This just in from Lorraine Santoli and Bob McLain (from Theme Park Press):

[Ever wonder how the Mouse House markets The Walt Disney Company and its many diversified businesses? Lorraine Santoli, former 20-year-plus Disney PR, marketing, and synergy executive, tells all in her upcoming book, “Inside the Disney Marketing Machine”.

Focusing on the Michael Eisner and Frank Wells era of explosive company growth, Santoli shares her Disney marketing experiences from a rare insider perspective, with contributions from over twenty-five of her colleagues, all of them top tier Disney marketing and entertainment executives.

From her role as a publicist promoting Disney films and TV shows, to overseeing Disneyland’s key anniversaries, attraction openings, and special events, to her decade-long position as director of Corporate Synergy, Santoli invites readers to take a seat at the Disney marketing table for a first-hand view of the process that has put Disney at the top of the marketing hill in corporate America.

“Inside the Disney Marketing Machine” will be released in Spring 2015 by Theme Park Press.]

This just in from David Lesjak:

[And the award goes to . . . Walt Disney !

This year’s award’s season launched January 11, with the annual Golden Globe awards extravaganza. Founded in 1943, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, (comprised of journalists who cover the American film industry but are affiliated with foreign publications), has been handing out the prestigious award since it was initiated as a fundraiser in 1944.

Walt Disney personally won a total of five Golden Globes during his lifetime:

1948: Bambi – for “Furthering the Influence of the Screen.” Although this feature was released in the U.S. in 1942, Bambi’s international release was delayed until 1948. In this post’s accompanying photo, complete with a newspaper editor’s crop marks, Disney is seated beside actress Rosalind Russell. Standing behind the pair is the association’s president, Frederick Porges. The ceremony was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

1949: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad – for “Best Use of Color in a Motion Picture.” Walt had been using color since 1932.

1953: the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for Continuous Achievement. Initiated in 1952 in honor of the famed Hollywood producer, the first award went to DeMille himself. Walt Disney was this special award’s second recipient. Other honorees have included Darryl F. Zanuck, Judy Garland, and Gregory Peck.

1955: Disneyland TV series – for “Best American Storytelling.”

1956: The Mickey Mouse Club – for “Best American Children’s Television Show.”]

Help needed

If you read this and bought the above photo on ebay this week, would you consider emailing me a high resolution scan (300 or 600dpi) at didier.ghez@gmail.com? I would be glad to share part of the buying cost.

Thanks in advance.

Sadly, Disney Legend Walt Peregoy passed away a few hours ago. RIP.

Here is a book that I will definitely pick up when it is released. According to the description on Amazon:

[All Aboard explores the wide variety of trains in Disney's history, accompanied by rare photographs from the Disney Archives and heretofore unseen conceptual artwork behind the trains in the movies and theme parks. Never before has such a comprehensive focus been exclusively trained on this fascinating topic. Fans of Disney history, rail history, and armchair travelers alike will be captivated by this museum-quality book.]

[NOTE: This post was released yesterday by mistake. Here is the correct version.]

I was researching last week the life and career of Ecuadorian painter Eduardo Sola Franco, who worked at Disney briefly in the late '30s and early '40s, tackling mostly work on the abandoned Don Quixote project.

I now have clear proof that the above drawing was created by him and not by Bob Carr (as stated in The Disney That Never Was).

I have just ordered Sola Franco's autobiography (not a cheap buy) and am trying to locate his diaries which do cover the period of his work at Disney.

In the meantime, I have located the below interview which appears in Spanish on the website of the biographer and interviewer Rodolfo Perez Pimentel, and which I have translated for your enjoyment.

[In '39 I boarded a freighter going to San Pedro, California, and from there I went to Hollywood in search of work. A friend of mine introduced my drawings to the famous director Frank Lloyd, winner of two Oscars for his films, who immediately got excited about my art and hired me to do a storyboard with watercolors for a movie that would be made off the coast called Ruler of the Sea with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. We all lived in Santa Catalina and we were going to sea to film. Through Fairbanks I met many actors of the first magnitude and, frequenting the house of Norma Shearer, I made the portraits of Margaret Lockwood, Carole Lombard, Merle Oberon, Loretta Young, David Niven etc and of the director Jack Rose from the Disney Studio, who hired me to work on the script and storyboards of a project of Don Quixote.

I left Paramount where I worked on The Cat and the Canary earning $500 a month, for [a job at Disney at] only $200 a month but with the offer of a seven-year contract at $1,000 a month. For nine months I worked tirelessly and did about two thousand extremely detailed drawings for the film about Don Quixote. The costumes were inspired by the works of Velasquez, the backgrounds by El Greco, and so on. One night Walt Disney visited my office, looked at my work, approved of it and my work was then sent to Joe Grant in order for the project to move to the next stage. My drawings, however, were deemed too academic. I was asked to work on another project: abstract drawings for the film Fantasia, as story artist for parts of Bach's Toccata and Fugue sequence and on the Night on Bald Mountain sequence, [as well as on Peter Pan.] Various issues resulted in Don Quixote not being completed and my work was put on hold.]

This just in from Jim Korkis:

[Don't know if you have run this image before....a card supposedly drawn by Floyd Gottfredson for newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst's 79th birthday April 1942

I also think you will enjoy my MousePlanet column today on Walt's Hollywood homes. 

Next week I have one on Walt's Studios and the following week on Walt's Hollywood Hangouts.]

This just in from Tim O'Day:

[I noticed on your Disney Books Network that you have included a few new additions. I wanted to make you aware of another - “Disneyland Resort: A Celebration of New Magic & Fond Memories.” It’s a new Disneyland Resort souvenir book from Disney Editions, penned by yours truly and Kevin Kidney, due for release in May.]

Jim Korkis recently attracted my attention to the fact that this toy-set being sold on Barnes and Noble online and in the Disney parks, contains a small book by Jeff Kurtti about the origins of Sleeping Beauty Castle which contains some information that does not appear anywhere else. A fun "nice to have", if you want to own every single Disney book, as I do :-)

The blog will be updated again around January 12.

I spent the last few days reading and working (aside from a small amount of the obligatory partying, of course). Is there a better way to end the year and to start the new one?

The reading involved a fair amount of non-Disney volumes, but the two Disney-related books that I devored were Mouse in Transition and Funnybooks. Mouse in Transition is an easy read and a very, very enjoyable one. Highly recommended if you want to be taken behind the scenes at the Studio in the late '70s and early '80s. As to Funnybooks, it is simply one of the best books I read in 2014... and I am not simply talking of Disney-related books when I say this. As is the case with Michael Barrier's two other books, Funnybooks is written clearly, reads almost like a mystery novel, but is also full of incredibly precise information which helps to connect millions of dots and to give context to our newly acquired knowledge. Just sheer pleasure.

As to work, I am starting to plan Walt's People - Volume 17, am trying to wrap up some aspects of Volume 16 and spent most of December 31 editing Eric Larson's lost autobiography. You will find the table of contents below. Of course, what I am now most looking forward to is getting the early galleys of They Drew As They Pleased - Disney's Golden Age, the first volume of my new coffee table book series about Disney's concept artists. Just a few more days to wait to get them, in theory. :-)

Memories of Eric by Burny Mattinson
The Lost Memoir by Didier Ghez
A Short Biography of Eric Larson by His Brother Roald Larson
50 Years in the Mouse House
Eric Larson Remembers
Larson in Mexico by JB Kaufman
Mexican Trip Sketchbook
Notes About Animation and Entertainment
The Lectures
Memo from Don Graham to Walt Disney (December 23, 1935)
Afterword by Dan Jeup

Happy New Year to all of you!

Some never-seen-before non-Disney artwork by Marc Davis has just been released on this site. (Thanks to Alain Littaye for the heads up). Great way to end the year.

Happy 2015 to all of you!

Fun storyboard drawing from the abandoned short Mickey's Nephews sold on HowardLowery.com recently.

This just in from Garry Apgar:

[That 1952 "Mohawk Tommy" commercial, animated by Bill Justice and Blaine Gibson (who designed the statue of Mickey and Walt sited in the Disney parks' central Hub), has multiple links to Disney.

The head of Hurrell Productions, photographer George Hurrell (seen here in a self-portrait), attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, as Walt once did.

From 1943-1954, Hurrell was married to Phyllis Bounds (Detiege), Lillian Disney's niece, and one-time head of Ink & Paint at the studio. Phyllis later worked at Disney as a TV commercial coordinator, so she may have helped produce the Mohawk Tommy ad.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly: from the late 1930s into the 1950s George Hurrell shot scores of portraits of Walt Disney (also Mary Blair, seen here posed in a wicker chair). Hurrell's photos of Walt were used for promotional purposes, and many of them are familiar to Disney aficionados.

An exhibition of more than 50 specimens of Hurrell's portrait photography drawn from the Pancho Barnes Trust Estate Archive will open on February 3, 2015 at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. The show will run through July 13th. Alas, precious few pics of Walt and none of Mary Blair will (apparently) be on display in the show.

Pancho Barnes, incidentally, was a pioneering aviatrix and quite a character. She was played by Kim Stanley in The Right Stuff, the 1983 motion picture based on the Tom Wolfe book. If you saw the film you'll recall that Barnes ran the Happy Bottom Riding Club, a dude ranch and restaurant in the Mojave Desert frequented by rowdy military test pilots like Chuck Yeager.]

This just in from my good friend David Gerstein:

[Hey Didier,

        I hope this letter finds you well. I've lately been working extensively with my local New York friend Tom Stathes, an animation scholar I know I've discussed with you before. He's a younger, twentysomething guy with an extremely impressive collection of silent cartoons on 16mm and 35mm - and here are a few of his websites -
        http://www.tommyjose.com
        http://brayanimation.weebly.com/

        Right now Tom and I are busy helping a British film scholar, Andrew Smith, with a potential documentary on silent animation, in which Tom's library would play an integral part. It's a Kickstarter project that hasn't built up quite the head of steam that we hoped:
        http://tinyurl.com/cartooncarnival

        We're only two days away from the end of this campaign, but about $2000 down on the goal. If you could circulate the http://tinyurl.com/cartooncarnival address as far as it could possibly go - and hopefully get some healthy support from people outside my own New York scene, I'd be really thrilled.
        Note that this isn't a Disney-related project... but any fans or scholars of early Disney films should look forward to what we hope to do here!

        Thanks for understanding,
        David]

This just in thanks to Jim Korkis and Al Heiden.

Here is the additional information I have on this commercial in my notes:

Produced in February 1952
Director: Nick Nichols
Layout: Lance Noley
Backgrounds: Ralph Hulett
Animation: Bill Justice and Blaine Gibson

I just received a few days ago the latest Theme Park Press newsletter, which officializes some great news. One of the volumes they will release next years is

[The memoirs of Pinto Colvig, the voice of Goofy (and so much else). This book was written by Colvig in the early 1940s, making it perhaps the first book ever about the Disney Studio written by someone who worked there.]

The document was unearthed by my good friend and fellow Disney historian Todd James Pierce who is also serving as editor on the project. No better way to end the year than with news like this one.

The blog will be updated again on December 23.

This just in from Garry Apgar:

[Mickey Jumps the Shark?

English artist and self-promoting entrepreneur Damien Hirst is best known for his 17-foot-long shark floating in formaldehyde — exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2007-2010 — a work that will long live in esthetic infamy. The chi-chi Paris-based créateur de mode Marc Jacobs is currently marketing a "limited edition" Mickey Mouse tee-shirt designed by Hirst.

The image emblazoned on the shirt was created originally at the behest of the Disney Company in the form of a six-foot-high painting on canvas using ordinary household gloss out of a can. The picture was sold at auction in February by Christie's for more than $1.5 million. A portion of that sum was donated to the British inner-city charity Kids Company.

Hirst's Mouse is an abstract, geometric distillation of a silkscreen design by Andy Warhol from 1981, itself a re-working of a 1933 United Artists poster presenting Mickey in one of his early iconic poses. Though surely not to everyone's taste, the pricey Hirst/Jacobs threads might make a nice holiday gift or stocking stuffer for that special Disney fan in your life who won't mind seeing Walt Disney's graphic alter ego deconstructed and dumbed down into a dozen circular daubs of color.

The shirts are sold in kids' sizes at $58 a pop, on white fabric only. The adult model comes in black only ($98), which is strange — if not an outright gaffe — since Mickey's ebony ears against the black background are virtually illegible. (Did Disney Brand Management actually sign off on that?) Also: unlike its two prototypes, Hirst's Mickey has no tail. Ouch.

"100% of the proceeds" from all sales are earmarked for the Kids Company charity, according to the Marc Jacobs website. That may cushion the pain in your purse if you shell out $98 (plus tax and shipping) for one of the tees.

Anyway ... here, for the stout of heart, is a link to the kids' model.]

If you are interested in the history of Tokyo Disneyland and EPCOT, this new book looks intriguing.

Here is a new book, that should definitely be added to my selection of best books of 2014.

I just stumbled online upon the new Chronicle Books catalog and discovered two upcoming books which should interest you:

- The Art of The Good Dinosaur, of course, but also
- The Art of Funny, a book which is described as follows:

[Each of Pixar Animation Studios’ films begins with the artists in the story department throwing ideas around to see what works best. This fun, collaborative process often results in hilarious scenarios, inside jokes, and illustrated gags, some of which will never make it to the final cut of the film. The Art of Funny features inspired gags from the creation of all of Pixar’s films to date, from Toy Story to Monsters University, bringing together never-before-published illustrations and doodles from the depths of Pixar’s archives.]

We are still working on a comprehensive index of the Walt's People book series, but in the meantime, if you are wondering which volume contains which interview, wonder no more: Harald Nast has integrated all that information in his excellent Disney Resource Index.

Once again, not really Disney-history related, but those who read French will want to know that the third volume in Sebastien Roffat's astounding series about the history of French animation has just been released and is available on Amazon.fr.

This has become a tradition. Here is the list of what I feel are the best Disney history books of 2014, in no particular order. As always, I have refrained from including the latest two volumes of Walt's People (volumes 14 and 15).

Canemaker, John: The Lost Notebook: Herman Schultheis & the Secrets of Walt Disney's Movie Magic published by Walt Disney Family Foundation Press; 2014.

Brightman, Homer; Ghez, Didier (editor): Life in the Mouse House published by Theme Park Press; 2014.

Smith, Lella (editor): Marc Davis: Walt Disney's Renaissance Man published by Disney Editions; 2014.

Barrier, Michael: Funnybooks: The Improbable Glories of the Best American Comic Books published by University of California Press; 2014.

Johnson, Jimmy (author); Ehrbar, Greg; Ghez, Didier (editors): Inside the Whimsy Works: My Life with Walt Disney Productions published by University Press of Mississippi; 2014.

Hulett, Steve: Mouse in Transition: An Insider's Look at Disney Feature Animation published by Theme Park Press; 2014.

Lesjak, David: Service with Character: The Disney Studios and World War II published by Theme Park Press; 2014.

Apgar, Garry: A Mickey Mouse Reader published by University Press of Mississippi; 2014.

Korkis, Jim: The Vault of Walt: Volume 3: Even More Unofficial Disney Stories Never Told published by Theme Park Press; 2014.

Just stumbled recently upon this great interview of George K. Whitney (left on the photo), Disneyland's 7th employee.

Can't wait to read this upcoming book!

A few years ago I wrote a series of articles for the magazine Tomart's Disneyana Update which discussed the history of Disney magazines all around the world before 1947, including those from Italy, France, Spain, the UK, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, Sweden and even Palestine.

I realized yesterday, when I discovered the above photo, that I had overlooked one of them, the Polish magazine Gazetka Miki, which released 22 issues in 1939.

I would love to understand much more about its history. Do we have any Polish readers here? Could you help me extract the relevant information from the article which can be found at this link?

Granted, this is not directly Disney-related, but I stumbled a few weeks ago on this in-depth thesis about Paul Terry and I know that some of you will want to read it since it contains a lot of information I had never-seen-before about the early days of US animation.

Not sure when that shot was taken (mid-'60s obviously, but that's about it) or what Walt was doing. The only thing we know is that he was paying a visit to Saint Joseph Hospital to check some of their equipment.

The blog will be updated again next week.

I am very curious about this upcoming book....

The Art of Inside Out is now available for pre-order on Amazon. I can't wait for this movie to be released.

Truly spectacular auction coming soon. You can order the catalog here or download it here.

The movie trailer looks horrible and I have a feeling that the movie is un-watchable, but I know that some of you will want to know that it has been released on DVD.

This just in from Garry Apgar:

[Currently on the D23 website is an interactive map of "Walt Disney's Hollywood" with pop-up pics of sixteen structures or places intimately associated with the master. Among Walt's "old Hollywood haunts" are three of the four houses he lived in between 1923 and the early 1950s. The fourth and final Disney domicile on Carolwood Drive, in Holmby Hills, has been torn down. But "Walt's Barn," originally situated on the estate, is on the map (#16).

The artwork includes a nifty caricature of Walt and one of the better modern-day, studio-sanctioned, "on model" images of the classic Mickey Mouse. The drawing on the map (#11) standing in for the Burbank studio depicts the whimsical, post-Walt Team Disney Building, designed by Michael Graves, and featuring caryatids (as on an ancient Greek temple) in the form of the Seven Dwarfs.

Here's the link: http://cdn.media.d23.com/html/waltshollywood/html/index.html]

Looking forward to the new issue of Disney Twenty-Three, especially to the article about Herman Schultheis and his lost notebook...

I was extremely sad to learn last week that editor and Disney historian Edward Summer had passed away. Some of his interviews will Disney artists will appear in future volumes of Walt's People.

R.I.P.

I just discovered last week this catalog of a 2011 exhibition of Disney cels and thought that some of your might want to know that it exists. Really not a "must have". Only cels in here, nothing more exciting.

The blog will be updated again on Monday, November 17.

The beautiful catalog of the Italian Mondo Paperino auction is now available for download. You can also puchase a physical copy by following this link.

This just in from Garry Apgar:

[This year marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

On November 10, 1989, one day after the Wall was first breached, a young American physicist, James Le, who was studying in Germany at the time, spray-painted Mickey Mouse on the barrier near Checkpoint Charlie, one of the most chilling symbols of the Cold War. The picture bore the caption, “Willkommen in Ost Berlin.”

The next day — by happy coincidence, the anniversary of Armistice Day, November 11th — something extraordinary happened in terms of the intersection of global politics and culture. With James Le’s Mickey looming over his shoulder, the Russian émigré Mstislav Rostropovich celebrated the historic occasion with an impromptu performance of Bach’s Suites for Cello, culminating in the solemn fourth movement or Sarabande from Suite No. 2.

Rostropovich must have delighted in the company of Walt Disney’s cheery exemplar of freedom. He could easily have repositioned his chair if he didn’t wish to be seated or be seen near that iconic emblem of America and the American spirit, Mickey Mouse.

Further proof of Rostropovich's affection for the United States came just three months later. In February 1990, the maestro was invited to conduct concerts in Moscow and Leningrad. As reported in the Washington Post, the program at the Moscow venue was “filled with sad music, including Shostakovich’s anguished Fifth Symphony, which was written at the height of the Stalinist purges in 1937.” For Rostropovich’s

"final encore, he chose an American classic, John Philip Sousa's rousing 'Stars and Stripes Forever,' the traditional finale of the National Symphony’s annual Fourth-of-July concert on the West Lawn of the Capitol in Washington. The Moscow audience responded with a standing ovation. Later, amidst bear hugs and vodka toasts at a post-concert reception at the U.S. Embassy, Rostropovich was asked why he’d picked the 'Stars and Stripes Forever.' The idea, he said, came 'from the heart.'"

Just as, one may suppose, the idea of combining Bach and the liberation of East Berlin with Mickey Mouse came from the heart.

Below is a photograph of Rostropovich at the Wall. For video of the performance, see: http://vimeo.com/35946240

Walt's People - Volume 15 has just been released by Theme Park Press.


As you will see by checking out the table of contents below, it contains some extremely exciting interviews! Whether you are fan of animation, of the comic books or of the parks, I believe you will all enjoy it.

[Foreword: Mindy Johnson

Dave Smith: Bob Cook
John Culhane: Grim Natwick
Michael Barrier: Clair Weeks
Bob Casino: Willis Pyle
Didier Ghez: Charlene Sundblad about Helen and Hugh Hennesy
Göran Broling: Preston Blair
Cartoonist PROfiles: Preston Blair
Steven Hartley: The Life and Times of Cy Young
Michael Barrier: Lynn Karp
Autobiography of Basil Reynolds
Alberto Becattini: The Life and Times of Riley Thomson
John Culhane: Ward Kimball
John Culhane: Wilfred Jackson
Jim Korkis: Ham Luske’s children
Michael Broggie: Stormy Palmer
EMC West: Guy Williams Jr.
EMC West: Buddy Van Horn
EMC West: Suzanne Lloyd
George Sherman: Roger Broggie
Jim Korkis: Karl Bacon & Ed Morgan
Dave Smith: Bill Martin
Jay Horan: Bill Evans
John Culhane: Card Walker
Didier Ghez: Mike Peraza]

The weirdest Disney-history-related book that I have heard of in recent years must be the new French novel Constellation by Adrien Bosc, which recently won the very prestigious Grand Prix du Roman de l'Académie Française. The novel is centered around the crash of the Air France plane Constellation on October 27, 1949 and the passengers that were on board. One of them, of course, was none other than Kay Kamen (with his wife). I have not yet read the book, but I will do so, obviously. (Thanks to Sebastien Durand for the heads up).

This just in from Garry Apgar:

[“Record Disney Songs”

Motion Picture Daily, August 17, 1937, p. 8

HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 16.—Numbers from seven of the latest Walt Disney Silly Symphony cartoons have been recorded in Spanish at the RCA-Victor studios on discs for the foreign market. The Disney Spanish recordings hit a high volume in Latin-American sales.]

Finally a book about the early days of Technicolor, which apparently will also study the early relashionship of Technicolor and Disney. The book should be released in February next year according to Amazon.

The long awaited biography of Gustaf Tenggren by Lars Emanuelsson (in Swedish) will finally be released in two weeks. I can't wait to get it to enjoy the illustrations. An English version might be released in a few years, but there are no concrete plans for the moment.

I will be discussing quite a few off-the-beaten-path books this week, starting with George Gallup in Hollywood. You can't study the history of Disney from the '50s onwards without encountering the concept of research about upcoming movies conducted for Disney by ARI (Audience Research Institute). A good friend made me discover recently George Gallup in Hollywood, which contains a 20-page chapter about the history of ARI and Disney based on documents that I had never heard of before. This is clearly a book for specialists, but if the subject interests you, this is a "must-have."

Another really beautiful day with the release by Michael Barrier of his second interview with Frank and Ollie. Getting access to Mike's interviews is revolutionary and promises to help us understand Disney History as never before.