I wrote the foreword for Jamie Hecker's new book which has just been released yesterday. You can read it below:

[As a teenager growing up in the 1980s, I was already passionate about Disney history.

As soon as I managed to learn enough English to allow me to do, I sought out American magazines which contained good, accessible books and articles about Disney history. Two of the writers whose work I loved were Jim Korkis and Jim Fanning. My understanding of Disney history did not yet run very deep and I needed historians to gently guide me in this gigantic maze of stories about Disney artists and their creations. In other words, the two Jims provided well-written, entry-level pieces about the men and women who made Disney “Disney” and about their fascinating creations.

Thanks to them I discovered who was who, how their operated and how they collaborated. I also learned much more about their boss, the great Walt Disney. The two Jims took me by the hand and helped me understand the big picture, which, years later meant that I was able to dig much deeper and to finally become an actual Disney historian. Without them and without their work, I would never have acquired the fundamental Disney history knowledge that would one day allow me to write Disneyland Paris—From Sketch to Reality, Disney’s Grand Tour, The Origins of Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventures or the They Drew as They Pleased—The Hidden Art of Disney art book series.

It is therefore with delight that I discovered the work of Jamie Hecker in the pages of the magazine Celebrations. His profiles of Disney Legends go beyond the short biographies released on the D23 website but are short enough to provide great introductions to the lives and work of these exceptional artists for readers who love Disney history but have yet to become Disney history specialists.

Like Jim Korkis’ and Jim Fanning’s pieces, Jamie’s articles are well-written, well-researched and a joy to read.

It is therefore with enthusiasm that I see some of them collected in this first volume of what I hope will become a long book series.

One, which, I suspect, will inspire quite a few teenagers to one day become Disney historians.

Didier Ghez
Coral Gables, August 2023]