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| MickeyXtreme's News Archive April 30 2006 | ||
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Sunday April 30, 2006 |
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Some people preserve family memories in
scrapbooks and dresser drawers, filling them with vintage
photographs of mom and dad, mementos of wartime service,
souvenirs of that first trip to Disneyland.
Diane Disney Miller has all that, too -- and she's planning a museum to share it with us. It will be a lot more than a scrapbook, but it won't look like a monument, a theme park or a shopping mall. Instead, if Miller and the Walt Disney Family Foundation succeed, it will fill one of the historic red brick buildings in San Francisco's Presidio with an intimate glimpse of Walt Disney -- man, artist, entrepreneur and father. |
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So far, the foundation's archive is housed in
a plain, unmarked barracks building that looks as promising
as a forlorn warehouse. But once inside, Miller leads a
visitor through treasure after treasure of Disney lore. At
the age of 72 -- she was born five years after Mickey Mouse
-- Miller is bubbling with energy and enthusiasm.
Who wouldn't be thrilled to share all this? The wartime memento is a copy of caricatures Walt Disney sent home from the front during World War I; too young to join the Army, he was a Red Cross ambulance driver instead. The Disneyland photos include Miller as a young adult on opening day, with her dad and son Chris in an Autopia car. Gamely, Miller perches on one of the Autopia cars in the archive collection for a photograph; lifts the lid of the caboose her father built for the scale-model railroad outside their house in Holmby Hills; and takes another look at the original artwork for a Saturday Evening Post story she was credited with writing, "My Dad Walt Disney." There is more at every turn -- Disney's lifetime of awards, a poster for "Bambi," and Victorian-era furniture from the apartment her father maintained above the Disneyland fire station, complete with vintage Mickey and Minnie toys. It may be several years before all of this is on view to the public, but there's more than a hint of the collection in "Behind the Magic -- 50 Years of Disneyland," opening Saturday at the Oakland Museum of California. Conceived by the Henry Ford museum complex in Michigan, "Behind the Magic" includes Disney's original animated figure of Abraham Lincoln, the 1954 concept for the "Land of Tomorrow" and sketches and models by Disney "Imagineers." The show is sure to intrigue generations of Disney fans, even Miller herself. "It will be a surprise to me when I see it," she says. Miller didn't attend the exhibit's opening at the Henry Ford Museum, but was honorary chair of the Oakland Museum's fund-raising event for "Behind the Magic." She and her husband, Ron W. Miller, a former Disney executive, now live in the Napa Valley, where their Silverado Winery is well-regarded. Vibrant and engaging, she shows no signs of retiring to a country estate. There's always something for her to discover, whether it's family lore or the precise contents and arrangement of the Oakland Museum show. Some exhibits are interactive, but the Lincoln figure, developed for the 1964 world's fair in New York, will simply reveal its workings, not speak. The museum's deputy director, Mark Medeiros, says it's an appropriate show to spotlight in the "Museum of California." "The whole Disneyland empire has had such an influence," he says, "and the exhibit tells the story a lot of people don't know about Walt Disney himself." For some visitors to the state, Medeiros agrees, Disneyland is California. The three-part exhibition features Walt Disney's early life as a cartoonist and filmmaker; renderings and plans for Disneyland; and a section on the Imagineers, his team of designers and engineers. Miller expects to find something that's new even to her in the exhibit, which was culled from 40,000 pieces of art in the Walt Disney Imagineering database. "I'm still learning things -- things that might have gone over my head that Dad was talking about," Miller says. She can't remember a time when he wasn't talking about an amusement park. "I've learned that there was a park in Kansas City where he and his sister would stand at the gate and look in," she says. "Even when he was young, he said, 'I'm going to do an amusement park, but it's going to be clean.'" Disney and his staff visited parks around the country in the 1940s and '50s, sometimes with Diane and her sister Sharon. They ranged from Children's Fairyland on Oakland's Lake Merritt to Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. Miller doesn't remember visiting Fairyland, but she did join her father on a trip to the Ford complex's Greenfield Village, a collection of historic buildings in Dearborn, Mich. It was one of the inspirations for Disneyland's Main Street. "I believe I was 10 years old, so we must have been on our way home from New York for the opening of 'Victory Through Air Power,'" she says. That was one of Disney's World War II-era animated films. Some parks were closer to home in Southern California. "Dad was at Griffith Park a lot," Miller recalls. "There was also a little amusement park in Beverly Hills owned by a couple that had worked at the studio. Sometimes Dad would say, 'Well, I'm going down to Bernice and Dave's.'" Miller, who was born in 1933, did not grow up with Disneyland. "I wasn't a toddler when it opened -- I was a young mother with a toddler," she says. She has a photo on display of herself, her father and Chris, the first of her seven children, on the park's opening day. Her father, she says, was disappointed that his first grandchild was not named Walt. "But I just couldn't saddle him with the most famous name in the world." Asked about her favorite attractions at Disneyland, she says she liked the TWA Rocket to the Moon and most of the theme areas, "but there was nothing in Tomorrowland that I wanted to look at." Her father, she says, "loved the Golden Horseshoe Revue." Miller isn't the kind of person who spends every vacation at Disneyland, but she's not surprised that some do. "That is another revelation -- there are a lot of these people," she says. "It means so much to them, and Dad knew it would. He always said, 'I know that we can do it, and I know that people will come.' "To some people,it means magic. They've gone to a magical place when everything else was pretty gloomy," Miller says. "And it's a very sociable kind of place. It depends so much, not on the exhibits and rides, but the people who work there. Friends of mine who go come back and say, 'It's wonderful, it's still wonderful.'" After her father's death in 1966, Miller took his seat on the Disney board of directors. Her husband, Ron, who had been groomed by Walt Disney as a producer, eventually became president of Walt Disney Productions in 1980 and chief executive officer in 1983. But he was ousted in 1984 in favor of Michael Eisner and Frank Wells. Miller did return to Disneyland last July to take part in anniversary events, reading her father's dedication speech exactly 50 years after he first delivered it. "It was kind of like a far-flung Disney family reunion," she says. "I went there for the 50th anniversary," she says, "and I probably won't go again." Fifty-one years after the opening of Disneyland and 40 years after Walt Disney's death, the Disney empire still fascinates millions of people -- from visitors to the parks to those who visit myriad Web sites and blogs. Disneyland offers several Web sites. So does the Walt Disney Family Foundation. And there's "Yesterland," which traces the history of park attractions. Miller mused about what her father would think of Disneyland now, with such major additions as Disney's California Adventure and with the number of visitors surpassing 500 million. "I don't think he'd be surprised that it's grown," she says. "I think he would be surprised that people would be so taken with some of the rides that they could not take them out." With a sweep of her hand, Miller declares, "He would have totally redone it." Who knows what Disney, an innovator from the time he was a teenager, would do with Web sites and podcasts and ring tones? Theme parks, even with ultimate Tomorrowlands, might seem old-fashioned to youngsters whose cell-phone screens are their windows on the world. "I'm not really comfortable in this digital age," Miller says. "I just sent my first e-mails, and one of them came back. "You know, that may be one of the most enduring things about Disneyland. You have real people all around you, not virtual people."
• WHAT: "Behind the Magic -- 50 Years of Disneyland. • WHERE: Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak streets, Oakland. • WHEN: Saturday through Aug. 20; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, noon-5 p.m. Sundays, until 9 p.m. first Friday of each month. • HOW MUCH: $14 general, $10 seniors and students, 5 and under free. Opening day, Saturday only: Admission reverts to 1955 Disneyland prices, $9 general, 50 cents for children 6-18. • CONTACT: 510-238-2200, www.museumca.org. Tickets available online. For information about the Walt Disney Family Foundation, and a virtual tour of its own prospective museum, go to www.waltdisney.com. |
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Walt Disney Pictures joins with MySpace.com,
the leading lifestyle portal to discover music, film and
popular culture, to give one MySpace member the exclusive
opportunity to launch the world premiere of the theatrical
trailer of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's
Chest." MySpace and Walt Disney Pictures invite members
to join the movie's official MySpace profile for a chance to
become the first person to view the movie trailer for
"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." The
winner will then have the chance to distribute the trailer
to MySpace's network of more than 74 million members and
interview talent from the film as a press correspondent for
MySpace at the press junket in Los Angeles.
On Monday, May 1, MySpace will randomly select one friend from the Pirates' MySpace profile. This lucky fan will be given the trailer in the form of a tag allowing the user to view and share via email, instant message, bulletins, or blogs to any person on MySpace. "We are always looking for innovative ways to bring fresh content to increasingly hard-to-reach consumers," said Oren Aviv, President of Marketing and Chief Creative Officer, Walt Disney Studios. "This partnership with MySpace provides a unique, never-before-done opportunity to empower the passionate, enthusiastic fan base of the Pirates franchise, allowing them to be the primary champions of the film." To be eligible, the MySpace user must be at least 18 years of age and be a friend of the Pirates of the Caribbean profile (www.myspace.com/deadmanschest). Additional prizes will be awarded to every 10,000th member to sign up for the community and to the member who distributes the trailer to the most people. On the Pirates of the Caribbean profile, members can also view stills from the movie and communicate with other MySpace friends and fans through blogs, comments and forums. "We are thrilled to be a part of this unique effort to promote Disney's new film," said Colin Digiaro, SVP of Sales for MySpace. "MySpace members use the network to discover pop culture and share it with friends and the Disney approach for Pirates takes advantage of the power of MySpace and word-of-mouth marketing in a very efficient and clever way." Walt Disney Pictures' "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," stars Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, and opens nationwide on July 7, 2006. It is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer ("Black Hawk Down," "Pearl Harbor") and directed by Gore Verbinski ("The Ring"). |
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Designer
keeps eye on Disney prize
For Dan Joseph, staging elaborate haunted houses in the basement of his Talleyville home was a way to get over the death of his dog. He was 11, and he'd just lost his 17-year-old Brittany spaniel/spring- er spaniel mix, Lizzy. Spooking his friends with ghouls, special effects and creepy lighting was a way to distract himself and help out other dogs. He donated the money he made to the Delaware Humane Society. "I wanted to keep busy and my mind on something else," Joseph said. What he didn't realize at the time was that those haunted houses were his first steps out of the blur of attention deficit disorder and learning disabilities and his first steps into a career in industrial design. "It really hit me that there's something here that's more than just meets the eye," Joseph said. Joseph, a 22-year-old student at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, is one of six finalists in the Walt Disney Imagineering's Imagi-Nations competition. The contest calls for artists, architects, engineers, writers and others to create a new ride, attraction, hotel or other amusement park feature. All finalists will be considered for an internship as an imagineer (the name combines imagination with engineering), and the winner receives scholarship money. Joseph made the finals with his design for the People Mover Version 2, which merges the idea of Disney's enhanced motion vehicle and a guest-controlled ride. The concept would allow riders to control the vehicle at various points and create their own "ride experience," like the park's "Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin." No one is more convinced that Joseph can use his project to score an internship or full-time job at Disney than Neila Douglas, the university's director of disability services. Douglas, a counselor and coach to Joseph, said he has more than compensated for any lack of focus ADD might cause by honing his time-management and memory skills. He color-codes folders and keeps track of appointments better than most students, she said. Joseph also is the rare student who has never lost his career focus, Douglas said. Since freshman year, he's kept his sights set on becoming an imagineer with Disney. And based on the language she's seen in letters from Disney officials, he's all but reached it. "I think he's gonna get there, definitely," Douglas said. "He really is quite an amazing young man." Douglas said Joseph has conquered the ADD mountain mostly on his own. But Joseph said he couldn't have gotten this far without his academic background. The first signs of ADD started to show during kindergarten. Joseph would get frustrated and have to sit out. Teachers thought he was just acting up. "Back then, people didn't know what learning disabilities were," Joseph said. Things started to turn around in grade school. He went to The Pilot School in Talleyville, which specializes in helping students with learning disabilities. Although the teachers there played critical roles in his development, attending Pilot required an adjustment because his friends went to "normal" schools. "Going there was a drag. It was like I wasn't adequate," Joseph said. "[But] they really helped me out. That's the place that I feel, even today as an adult, that gives me an advantage over my peers." After Pilot, Joseph started challenging himself. He went to Wilmington Friends School, a prep school, and began getting high marks. Art teacher Cynthia Mellow pushed Joseph to market himself to colleges and, eventually, companies that might hire him -- companies like Disney. In June, when Douglas presents his concept for the People Mover at Disney headquarters in Glendale, Calif., he'll still have the same passionate, inventive spirit as the kid who made haunted houses in the basement. Only now, he'll be a focused, driven young man. "It's amazing to me ... to be at this point," he said |
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Off-season
can be the best season at Disney World
For every one question I am asked about
faraway places with strange sounding names, I get a dozen
about a destination much closer to home: Walt Disney World.
As the end of school approaches and families plan summer
vacations, the search is on for Disney deals, and debate
arises over whether to book a room inside or outside the
park or, indeed, whether to go at all. Here are my thoughts: |
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Spanish
resorts building up to a Costa del Disney
Disney is drawing up plans for a possible park on the Costa del Sol which could transform the area's tourist industry. The company has held talks with Spanish officials about building on farmland near the town of Manilva, southwest of Marbella, although the two sides have given different accounts of the venture. Disney said it was in negotiation for various new schemes in Manilva, including a summer camp for children, offering the opportunity to improve their sports and languages. Javier Sansierra, the executive who has been running negotiations with Manilva town hall, denied it planned a full-scale theme park like Disneyland Paris, operated by Euro Disney. "While I completely agree that a Euro Disney would do well in Spain and personally I believe it should have opened here in the first place, there are no plans to open a second or mini amusement park in Spain for the time being," he said. However, officials in Manilva suggested a more ambitious project was being considered. "The discussions are well advanced," said Lucy Fernandez, a town hall spokeswoman. "It is at a sensitive stage, so I can't say too much, but the eventual aim is to open a Euro Disney-type park in four or five years." Francisco Alvarez, the local tourism officer, who has been closely involved in the negotiations, said: "We have the space here for Disney and are urbanising a couple of large areas for them. I know the company has acquired at least one estate here and we hope they will begin building soon." It is understood that in return for permission to build a new park in the area, Disney could be expected to contribute towards the cost of a new motorway from Seville to the Costa del Sol. The company had originally planned to open a Disney theme park on the Costa del Sol in the late 1980s. After a long search, it narrowed down its options to a choice between Estepona and Paris. Although Spain's climate gave it the edge, the company eventually plumped for Paris, largely because of its better communications. Some executives now admit that the site in Estepona — where a 247-acre safari park has since opened — would have been the better option. Other large theme parks in Spain have proved successful. These include the highly rated PortAventura near Barcelona, Warner Bros Park in Madrid and Isla Magica in Seville. Disneyland Paris has been affected by problems ranging from bad weather to cultural differences between the US and France. |
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