by Martin Sklar
Another memorable flight for me was the aftermath of a failed pitch to Henry Ford II to continue his company’s relationship with Disney after the Fair, as a sponsor in Disneyland. We had pulled out all the stops in our presentation in Dearborn, Michigan. Claude Coats and X. Atencio made the creative presentation, using a fabulous model we had shipped to Detroit. I had worked with photographer Carl Frith to illustrate a one-of-a-kind commercial song Walt had asked Bob and Dick Sherman to write; it was called “Get the Feel of the Wheel of a Ford”—Dick had even recorded a version in his best faux Maurice Chevalier voice. And Walt made the final pitch, describing what Disney could do for Ford with Disneyland, and the Disney team, as a West Coast base.
Henry Ford II was not only unresponsive, he was seemingly dismissive of the value of all that Disney talent potentially available to endorse his company’s product. I know that was what set Walt off once we were on board the Gulfstream. Despite the impact of the Disney-designed Ford Pavilion at the World’s Fair (it was second only to GM in the number of guests visiting among the 150 exhibitors participating in the entire Fair), and the fact Walt had agreed to apply his personal one-million-dollar fee for the use of his name during the Fair toward Ford’s sponsorship fee in Disneyland, Mr. Ford hardly seemed to be paying attention. Walt spared little in his reaction as we took off from the Detroit airport. “That,” he said, “is the stupidest man I ever met!”
In my experience, Walt Disney made clear his reaction to some of the major executives we interfaced with in developing sponsored shows for Disneyland or the World’s Fair. General Electric vice president J. Stanford Smith (later the CEO of International Paper Company) came to the WED offices in Glendale to review the Carousel of Progress show being developed for GE’s pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. The show was a progression dramatizing how family life had changed and improved with the evolution of products for the home; it carried the audience from the days of pre-electricity to “today.” Smith complained that the show displayed GE products that the company no longer made. Walt patiently explained his approach, stressing that he often “used nostalgia for a fondly remembered time” to establish a rapport with an audience. “I love the nostalgia myself,” he often told us.
Mr. Smith was having none of it—all he could see was old washers and dryers of the 1920s and TV sets of the 1940s that GE no longer manufactured. Finally, Walt lost patience and left the meeting. Later we learned that he had gone directly to the office of WED’s attorney with this message: “Get me out of this contract!”
Fortunately, by coincidence, Walt had a prearranged visitor to his office at the Disney Studio the following Monday: Gerald Philippi, GE’s CEO. Tommie Wilck, by then Walt’s number-one secretary and a good friend, later told me that Walt’s first words once Mr. Philippi was seated in his office were: “I’m having trouble with one of your vice presidents!” Mr. Philippi understood the show business term “the show must go on”…because that was the last we heard of Mr. Smith’s concern. And the Carousel of Progress was not only a huge hit at the Fair, it went on to entertain audiences in Disneyland for six years after the Fair, then moved to the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World in 1975, where a version of the original show is still playing, nearly fifty years after its debut in New York.
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Walt Disney was not prone to lavish praise, even when he truly liked your work.
For a long time, I wondered how Walt—so inarticulate in personally voicing his appreciation for a job well done—could be rewarded by such enthusiasm from the incredible talent I worked alongside in the 1950s and 1960s, during Walt’s lifetime. I have often heard one of the most articulate creators of Disney magic, Academy Award–winning songwriter Richard Sherman, describe Walt’s reaction to songs such as “A Spoonful of Sugar” or “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from Mary Poppins: “That’ll work,” was typical, Dick remembers almost fifty years later—“and Bob and I knew that was all the praise we would get,” he added.
I believe Walt Disney felt the praise was in the product, meaning that the public’s positive reaction to a Disney film or television show or Disneyland attraction was all the praise we needed. To sit in a theater and hear the laughter at penguins dancing with Dick Van Dyke or shed a tear with Dumbo as his mother is led away or ride through a Magic Kingdom of all the world’s children in “it’s a small world,” is perhaps to understand why Walt did not believe he needed to voice his own praise. The public spoke for him clearly and enthusiastically.
Yet we did know where we stood in Walt Disney’s lexicon of talent. We heard it from our leaders and managers. And we knew it because of the next assignment we received.
One thing I did know from personal experience: nothing in my relationship with Walt Disney or his brother was influenced either positively or negatively because I’m Jewish. In fact, Tommie Wilck told me that Walt had called one day when I was attending services at our synagogue during the Jewish High Holy Days, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. When Tommie told Walt where I was, she let me know his reaction: “That’s where he should be, with his family.” I’m sure some of the company’s key talent and executives—songwriters Dick and Bob Sherman; Irving Ludwig, the head of Buena Vista Distribution, marketers of Disney films; Armand Bigle, who ran Disney’s European operation from Paris—never had a “Jewish issue” or question with Walt or Roy. My belief is that this frequent rumor stemmed from several factors in the Disney brothers’ history: first, growing up in the Midwest, where Jews were not your typical neighbors; second, seeming to be outsiders in a Hollywood environment where almost all the studios were established or run by Jews with European roots—the Goldwyns, Mayers, Thalbergs, Steins, Wassermans; and third, the fact that it was Charles Mintz, a distributor and (by the way) a Jew, who pirated away Walt’s first successful character, Oswald the Rabbit, and signed contracts with the key animators who created it in the mid-1920s. The good news is this “theft” led directly to Walt’s creation of Mickey Mouse, but at the time it was almost a deathblow to the fledgling Disney Brothers Studio.
Perhaps it was Walt and Roy who were the victims of discrimination by whoever it was that started those anti-Semitic rumors. The talent I know and worked with inside Disney, who happened to be Jewish, never experienced that “discrimination”…except on those occasions when Walt didn’t like our work!
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I never knew which of my assignments placed me on Walt’s “favorites” list. Some of my earlier tasks certainly brought me to his attention, because they communicated several of his cherished projects to potential sponsors. They were twenty-four or twenty-eight-page booklets promoting Liberty Street and Edison Square, and the first booklet promoting Disneyland USA itself to potential sponsors of attractions existing or planned. I had also written Walt’s copy for the newspaper section in the Los Angeles Times describing all the new attractions for Disneyland’s first big expansion: the 1959 additions of the Submarine Voyage, the Matterhorn Bobsleds ride, and the first daily operating monorail system in the Western Hemisphere.
But I was not prepared for what occurred one morning early in 1960, when Walt joined me and my boss, Disneyland publicity director Eddie Meck, for a cup of coffee at the Hills Brothers Coffee House in a corner of Town Square at Disneyland. Suddenly the conversation turned to me, when Walt asked, “What are you doing these days, Marty?” I told Walt that I was responsible for writing the publicity material for Eddie to plant with the media. Looking directly at my boss, Walt responded: “Well, we will have to give you something more important to do, Marty.”
He was a man of his word. Within the next few months, I had been assigned part time to WED Enterprises and directed to accompany designer John Hench, architect Vic Green, and Disneyland executive Jack Sayers in January 1961 to Dearborn, Michigan, to begin work on the Ford Pavilion for the New York World’s Fair of 1964–65.
Suddenly, I was beginning to think that my Disney career, in tune with a song later to be
featured in the Disney animated film Hercules, had an opportunity to go from “Zero to Hero.”
“THE LEADERSHIP SECRETS OF WALT DISNEY”
On November 18, 2009, in Las Vegas, at the annual convention of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA), a panel of Disney Legends discussed Walt Disney’s leadership style. Moderated by former Imagineer Bob Rogers, the chairman of BRC Imagination Arts, the panel included me and four retired longtime Disney talents: Blaine Gibson, former animator, who became chief sculptor for Imagineering; Bob Gurr, designer of most of Disneyland’s vehicles, including the Monorail; Buzz Price, who pinpointed the exact sites for Disneyland and Walt Disney World; and Academy Award–winning songwriter Richard (Dick) Sherman.
Following are some of the key points made by the participants:
Bob Gurr: “Walt had a way to see a little bit beyond what you had done. He would say, ‘That’s kind of interesting. What if…,’ and you would leave the room more inspired than when you came in. That’s leadership.”
Marty: “Walt was always looking for somebody to take a chance.”
Dick Sherman: “Bob [his songwriting partner and brother] and I always said, ‘Yes, we can!’…and then found out afterward how to do it!”
Bob Gurr (Walt thought Bob was an engineer—when he actually had no engineering training): “Walt was not interested in what kind of certification you brought with you to Disney. On paper, I was not qualified to do most of those early Disneyland vehicle designs. We taught ourselves how to do it.”
Marty: “Walt’s lesson was that you don’t pigeonhole anybody. You never know what a talented person can do if you never give them a chance.”
Blaine Gibson: “He would often use one employee’s work to stimulate another’s enthusiasm.”
Dick Sherman: “He emphasized the team concept by his own actions. Everyone was equal in a story meeting—Walt just rolled up his sleeves and was one of the group.”
Marty: “It didn’t matter who you were, or what your assignment was. He just wanted the best idea. Our job was to give him the best we knew how.”
Dick Sherman: “Walt was open to everyone’s thoughts. He was the referee.”
Buzz Price: “Walt had an uncanny way of zeroing in on the solution to a problem.”
Bob Gurr: “He built a trust. No challenge ever scared you because of that trust.”
Marty: “He was totally focused on the audience—the guest experience in the parks.”
Dick Sherman: “In a sense, he was the audience. We had to please the boss. His genius was to plus an idea.”
Buzz Price: “He had an instinct for people he wanted to work with.”
Bob Gurr: “But you never expected, or got, an ‘attaboy’ from Walt Disney. You only found out secondhand that he liked what you did.”
He must have liked the work of this group of Disney Legends. Together, their service to Walt Disney’s company added up to more than two hundred years.
“JUST DO SOMETHING PEOPLE WILL LIKE!”
—WALT DISNEY
As I’ve said, Walt’s singular focus was on the audience. After several weeks of development, Herb Ryman was sure he had come up with a solution to a design challenge Walt had given him. But Walt took one look and rejected the idea—without offering a hint that would give Herb a direction for his redesign. His frustration boiling over, Herb threw a question at Walt’s back as he stalked out of Herb’s office: “Well, give me a clue what you are looking for!” Walt turned, his eyebrow raised in mock surprise as he answered: “Just do something people will like!”
One day in the early 1950s, deeply immersed in a drawing for Peter Pan—the last animation feature he would work on as one of the Disney Studio’s key background artists—John Hench was surprised by the figure peering over his shoulder. Walt nodded as John noticed his presence, but left without saying a word…until he reached the door. “I want you to work on my Disneyland project,” Walt said, assuming John’s knowledge of the then-secret development. “And,” Walt stated matter-of-factly, “you’re going to like it!”
I had the privilege (as my own career grew from staff writer, to vice president of Concepts and Planning, then to president, and later vice chairman and principal creative executive of Imagineering) of working with all of the amazing talents of Walt’s original WED Enterprises team, as well as the Imagineers who followed—many of whom I helped grow into stars in their own right. In the beginning, Walt needed storytellers for his new concept in family entertainment. And so they came, from Hollywood motion picture and television studios, from Disney and Twentieth Century-Fox especially: art directors, set designers, special effects wizards, writers, production designers, model makers. They were joined by a new breed of designer such as Bob Gurr, trained to design cars, but more significantly smart enough to know that “no” and “it can’t be done” were never answers you gave to Walt Disney’s dreams.
The name “Imagineering” was suggested to Walt in an early meeting by Buzz Price, the economist who recommended the sites in Anaheim and Orlando for Disneyland and Walt Disney World, respectively. The term combines “imagination” with “engineering”—thus “Imagineering.” Walt liked it immediately. To assure Buzz received proper credit for the name, Walt sent him a letter in the 1960s thanking him for the suggestion.
Walt also liked—and recorded—the line I wrote to describe WED’s process: “Imagineering is the blending of creative imagination with technical know-how.”
This talented group included my mentors, my friends, and in their golden years, my staff. They were the best of the best. They defined Imagineer and Imagineering. They developed and led the 140 disciplines that form Imagineering today. Their passion for going beyond what they had done the time before was limitless. Their dedication to Walt, and their comprehension of his passion for excellence, knew no bounds. They were true believers, followers, and leaders. Walt created Imagineering, but the Imagineers made it sing and dance.
It might never have happened if Walt Disney’s friend and neighbor, Los Angeles architect Welton Becket, had coveted the design job. When Walt approached him about designing Disneyland, and explained the concept brewing in his head, Mr. Becket gave his friend this advice: “You’ll use architects and engineers, of course. But Walt—you’ll really have to train your own people; they are the only ones who will understand how to accomplish your idea.”
My good fortune in the 1960s and 1970s as “the kid” on the WED staff was that Herb Ryman, John Hench, and the other Disney Legends-to-be (the Legends program was established in the mid-1980s) became my mentors. They may not have thought of themselves as teachers, but anyone who worked around them as they transitioned from animation and live-action films to theme park stories and designs was surely enrolled in a master’s program in theme park creation. I write about a few of them on these pages, but in the interest of being as inclusive as possible, the following are the Imagineering Legends who most influenced me: Ken Anderson, X. Atencio, Mary Blair, Roger Broggie, Harriet Burns, Claude Coats, Bill Cottrell, Rolly Crump, Marc Davis, Marvin Davis, Don Edgren, Bill Evans, Blaine Gibson, Harper Goff, Yale Gracey, Bob Gurr, John Hench, Dick Irvine, Fred Joerger, Bill Martin, Sam McKim, Wathel Rogers, and Herb Ryman. I also count three Disney Studio Legends as teachers: advertising and graphic art icon Bob Moore, and songwriters Richard and Robert Sherman. And no Marty list would be complete without mentioning Al Bertino, T. Hee, Vic Green, Bob Jolley, and Bob Sewell of Imagineering; Jim Love and Norm Nocetti of the Disney Studio; and that “Vegas dealer,” Card Walker.
It was author Ray Bradbury who perhaps best captured the essence of the Imagineering organization. Ray had once urged Walt Disney to run for mayor of Los Angeles, only to be told, “Why should I run for mayor when I’m already king of Disneyland?” In a talk to an assembly of Imagineers in December 1976, during the development of Epcot, Bradbury spoke of the group as “Renaissance People”:
John [Hench] and Marty told me I was supposed to
come up here and explain you to yourselves…and to tell you what you are and what I am and what I’m doing here. There are a lot of places in the world I could be, but I’ve been coming through WED and going to Disneyland for many years now, and I like what I see… And so, really, what you are is Renaissance People. If ever there was a Renaissance organization, this is it. You haven’t peaked yet, but you’re peaking, and sometime in the next twenty years, when you peak completely, the whole world’s going to be looking at you.
The WED Model Shop, where designs are studied in three dimensions, became the hub of the Legends’ classroom tutorials, always disguised as design sessions for submarine voyages and bobsled rides, pirate adventures, and ghostly surprises. Every day was a learning experience, as Walt challenged his most trusted designers and storytellers to imagine new experiences for Disneyland, the New York World’s Fair, and, just before his death, Walt Disney World. Those of us fortunate enough to be assigned to their teams—always a team effort—were also challenged to grow from undergrad to graduate students, earning our degrees under the wings of these professors: John Hench for design, color, and philosophy; Marc Davis for story, character, and animation; Claude Coats for dramatic staging and continuity; Herb Ryman for overall concept and key story illustrations; Bill Evans for theme setting through landscaping; Rolly Crump for weird and wonderful iconography; Blaine Gibson for turning cartoon sketches into real people; Yale Gracey for the tinkering that created the most simple—and magical—effects; Roger Broggie for making anything (and everything) work; and so many more. They (and some of the amazing technical talents at the Studio, notably the film, camera, and projection genius Ub Iwerks) were the leprechauns who helped Walt find the rainbow that led to the pot of gold called Disneyland.
