Working with Disney (21 page)

DP:
Yeah, I remember watching.

LD:
I had to go out and see the teams. We wanted to use kids that could play ball—not Hollywood kids, although we had a few Hollywood kids like Kevin play on each team. But it was truly exciting. As a matter of fact, at that time on that picture, Ron Miller came to the studio and became the second assistant on the show. It was pretty damn thrilling, I have to say, to go one-on-one with Walt. We finally finished the two shows. Walt was interested in knowing how the expenses were going. I kept track of every last little detail. They came in for like $198,000 average per episode. I thought, “I'll drop off this information for Walt with his secretary.” I said, “I think Walt will be interested in these numbers, Dolores [Voght, Disney's secretary].” So I was slipping out, and unbeknownst to me, he was right around the corner listening to me. “Hey, Whitey, you're sure you've got all the costs in there? I want everything in there, Technicolor's rights and all that.” “Yeah, Walt, it's all in. This is it. The account is closed. You said I had $200,000 each. Fine.” “Oh, good. Okay, Whitey. See you later.” So I left. That evening, I dropped by Card's office. He was head of advertising, I guess. I said, “Let's go out.” We were just getting to the little time gate when Walt's backing up his Packard convertible, and he swings around and gives us the high sign. I said, “He doesn't want to see me.” So Card starts running over there, and Walt says, “No, no. Whitey! Whitey!” He said, “I just thought you'd like to know I put through a little raise for you.” I said, “Oh, thanks, Walt.” I've got to say it was a thrilling moment, you know.

Then after that, I was the assistant to the producer—Walt says, “I'm the producer”—on
Babes in Toyland.
“Goddammit,” he says, “I don't know who in hell to get to play Mary in this thing.” I said, “Well, Walt, in my opinion, if Columbia or Universal were making this, they'd probably be calling you, saying, ‘Can we borrow Annette [Funicello]?'” She was very hot. Well, it turned out we got Annette and Tommy Sands. Walt thought Ray Bolger would be great for Barnaby. He said, “I remember Ray Bolger when I was taking a trip to Hawaii on a boat. Ray Bolger was there, and after dinner, why, he would perform. God, that guy can dance.” “Fine, fine. If you like him, I like him.” And then out of the
Zorro
series, we got Henry Calvin and Gene Sheldon. When it came to the director, it looked like Ward [Kimball] was going to direct it. He had been developing some sequences, and he shot some tests. But Walt just didn't think Ward would be right for it. Then Sidney Miller, because he had been directing the Mousketeers, his plea was, “I was born to direct
Babes in Toyland.
I played in it as an actor years ago. It's destiny that I direct it.” Well, it turned out that Walt didn't think it was destiny that he direct it. But Jack Donahue, who had done a lot of Lucille Ball things, was an old hoofer and a director. Now, I'm giving you a little bit of insight on this particular production. We called in Art Vitarelli, who usually did stunts. He would do the rigging where people worked on wires. He would direct the second unit scenes. Art just felt strongly that it should be a director that had a musical background. Walt finally said, “All right, we'll get Jack Donahue.” Now, Jack was a nice guy, just a great guy. But doggone it, he shot that damn show like he was shooting a stage presentation instead of a motion picture. There were damn few over-the-shoulder shots. We made a few bucks on it, but it never turned out to be the classic that we could bring out every year. So I don't have any claim to fame outside of the features I was involved in as a low peon on
Snow White
and
Bambi
and those things. I guess there might be six to eight features and a couple of dozen hour television shows I was an associate producer on, but nothing truly significant.

DP:
When you were talking about
The Mickey Mouse Club,
that was interesting to me because I grew up with it. My brother was four years older,
so we were in the right age group. We had such a strong attraction for the show that we used to kiss the TV set when Annette was on!

LD:
Well, it was not unique. Out of all the kids, Darlene [Gillespie] was the most talented one for singing. Doreen [Tracey] was pretty good and then there was another little one that was the best dancer [Sharon Baird]. And Bobby [Burgess] was good. Cubby [O'Brien] was on the drums. Annette was cute. She'd had a little ballet, you know, couldn't sing too well, but you were not unusual. Her fan mail was twenty to one over all the rest. They wanted pictures, they wanted autographs, they wanted everything Annette. She certainly was not the most talented in the group, but she had that charisma that you have to have.

During the war—and this was one of the highlights of my life here—I was assigned to direct and had a great little unit here, a unit that was set up here to furnish animated editorial cartoons, for want of another nomenclature, for Frank Capra and the
Why We Fight
series. During meetings, I admit I was rather impressed by John Huston in uniform and Tony Veiller and Eric Knight and James Hilton—many big names that he had in his unit, which was established over on Western and Sunset Boulevard at the Fox [Studio on] Western Avenue. In a meeting with Walt and Frank Capra and some of his entourage and some of our boys, Walt set me up as the director for whatever Frank wanted. Interesting little story here. There must have been four or five from the studio, including myself, and Frank and Eric Knight. Eric Knight—they could have said Joe Schmo, [the name] meant nothing to me. It meant nothing to Walt. We broke for lunch and Walt goes his way, and Frank went his way. I ended up going [with a group] to the Blue Evening up in Toluca Lake. There was a secretary, Eric Knight, and a couple of others. I am a little bit uncomfortable, but I'm trying to relax. I'm representing Walt. It's all sort of new, this war business. Eric Knight was quite a dashing, sandy-haired character and very humorous. The woman said, “What do you think Eric was before he came to Hollywood?” I said, “Well, I'm sure he was an actor.” She chuckled, and Eric chuckled, and she said, “No, Whitey, he is a writer. He wrote
This Above All, Lassie Come Home,
and
The Flying Yorkshireman.”
I said, “Well, gee, that's great.” I was vaguely familiar with a couple of them. We go back
to the studio and pick up where we left off. They are talking about a lot of live action; we're not going to have anything to do with that. Walt said, “Well, Frank, you're going to get a writer in on this and come with a script, so we know exactly—” And Eric Knight said, “Please, Mr. Disney, I'm going to be the writer.” Walt just looked and said, “Okay. Fine.” So that was my cue to take my pen out and write, “Walt, Eric Knight wrote
Lassie Come Home
and
The Flying Yorkshireman,”
and I just folded it up and while these guys are talking handed it to Walt. “Well, for Christ sake, why didn't somebody tell me?” He goes up to Eric Knight and shakes hands with him. And from then on, Eric went to lunch with Walt! He and Walt became great friends. He was Walt's kind of guy.

In the early part of the war years, at one of those meetings with Frank Capra, Frank said, “Walt, a couple of questions: How much is this going to cost, and when am I going to get it?” Walt's very simple answer, which I've repeated many times, “Well, Frank, there are nickel cigars and dollar cigars. We can give it to you in color or in black and white, we can slide the cels around to have pincers surround Warsaw or we can give you full animation.” [After Walt gave Frank an estimate of the production time,] Frank came back saying, “I won't get it for two weeks! Hell, the entire maneuver only took thirty-six hours!”

After we finished
Moochie of the Little League,
Walt said, “We've got to get some more. What can we get Ellis Marcus onto?” We got into Pop Warner football. Walt got a letter from Mr. Number One in the East who said he was coming out and he would like to say hello. Walt passed it right on to me. I felt that would be no problem if he wanted to say hello; sometimes these things only last five minutes. [During the meeting] I had to come back to my office to pick up something, and when I got back, this guy's got papers all over the desk, selling Walt on the virtues of Pop Warner football and how it's going to be just as big as Little League and that he'd like to use Walt's name up at the top. Now, goddammit, I am pissed off that he has taken advantage of me. I didn't want to expose Walt to that, so when this guy left to use the bathroom, I'm there with egg on my face. “Walt, I am so sorry—” He said, “Whitey, calm down. I get letters. I have to meet people. I reply to almost every letter. Some kid wants to know if Walt Disney will pay his tuition
through college. Or ‘My grandfather needs another wooden leg, could you please pay for it?'” He really calmed me down. He said, “I have to listen to this stuff. I have to listen to everybody, but I think we can wrap this up easy enough.” It was a side of Walt that I didn't realize.

One time he had me paged during one of our productions because the secretary didn't know where I was. I heard that page and I moved! “Hi, Walt.” I'm breathing hard. He says, “What the hell are you breathing hard for?” “Well, I came up here to—“ “Goddammit, Whitey, I don't want to ever see you run.” “Okay.” “I know I can give you a sack and you'll run with it, but I want you to open the sack and look at it, because it might be full of shit!” “Okay, Walt, I'll come in breathing normally and not run.” There was something thrilling that Walt—even my own dad wouldn't say that—but it touched me now to think about it.

DP:
It was a special consideration.

LD:
It was a relationship that was great. I remember one time we were talking about peddling papers. “You know, Whitey, I had my route, too. I used to have to get out in the morning and there'd be snow in Kansas City, or it'd be raining, and I'd have to be there. I know what it is.” He said, “You went to John Marshall?” I said, “Yeah, but I dropped out, though, Walt.” He said, “That's one thing we have in common. I dropped out of high school, too.” I didn't bring anything to him except my enthusiasm that he liked, that Ben liked, I think that everybody I worked with as their assistant liked, because whatever I was working on, this was the most important project in the studio. It may not have been, but to me it was. If I had an ace in my back pocket, God gave me that.

DP:
It seems to me the common thing that you have and all these people have is a dedication to what the studio was doing that's so rare—not rare here, but rare in the whole business world.

LD:
It's got to be so rare in the business world, because outside of lawyers and doctors who get their fee, there are damn few people who could say, “My God, I've got goose pimples. I'm on the lot. I'm being paid for working and doing this.” I mean, you'd come back at night. When the picture was finished and we had an answer print, I was the one that got
a dollar bill, and I had the print under my arm, and I'd go to the Alexander Theater [in Glendale], up to the projection room, and we'd have our preview. I didn't get involved in the discussions. There's the old line where somebody said, “Well, Walt, you've done it again.” Well, I think if it was a turkey, something that didn't go over too good, Walt would give him the eyebrow. But those were thrilling days for a kid like me to have a print under my arm that's going to be previewed in a theater.

DP:
Even to hear about it, it seems like it must have been really exciting.

LD:
But great, great, great artists from Hugh Hennesy to Al Zimin, great layout men who had earned their spurs before they ever came to the studio, editorial cartoonists and designers and fine artists. Frenchy [Gilles de Trémaudan] did great Mickey animation in
Hawaiian Holiday
(1937) for Ben and me—just a super guy. And right next door to him was Bob Wickersham, and then next door to him at the old studio was Johnny Cannon.

You see, Walt's great gift was taking a guy like Ugo D'Orsi, a European painter-designer, and he learned animation. Walt had that gift. I think he could take twenty guys who were not in the business and [say], “Hey, you're inclined—“ Whether it was publicity or whatever, he would utilize the talents that existed there. That was his super gift.

A real highlight was when we hired Ollie Wallace, the musician. Ollie did the score for
Dumbo
and did some super things. His only claim to fame that I could relate to was that he wrote “Hindustan” [a love song, 1918]. He had played the organ in silent movies. Little bantam rooster with crazy hair like [Leopold] Stokowski. I was the one designated to work with Ollie as Ben's assistant on
Mickey's Trailer.
He was going to do the music. I don't know what happened to Bert Lewis at that time, but Bert was gone. Ollie used to call me Huff'n Puff, but we had a great rapport. We worked together on that picture. That was Ollie's first picture, and he did many, many scores after that. A tremendous character. He also wrote “Der Fuehrer's Face” [1942]. A lot of people don't know that Ollie sang that song. It was in [the television show]
Disney's Oscar Winners,
one of our highest-ranking shows this past season on NBC.

A good part of the schedule [of shows on NBC] are two-parters that I make up from features, cutting them down. Last season, we put on
The Parent Trap.
They wanted to play it as a two-hour vertical, so we had to cut twenty-four minutes out of it. My editor, Bill Penguin, and myself, we'd get together—and there is some sacred footage in there, Don. [After it was broadcast], I walked in with Ron [Miller] on a Monday morning. We're talking about this and that. I said, “Well, wait a minute. You're either going to say it's a lousy job of pulling twenty-four minutes out or it's a good job.” “No,” Ron said, “it's a good job. I think it plays better now than when it was in the theater.” I'm waiting for
[Parent Trap
director] Dave Swift, who is my friend, to call and say, “Who in hell over there cut that up?” but as it turned out, sometimes these old things will improve with some cutting.