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Walt was enchanted with the seals from Alaska
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Of course "Cinderella"
-- though it would prove to be a wildly profitable animated feature --
was just an extension of work Walt had done before World War II. True-Life
Adventures, however, was something entirely different. When Walt sent
a husband-and-wife team of filmmakers to Alaska to take movies, staffers
were baffled. And when they saw the endless footage of seals that seemed
to so enchant Walt, they were further mystified. "You never saw anything
so dull in all your life," said one. But where others saw miles of boring
seals, Walt saw gold. He added music, clever writing, some jokes, and solid
editing, and next thing, the water-loving creatures were the stars of
"Seal Island," Walt's first True-Life Adventure. Though his distributor,
RKO, balked at the idea, they were ultimately convinced. In time, Walt
would make 13 True-Life Adventures between 1948 and 1960; eight would
win Academy Awards.
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"Actors are great,"
Walt once teased his animators. "You give 'em the lines, they rehearse
a couple of times, and you've got it on film -- it's finished. You guys
take six months to draw a scene." No doubt, Walt was attracted to live-action
films from the beginning. Though his distributor tried to discourage the
shift -- why try to turn a successful cartoon-maker into just another
producer? -- they were unsuccessful. And Walt proved himself adept in
this new field. His first effort, "Treasure Island" -- which was filmed
in England and permitted Walt and his family to take a memorable trip
there -- showed that the same skills that made him a virtuoso of the animated
character applied to stars that breathed air. His amazing story sense,
attention to detail, and willingness to pursue perfection were keys to
success in this field too.
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Walt, Diane, and Sharon visit the set of "Treasure Island" on location in England
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Walt's new hobby: miniatures
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Walt had loved trains
all his life. And in 1947, he wrote his sister Ruth that "I bought myself
a birthday/Christmas present, something I've wanted all my life -- an
electric train . . . you probably can't understand how much I wanted one
when I was a kid, but I've got one now." For some time, Walt had enjoyed
polo as a hobby, and had even dragged Roy and a number of friends from
the studio into it. However, an injury kept him from competitions on horseback,
and so he threw all his extra energies into his trains. He loved making
tiny miniatures as well. Some of them would be used in his train sets.
"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."
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In 1949, Walt and
Lilly decided to build a new house. They didn't want a typical Hollywood
mansion, preferring one that would be easy to maintain. Not that it was
an ordinary house. It featured a projection room, for example, and "a playroom with a soda fountain," Walt wrote, "where the girls can entertain
their friends without disturbing the rest of the household." Walt loved
his soda fountain, too, and Sharon recalled, "He'd go out there and make
these weird concoctions that nobody would eat, including himself." Most
notably, though, the house featured a half-mile circle of one-eighth-size
train tracks, on which Walt would ride his own miniature train 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. A 120-foot-long, S-shaped
tunnel was included, under Lilly's garden.
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The Carolwood
Pacific, Walt's "fair weather" railroad, in full operation
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