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Walt and Lilllian

Lillian Disney was married to Walt for some 41 years. Though she hesitated to draw the spotlight to herself, she agreed to an interview in 1986, when she was in her late 80s, for the book "The Man Behind the Magic." Accompanied by her two daughters, Diane and Sharon, Lillian -- whom Walt always called Lilly -- happily chatted about the early days with Walt, their marriage, and the years that followed. Throughout, she showed her great pride in Walt, mingled with a deep and abiding love.

Lillian Disney

Lillian died in December 1997, after making a number of significant charitable contributions -- including one particularly substantial gift to create a world-class concert hall in Los Angeles. Following are some excerpts from that interview:

 

Q. How did you first meet Walt?

A. I had come down from Idaho, and I was living with my sister and this friend of my sister's was working for him. They just started off in this little place off of Kingswell Avenue. Just a tiny little studio. And one morning, this girl came down and said, 'Would you like a job?' And I said, 'Doing what?' And she said, 'Well, I'm working for these two fellows up there, making cartoons, and they need somebody to fill in the ink.' Anyway, I could walk to work. She would do the inking and I would do the painting. And I said 'Yes.'

They tried to use me as a secretary, but I wasn't very good at it. So I went back to painting.

Q. Were you an artist yourself?

A. No, no. We just inked on these clear cels. He didn't have color then, it was black and white.

Q. Was it a good job?

A. I made $15 dollars a week. And sometimes he and Roy would say, "Lilly, have you cashed your check?" And I would say, "No." And they'd say, "Well, hold them off for a little while, will you?" So I'd keep them. I'd put them away for a little while and they would use that little bit of money to pay their expenses.

Q. He drove you home from work?

A. He had a little Ford pick-up car. And when we'd work at night, then he'd take me home. I didn't live very far from there, down on Sunset. And he'd come down with me and take me home. But he never came in the house. Then, one time, he and Roy went downtown and each bought a suit of clothes. When I first knew Walt, he only had a sweater and a raincoat. And of course, his trousers and all that. But they went and bought suits. Walt had a suit with two pair of pants. Roy only had one pair of pants. But anyway, he was so proud of that suit. That night he came down to see me for something and he came into the house and my sister, Hazel, had some friends there. And he walked in and said, 'What do you think of my new suit?' And he turned all around. He was just so proud of it.

Q. Tell us about his proposal.

A. Well, after he had proposed to me, he said, 'I can buy you an engagement ring, or I can make a down payment on a car. Which will you have?' I don't remember what I said, but he always has told everybody that I said the car, because he bought the car first.

Q. When was the first time you met his parents?

A. Well, we went up to Lewiston, Idaho, to be married. And on our way back on the train we stopped off in Portland, Oregon. That's where his parents lived at the time, and I met them there. I hadn't met them before that. They were just ordinary people. Very warm and very friendly and they loved him very much. And they wanted him to be happy, so they were happy with me for that reason.

Q. Tell us a little about his father.

A. Oh, he was a little severe when they were young. After they were a little older, he idolized the boys and he was so proud of the success they had made and everything. And, of course, they were wonderful to him.

Q. Please describe your life after you were married.

A. My mother was living with us then, and after we'd have dinner at night, he would [know where] every cartoon was playing in the city, and we'd get in the car and go with him, and he'd go in and catch every cartoon. This went on all the time. And then he got ideas  . . .  And I had this dog Sunnee, then. And Sunnee was in the car. And we'd stop and buy ice cream cones from Chapman's.

Q. In the early years of your marriage, Walt was already showing his love for trains, wasn't he?

A. He loved the trains. We used to live over in Los Feliz. And there are trains that go on there, right across the bridge from us, and we'd go over and stand there and watch the trains come in. And after they'd go by he'd watch the vibrations on the tracks. I wondered why he did that. He'd do the same way with airplanes. We used to go over and watch the airplanes come in, for hours. That was recreation.

Q. Tell us your memories of the train ride when Walt first came up with Mickey Mouse.

A. Well, we went back to New York to have a new contract signed. Well, [Charlie Mintz, Walt's distributor] had signed up all his people out there . . . and on the train ride he would draw. I wasn't paying much attention to him. And he said he was going to create a new character. And that it was going to be a little mouse. And he said that he was going to call it Mortimer. And I said, 'I don't think that would be good for a mouse's name. Let's call it Mickey.'

Q. Did Walt work a lot at night?

A. Oh, yes, yes. He'd get up in the middle of the night, and go up to his dressing room. And he smoked. And he would work half the night -- stand there at his table and work on the scripts and everything and work half the night. And smoke. He always did that. If an idea occurred to him in the night, he was up and working on it

Q. Was he ever satisfied with his accomplishments?

A. I don't think he was ever dissatisfied, but he kept wanting to do better . . . all the time . . . He never felt he was beaten at anything. Never. That EPCOT thing, he really worked on that. He wanted this city of tomorrow. I can just see him drawing a wagon wheel. He really wanted to make it work.

Q. Do you recall when he first began to talk about Disneyland?

A. I thought it was an awful big thing. He got the idea taking Diane and Sharon over to this little thing, this merry-go-round at Griffith Park. He'd sit there and watch them and tell them they could take just so many rides. And he saw all these kids over there and said, 'I just wondered how I could get the parents involved too.' So that gave him the idea for the park. He wanted to make it so that it was enjoyable for the parents too.

Q. He loved Disneyland, didn't he?

A. Did he ever. He lived out there, practically. We had an apartment up over the firehouse. We had a little bed on each side. We'd stay out there nights and go down to Aunt Jemima's for breakfast in the morning. Go over to the hotel for dinner at night. Walt knew where every nail went in that park. I tell you, they wouldn't believe it. He'd go around and ask, 'Why did they put this plug here? They didn't need this here." And I was following him all the way around. It was so much a part of him.

I remember one time when some part of it was being built and they had it roped off and security people were around. I was following Walt around everywhere, and he went to look at this building and there was a rope there. He went under it and then he held it up for me. Then the guard came out and said, 'She can't come in here.' Walt said, 'What? She owns the place!' The guard said, 'Well, that's my orders.' Walt didn't fire him, but he moved him away, said he wouldn't have that kind of job that he'd have to tell somebody that.

Q. How did it feel when Walt became so well known?

A. I just accepted it. Easily. He didn't flaunt it himself at all. He didn't become a big shot or anything. He was always down to earth. The school that he started, Cal-Arts, he didn't want his name on it. He just wanted it to be a school for all the arts.

Q. Do you recall Walt's feelings when Diane and Sharon were married?

A. It's funny, the minute the girls were married, Walt wanted to bring their husbands into the business. Ron didn't know anything about the business at first, but Walt wanted him in there. And he finally got him in. When Sharon married Bob Brown he had a wonderful job and was very content. But Walt kept working around at it until he got him into the organization, too.

 


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