Singer Mary Costa has had a remarkable career. Over the years, she has performed with greats such as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Jack Benny. She was asked by Jackie Kennedy to sing at a memorial service for President John F. Kennedy, which was shown worldwide. She has performed some 44 roles at the foremost opera houses in the United States and Europe. And yet, if you were to ask her about the highlights of her career, likely as not she'd first bring up her work as the voice of Princess Aurora in Walt's 1959 feature length animated film, "Sleeping Beauty."
A vivacious woman whose eyes sparkle with a love of life, Mary was interviewed for the upcoming documentary "Walt: The Man Behind the Myth." She went to work for Walt when she was just 22, but her memories are as vivid as though they occurred yesterday.
Q. How were you selected to be the voice of Sleeping Beauty?
A. "I was blessed to be at the right place at the right time. The right place was at a dinner party the night where I met the man who was to do the music for 'Sleeping Beauty.' He asked me to come for an audition at the studio the following day. I did and I was so encouraged and inspired by everyone connected with 'Sleeping Beauty' that I think my voice was clearer than usual. I was happier than usual, and that's pretty happy."
Q. How did you hear the news that you got the part?
A. "I was living with my mother and an aunt and three cousins in Glendale, California, and they were all pulling for me to succeed. Walt knew that I had lost my father at 16 and he was dear enough and concerned enough to call my mother and tell her that I had gotten the part and that I would be Princess Aurora. He called me to the phone, and I could hardly talk because I was just awed, I guess, and very happy, and he said, 'You know, your voice was very clear. It was very warm, and you could negotiate the dialogue, the script, in the high register of the voice. And the dialogue was poetic, after we changed you from a Southern girl to an English princess. So I'm proud of you and I hope we'll be happy working together.'"
Q. There were a number of phone conversations with Walt, weren't there?
A. "All of my conversations in the beginning were on the phone with Walt Disney because he didn't want to be influenced by my personality in person. He wanted to just hear my voice."
Q. What was your first face-to-face meeting like?
A. "I had spoken to him so many times on the phone after recording sessions on the soundstage, when he would call my home at the end of the day. But, all of a sudden, one day he appeared on the soundstage. He had been in the booth and I didn't know it. I just smiled at him and he came over and gave me a pat on the shoulder and we were just as if we'd been talking in person for all of that time."
Q. Did he compare your musical talents to a painter's?
A. "He said, 'You know, God gives everyone a special talent. He gives everyone his set of colors. I want you to drop those colors to your vocal palette and paint with your voice.' And I said, 'How do you mean, exactly?'
He said, 'Everyone is unique. I don't want you to be a copy of anyone else because you have your own set of colors. You must think it out for yourself, not have anyone read a line for you, and you must visualize the character, know what she's about, know her personality, know what colors you would use for her, warm, cool, or whatever, and you must make those images in your mind, drop them to your vocal palette, and paint.'
This was very, very important to me. It established a work ethic that followed me all through my career because it was so important to not be a copy of anyone else."
Q. It's interesting that he would use visual images to convey musical thoughts, isn't it?
A. "Absolutely. I think he wanted the balance between the visual arts and the performing arts and one perpetuated the other. He was so musical. He couldn't have done the voice of Mickey Mouse without knowing how to just clip off the end of phrases and to think things in his mind so that they would be very funny. He had an innate sense of timing. I think he was a performer and he was very visual and I think that each perpetuated the other."
Q. He personally brought you to see the storyboards for the film. What was that like?
A. "He took me through the storyboards. That was an amazing adventure for me because I didn't really understand animation and he did it to let me be aware of the process. He was just a natural storyteller. He loved to tell stories. If he asked you a question, I always thought of him as being patiently impatient, and you explained it too long, he would finish it for you, and it was much better than you were going to do anyway."
Q. Did he advise you on your portrayal of the role?
A. "He would make me explain the character of the Princess Aurora to him: she was warm, she was humorous, she was maybe lonely, she loved playing with the animals. One day I asked him how the Princess Aurora would know about having a prince dance with her, making the animals be her prince? And he just fluffed it off and said, 'Well, I'm sure the godmothers read fairy tales to her,' which I thought was very amusing."
Q. Was he a perfectionist?
A. "He was the ultimate perfectionist. But he never demanded anything of you that he didn't demand of himself. He was concerned that everything be more than a hundred percent. He told me something that has followed me all through my life. He said, 'What do you want to do after "Sleeping Beauty"?' And I said, 'I want to be an opera singer.' He said, 'Oh, that's quite a challenge. Do you know the four Ds? You can have the dream but if you don't have the dedication, the determination, and the discipline, it won't work. Drop any one and it won't work.'"
Q. Did he have a special nickname for you?
A. "One time he was very concerned about starting the voice work for the scene in the woods and he said, 'You know, I want you to be very careful not to get a cold. Very careful.' And I said, 'Well, I know how important this is and I'm certainly not going to do it.' I thought he was nervous about this because he knew this was the big, big scene and I said, 'You know, my father told me, when I was a little girl, that a bird doesn't sing because it's happy, it's happy because it sings. So I'm not going to get a cold.' He said, 'Be sure you don't, happy bird.'"
Q. What did you call him?
A. "I couldn't call him Walt. I was brought up so my manners didn't let me call him anything but Mr. Disney. He teased me about it. That's why he called me Happy Bird because he said he would call me Happy Bird until I called him Walt."
Q. When was the last time you saw him?
A. "I saw him just after my debut at the Metropolitan Opera. I was at the studio and he saw me first and called out loudly 'Happy Bird!' I looked around and I said, 'Hi, Walt!' I was so glad to see him and he was so amused. He motioned for me to come to his office to see him, and I was held up in the publicity department a little longer than I thought and I missed him. That was the last time I saw him. When I think of Walt and I think of the influence he's had in my life and I see pictures of him on television or in magazines I say, 'There's that great man I walked and talked with once upon a dream, and have been blessed and honored to have been a part of his dream.'"
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