Pat Williams - How to Be Like Walt: Capturing the Disney Magic Every Day of Your Life

Health Communications, Inc.

Deerfield Beach, Florida

www.hcibooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Williams, Pat, 1945

How to be like Walt : capturing the Disney magic every day of your life / Pat

Williams with Jim Denney.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-0231-2 (Paperback)

ISBN-10: 0-7573-0231-9 (Paperback)

1. Disney, Walt, 19011966. 2. AnimatorsUnited StatesBiography.

3. Walt Disney ProductionsHistory. I. Denney, James. II. Title.

NC1766.U52D538 2004

791.43'092dc22

[B]

2004047571

2004 Pat Williams

ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-9446-1 (ePub)

ISBN-10: 0-7573-9446-9 (ePub)

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

HCI, its logos and marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc.

Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.

3201 S.W. 15th Street

Deerfield Beach, FL 33442-8190

R-04-07

Cover photo Corbis

Cover design by Larissa Hise Henoch

Inside book formatting by Dawn Von Strolley Grove

ePub created by Dawn Von Strolley Grove

To Peggy Matthews Rose,

a vital contributor to this book.

Her love for Walt

shines on every page.

CONTENTS

Like Walt Disney himself, Art Linkletter is a national treasure. As the host of House Party (twenty-five years on CBS radio and TV) and People Are Funny (nineteen years on NBC radio and TV), Mr. Linkletter has brought laughter and joy into the homes of generations of Americans. He is the author of twenty-three books, including Kids Say the Darndest Things and Old Age Is Not for Sissies. Art Linkletter is active in many important causes, including fighting drug abuse and improving life for senior citizens.

WHEN I FIRST MET Walt Disney, he was setting up folding chairs in an empty auditorium. It was 1940, and I was a young broadcaster, working at a local radio station in San Francisco. Walt had come to introduce his new motion picture, Fantasia . I arrived early for the press conference, and found the place empty except for one fellow who was busily arranging chairs.

I said, When is Walt Disney supposed to arrive?

He grinned and said, Im Walt Disney.

I said, You are? Why are you arranging chairs?

Well, he said, I like to have things just-so.

That was quite an introduction, because it gave me a glimpse of the kind of person Walt was. He wasnt a Hollywood big shot, impressed with his own importance. He was just a friendly, humble guy from the Midwest who happened to be in the movie business. We sat down and talked, and it was as if we had known each other for years.

The next time I encountered Walt was in 1951. My wife Lois and I were on a ship, bound for a European holiday. We were delighted to find Walt and his wife Lillian also aboard. Walt and I had a wonderful time, talking about show business and mutual friends. I had always enjoyed his films, from the Mickey Mouse shorts to Snow White and Fantasia , and it was fascinating to hear him explain how those films were made.

We became close personal friends, and our families socialized and traveled the world together. We even lived a few blocks from each other in Holmby Hills, near Los Angeles. I enjoyed going to Walts home and watching him fire up his backyard steam train.

The man was a paradox. He was so down-to-earth and straightforward, yet he continually surprised you with the depth of his thinking. He lived a simple lifestyle, yet he envisioned grand, complex projects like Disneyland and EPCOT, his city of tomorrow. He was so childlike, with his wide-open imagination and his belief that anything is possible. Yet he was amazingly mature in his ability to focus on his goals and make his dreams come true.

Walt delighted in the role of Daddy to his two girls. No matter how busy he was, he made a priority of spending time with his family. He was a Hollywood raritya totally involved parent. (My son Jack and Walts daughter Sharon saw a lot of each other during their teen years. Walt and I used to think that we might one day become in-laws as well as neighborsbut it didnt work out.)

You rarely found Walt at a Hollywood cocktail party. He and Lil enjoyed coming to our house for dinner, because it was always a family affair. There were no photographers, no reporters, no one trying to corner Walt and sell him a movie script. Walt enjoyed relaxing with people he felt comfortable with, and he had no use for the glitz and phoniness of Hollywood.

Unlike Walt, Lil enjoyed social events. She and Lois were very close friends, and she used to say, Please, Lois, never leave us out of one of your parties. I like to go out and Walt is such a homebodybut hell always come to a party at your house.

One day in 1954, Walt called me and said, Art, let me take you for a ride down to Orange County and Ill show you where Im going to build Disneyland.

Well, I loved to hear Walt talk about his big plans, so we drove down with some researchers from the Stanford Research Institute. We finally got to a place where some bulldozers had cleared out an orange grove. It looked like a big field of dirt clods.

Well, Walt said, this is it. He looked around and he could see it all in his imagination: the Disneyland Railroad, Main Street, Sleeping Beautys Castle, Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland. I looked around and saw nothing but a cow pasture. I thought, My poor, deluded friend! Hes going to put a bunch of merry-go-rounds and roller-coasters out here, forty-five minutes from L.A. Hell go broke!

Art, he said, Theres a fortune to be made here. If you buy up all the property around Disneyland, in a year or two itll be worth twenty times what you paid for it.

Well, I was too smart to get caught up in Walts enthusiasm! I didnt buy any real estate around Disneylandand by being so smart, I passed up a chance to make millions!

A year later, in 1955, Walt came to my house and asked if I would emcee the televised grand opening of Disneyland. I was honored, and I chose two friends to assist me. One was actor Robert Cummings, who had just appeared with Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcocks Dial M for Murder. The other was a charming actor named Ronald Reagan (I understand he later went into government work). So Bob Cummings, Ronnie Reagan and I opened the gates of Walts Magic Kingdom. Disneyland became a phenomenal success, the Eighth Wonder of the World.

A few years later, I was at a birthday party in Walts home. He pulled me into a corner and said, Art, I want your opinion on something. I can get ten-thousand acres in Florida, enough land to do all the things Ive ever dreamed of. I can build another Disneyland and have plenty of room for future projects. What do you think?

Walt, I said, when you first told me you were going to build Disneyland, I thought it was a terrible idea. Well, I was wrong then. But now, I think Ive got some good advice for you: Dont do it. Dont build another Disneyland in Florida.

He looked at me in dismay. Why not?

Look at what youve got over in Anaheim, I said. Disneyland is one of a kind. Its like the Pyramids of Egypt or the Grand Canyontheres nothing else like it in the world. As soon as you build another one, the original isnt unique anymore.