breakthrough then, and the operator
would not cut in. When Daddy came home I was still on the phone, and Daddy
walked down the hall, very quietly, saw me sitting there with my feet up on
the wall, just talking away. He just walked down, and his eyebrow went up,
and his finger went down on the receiver and he didn't need to say anything.
That was enough. That raised eyebrow was a scolding in itself."
|
|
By and large, neither
girl was overly delighted with the burdens their father's fame placed on them.
"To us, he was just Daddy," said Sharon. "I always wished he was just ordinary
people," said Diane. "From the first moment I became aware of his fame,
I hated it. I didn't like the attention drawn to me. . . . I loved him, respected
him, admired him, and thought he was a wonderful father. And we had a wonderful
life. But it feels like for the rest of my life, I'm living being Walt Disney's
daughter, without being an ordinary somebody." In 1951 Diane started at the
University of Southern California, while Sharon attended Westlake high school.
Like so many fathers, Walt decided by this point that he had them pegged: Diane
was the intellectual and Sharon was the beauty. He'd comment on Sharon, as
she prepared for a date, "Look at her. This is my glamour puss. This is my
beautiful daughter."
|
|
Sunday, May 9, 1954: Diane and Ron are married in Santa Barbara
|
|
While at USC, Diane had a blind date with a handsome, six-foot-five football player named Ron Miller. Soon enough -- with Walt and Lilly's blessing -- they announced their desire to marry. Walt cried at Diane's wedding -- tears were running down his cheeks as he gave away his precious daughter. But, she said, "at the reception afterwards he was his old . . . self. He's wonderful. He had to stand on tiptoe for the photographers because Ron is so tall." Ron and Diane, for their part, giggled through much of the ceremony in a style reminiscent of Lillian, almost 30 years before. After the wedding, Ron worked for Walt for a while and then joined the army. He and Diane lived in Pacific Grove, near Fort Ord.
|
|
Diane was pregnant and
Walt was delighted; he'd introduce her as the "custodian of my grandson."
However, when Christopher Miller was born, there was one disappointment. Walt
had assumed that if Diane's first child was a boy he'd be named Walter. But
when the time came, Diane decided that this child needed a brand-new name.
Walt was nice about it, but he proclaimed that the next boy would be Walter.
And that's what indeed came to pass -- Walt would have to wait while Diane had three
girls in between: Joanna, Tamara, and Jennifer. After Ron got out of the service,
he signed on with the L.A. Rams and played a year for them. "We didn't have
a place to live right away, so we lived with Walt and Lilly for a while,"
recalled Ron. "That was quite an experience. Here's this big guy sleeping
until eleven o'clock, and Walt had been up for four or five hours by then."
|
|
In 1955 Walt's career
took a turn that propelled his family even more squarely into the public eye.
His television show, "Disneyland," began on ABC on October 27, 1954. Walt was
the master of ceremonies, and his face soon became known throughout the world. No longer could he visit places and be an unrecognized tourist.
Now he was immediately besieged by men and women in search of an autograph.
He loved the fame -- much of the time. But after Disneyland, the park, opened
the following year, Walt came to understand that his now-famous face meant
he was besieged by crowds there once it opened in the morning. This was fun,
but it also stopped him from actually getting any work done. So he sometimes
disguised himself with sunglasses and a floppy-brimmed hat. If people recognized
him and requested autographs, he'd ask them to send a note to the studio.
Sometimes, though, a child would approach him. He would place his
finger to his lips -- conspiring with his young admirer to keep his identity
a secret -- and hand the child an autograph he had prepared that morning in
the apartment he and Lilly kept over the firehouse on Main Street.
|
|
When Diane was pregnant
with her second child, the young couple started making plans for a new house. Walt drew
up the plans himself. At that time he was very excited about the Monsanto House
at Disneyland, and told Diane he thought she should use her kitchen as a laboratory
of new labor-saving devices. When Joanna was born, Ron called his in-laws immediately.
Lilly answered and conveyed the news to Walt that Diane had a little girl.
"Oh, how wonderful for Ron," he said, "A daughter. Oh, Ron will just love this."
Then, Lillian reported, he lit a cigarette, got out the house plans and said,
"Now, let's get separate bathrooms for the children." After one season in
which Ron played for the Rams, Walt was worried. The two times he had gone
to see Ron play, his son-in-law got hurt -- on one occasion knocked unconscious. "If you
keep playing football," Walt told him, "you're going to die, and I'm going
to have to raise those little guys." Ron went to work with Walt on a number
of television and film projects, including "Old Yeller" and "Darby O'Gill and
the Little People." "Walt thought of Ron as being his son," said artist and
family friend Herb Ryman. "He would stand outside the studio watching the
cars come in and he'd explain to Ron who the various people were so that Ron
would know how the business worked."
|
|
Ron enjoyed the working
relationship enormously. "Hell, I even relished the times he called me in
at 6 or 6:15 p.m. I wanted to talk with him. I wanted to hear from him. It
was very stimulating. . . . Of course, sometimes when he was in a bad mood,
it was just the opposite." Occasionally Ron even directed Walt -- on some
of the lead-ins for the "Disneyland" television show. This wasn't always easy;
even though Walt loved Ron, he showed him no preference on the set. Ron: "Walt
and the writer always went over the lead-ins together before they were shot.
In one case, they had him behind a desk. He'd walk over to the bookcase and
then come back to the desk. Well, that seemed like a false move to me. Why
didn't we just find him at the bookcase and then bring him over to the desk?
So Walt came in first thing in the morning and he went to the desk. I had
it all lined up the other way. He looked at the camera and said, 'What's it
pointing over there for?' I said, 'Well, Walt, I thought I could save a move
by starting at the bookshelf and coming here.' He said, 'Didn't you read the
lead-in? What do you think I do? I thought this out very carefully. We start
at the desk.' We started at the desk."
|
|
Meanwhile, Sharon tried
her hand as a model. She even took a small role in Walt's film "Johnny Tremain."
Diane reflected around the time, as her family was growing, "Dad always
thought that I would be the intellectual and the career woman. Well, it's
sort of reversed. Sharon's gone out and started to pursue a career in modeling.
And she's becoming an intellectual and reading poetry."
|
|
Sharon met and fell
in love with Robert Brown, a designer at the Charles Luckman architectural firm. The romance blossomed. In March 1959, while Walt was recovering
from trouble with a kidney stone, Sharon and Bob announced to Walt that
they wanted to get married. "She's your problem now," Walt told his future son-in-law. They were married in May 1959, and true to form, Walt cried at
the wedding. Soon after, he started inquiring as to when some more grandchildren
might be on the way. By this time, Diane had given birth to her third
child, Tamara. And Walt loved being a grandfather. "He was delighted with
our family because he always wanted a large family," said Diane. "He loved
children. He thought I was bright. He thought I was a good mother and
a good wife. And that made him very happy."
|
|
The wedding of Sharon and Bob Brown
|
|
|
|
|
|