The only thing that thirteen-year-old Walt looked forward to during his days on the farm was that he had plenty of time to think. And to dream. He used the long hours to imagine a place as different from the farm as possible.
Walt picked up the bucket of fresh milk and walked toward the barn door.
“Hey, brother.”
Lost in his own thoughts, the voice jolted him back to reality. Roy stood in the doorway, his features darkened by the bright sun behind him.
Although Roy Disney was nine years older than Walt, his features very much resembled his younger brother’s—both had long, narrow faces and eyes that almost hid in a squint. But, unlike Walt, Roy was reserved, always quiet and low-key. Though his devotion to his family home was questionable—Roy had run off to work at a bank in Kansas City as soon as he could—his love for his little brother was not. And now he had come home to pay him a visit.
“Roy!” Walt dropped the milk bucket and embraced his older brother. They spent the next hour sitting on hay bales in the barn reminiscing about better times as young kids, buying ice cream and soda pop on Main Street in their hometown of Marceline, Missouri.
“Walt!”
Both boys recognized the bellow of their father. It was clear from his tone that he was agitated. Probably drinking again.
“Oh, no,” Walt murmured.
“Walt, get your butt over here!”
Elias had found out that Walt, after reading in a magazine about a better way to cool milk, had packed the day’s haul with the wrong amount of ice. Elias wasn’t interested in trying anything new or novel. It was exactly this type of thing that set off his notorious temper.
The boys heard their father as he headed toward them in the barn. He was like a summer thunderstorm that formed quickly and without warning.
“Walt, go to the basement,” he called out as he entered the barn, his red cheeks standing in stark contrast to the dirty blue overalls he wore each day. “I’ll meet you down there. If you’re lucky, I’ll only use my belt.”
Roy stayed quiet as Elias erupted with rage, but once their father had left he offered his brother some advice. “He’s got no reason for hitting you,” Roy said. “You’re fourteen years old. Don’t take it anymore.”
Walt went down to the basement where his father was waiting. Elias Disney, still in a frenzy, impulsively grabbed a hammer. Walt’s eyes filled with fear. Elias clenched the hammer and swung it at his son.
The hammer closed in on its target with brutal force. But then something strange happened, something that had never happened before: Walt grabbed the hammer midswing.
His father looked at him with eyes full of surprise. Walt yanked the hammer free and tossed it aside. Elias reared back and lined up a fist aimed at the left side of Walt’s face. Walt grabbed it. And then he grabbed his father’s other fist.
He and his father stood there like that for what seemed like an eternity. A boy on the verge of manhood holding his father’s fists of fury. A father realizing for the first time that his boy was no longer a child.
Then Elias Disney started to cry.
That night, Walt fell asleep thinking about his hometown, Marceline, some 125 miles away, where he and Roy had been so happy. Leaving there after the failure of the family farm and the long stares from neighbors over their father’s embrace of socialism was painful for Walt. He remembered perfect streets, friendly people, and happy faces. He remembered the feeling of security, of possibility and of adventure.
What a world he had found in Marceline. What a world he might find again.
Walt Disney Estate
Los Angeles, California
December 4, 1952
It had been an exasperating year for Lillian Disney. Her husband’s mind seemed to be elsewhere. He was easily distracted. Of course, she was used to that after nearly thirty years of marriage. And in some ways it was a good thing. Lillian saw that Walt had a level of passion for his work that matched the days when he’d geared the whole studio up for Snow White, the world’s first feature animated film. But that was nearly twenty years ago. Disney was no longer just a start-up, but now a major movie studio. Walt told her that they’d fallen into a rut and he wanted to do something entirely different.
Lillian watched him become absorbed with all of his various projects—from The Adventures of Pinocchio to Cinderella and now Peter Pan, which was set to be released early the following year. She’d never had much patience or interest in her husband’s childish larks. In fact, despite her husband’s creation of iconic film characters, she only had allowed one piece of Disney art in the entire house—and it was tucked away in their girls’ bedroom.
Still, Walt’s preoccupation with his work wasn’t all bad. After all, it had made them wealthy and turned “Disney” into a household name. But his latest obsession—building a small town with a castle and an island and a lake—was driving Lillian crazy. She knew that if she didn’t rein him in, this would be Walt’s Waterloo: the end of his successful career, and the beginning of their financial ruin.
“But Lilly, dear, there’s nothing like it in the entire world,” Walt said as he sketched away on a notepad in bed.
Lillian rolled her eyes and kept brushing her hair in the mirror.
“It’s unique,” he continued. “I know, because I’ve looked everywhere for something like it! It’s a new concept in entertainment altogether. I think—I know—it would be a success!”
When Walt had first outlined his vision of a place where families could immerse themselves in the stories of Disney with life-size characters, rides, entertainment and—above all—a sense of community, Lillian struggled not to laugh. She thought the idea was just plain silly. She ignored it, hoping it would find the discard pile along with so many of his other ideas. But that never happened. This utopian town had become more than a conversation topic; it had become an all-consuming obsession. Walt had spent the next decade or so dragging her and their two girls all over America and Europe, looking at fairs and amusement parks. Most were grimy and unwelcoming. He’d even visited zoos to see if perhaps they had cracked the code—but he found most of them filled with dirty, unkempt animals.
“Walt, if you are going to look at more zoos,” Lilly had warned, “I’m not going with you!”
He came away from all of their field trips realizing that there was no precedent for anything like what he envisioned anywhere in the world. The only place that had even come close to matching his dream was Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen—a wide-open space that boasted music, food, drink, entertainment, and unfailingly polite employees.
“This is what a park should be!” Walt had exclaimed to her, smiling the whole flight home.
Burbank, California
March 1953
“I believe the ayes have it.”
Roy Disney rubbed his dark horn-rimmed glasses with a handkerchief as the final tally was taken. The Disney board had heard the proposal many times, discussed it for months, and now Roy, as co-chairman of the board, was satisfied with the final vote. He watched the board members carefully. Polite. Stone-faced. Complacent.
Walt’s older brother had always been seen as the more serious of the Disney brothers—and certainly as the more practical. Even now, as he helped Walt realize his plans for a vast amusement park, he shared the board’s grave doubts. Many didn’t seem to have any idea what Walt was talking about, although they all smiled politely and indulged what they saw as another of their founder’s endless flights of fancy.
While his brother undoubtedly had a tendency to dream big, Roy knew that these were never really just dreams. They were plans. And Walt was dead serious about them. As if right on script, he was now nearly dancing with delight.
No one had ever done anything on a scale as large as the one his brother now contemplated. Ever the pragmatic, numbers-based executive to his brother’s dreams, Roy calculated that millions of visitors would have to come to the park each year to keep it in the black, and then come back year after y
ear, thereafter. It seemed impossible.
But Walt had surprised him before.
• • •
Later that day, a gleeful Walt Disney sat in his office at WED Enterprises, a new spinoff that Walt had total creative control over. Roy had negotiated that with the board, knowing that they would not want to cross the man who’d made them all a fortune. Board members knew how impossible it was to deal with Walt, especially when he was on one of his crusades. “If you give him this,” Roy had told them, “he’ll be out of your hair.” And, besides, Roy reminded them, Walt was going to find a way to do what he wanted anyway—so why not be supportive?
Walt’s office was tucked inside an old bungalow on the edge of the Disney lot, as far from the rest of the studio, and its shortsighted bureaucrats, as possible.
All around him were trappings of his past successes: stills of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. But he knew there was much more yet to come.
He had the board out of his way. He had his team lined up. Now all he needed was one thing more: cash.
As usual, he had an unorthodox idea about how to get it.
Disney Studios
Burbank, California
September 23, 1953
Standing before the fledgling staff of WED Enterprises, Roy Disney was not happy.
“I need to show them something,” he told Walt. “It can’t just be talk anymore.”
His tone wasn’t exactly desperate, although it might well have been. The sad truth was that Roy’s attempt to fund Walt’s dream was creating a fiscal disaster. Walt had borrowed $50,000 from the bank. He had sold his house to raise additional cash and then corralled a few investors to scrape together more. To Lilly’s horror, Walt had even borrowed $100,000 from his life insurance policy.
But it still wasn’t enough. Not even close. A park like the one Walt envisioned would cost millions—as much as $5 million by some estimates—and there was no guarantee it would ever make money. In fact, the opposite was true: Roy increasingly feared it could be the biggest financial boondoggle in their history.
Walt, however, had a plan. He always had a plan.
“Television,” Walt said to the assembled staff. “Television is the answer.” He had never shared the traditional view of other studio heads that television was the natural enemy of motion pictures. He thought they could feed into each other. His attitude was simple: Go wherever the public is. Every chance you could find to emblazon the Disney brand on the public’s consciousness, do it. That’s how he’d made Mickey Mouse a household name in spite of others telling him it was a waste of time.
Roy Disney knew television executives well enough to realize that flying to New York merely to talk to them about grandiose plans for some amusement park would not go well. He was meeting with investors on Monday, and he needed something tangible to put in front of them that they could get excited about.
The only problem was that he had nothing.
• • •
Herb Ryman had hurried to the studio as soon as he’d hung up on the phone call from his old friend and colleague Dick Irvine.
Walt greeted him at the studio gate, a wide smile on his face. “Herbie, we’re going to build an amusement park.”
“That’s interesting,” Ryman said. “Where are you going to build it?”
“Well, we were going to do it across the street, but now it’s gotten too big. We’re going to look for a place.”
“What are you going to call it?”
“Disneyland.”
“That’s as good as anything.”
“Look, Herbie, my brother Roy is going to New York Monday to line up financing for the park. I’ve got to give him plans of what we’re going to do. Those businessmen don’t listen to talk, you know; you’ve got to show them what you’re going to do.”
“Well, where is the drawing? I’d like to see it.”
“You’re going to make it.”
“No, I’m not,” Herbie replied. “This is the first I ever heard about this. You’d better forget it. It’ll embarrass both you and me. I’m not going to make a fool of either one of us.”
“Herbie, this is my dream. I’ve wanted this for years and I need your help,” Walt pleaded. “You’re the only one who can do it. I’ll stay here with you and we’ll do it together.”
And that’s exactly what they did. For the next forty-two hours, Ryman worked side by side with Walt to bring his vision to life on paper. In the end, the drawings amounted to a large triangle with a castle at one end and a Main Street that would funnel in visitors at the other. Various segments of the park were described in some detail: True-Life Adventureland had a botanical garden; Fantasyland featured Disney characters like Snow White, Peter Pan, and Alice in Wonderland; the World of Tomorrow included an industrial exhibit, a monorail, and a moving sidewalk. There were even tracks for a small railroad.
On another page was a note outlining in writing for the first time what Walt had been dreaming about for years:
Sometime in 1955 Walt Disney will present for the people of the world—and children of all ages—a new experience in entertainment. Disneyland will be something of a fair, an exhibition, playground, a community center, a museum of living facts, and a showplace of beauty and magic. It will be filled with accomplishments, the joys and hopes of the world we live in. And it will remind us and show us how to make those wonders part of our own lives.
Walt sent the drawings to Roy and sat by the phone, eager for his brother’s reaction. When it finally came, it was quintessential Roy.
“I guess these will have to do.”
New York City
September 28, 1953
“Looks like we may have a deal.”
Roy was excited, but he tried to keep his voice on the telephone measured so that Walt’s mind didn’t start racing before he could even finish with the update.
Roy explained that CBS had flatly said no. Its executives wanted to see a pilot of Walt’s proposed television program first. “We don’t do samples at Disney,” Roy had told them—and that was that.
NBC was interested in both the show and the amusement park, but Roy couldn’t finalize a deal with them. The legendary and influential General David Sarnoff, leader of NBC’s owner, RCA, was enthusiastic. But the executives and lawyers beneath Sarnoff proved to be frustrating, bureaucratic, and time-consuming.
ABC was a long shot. They were far behind the other two in the ratings—the network didn’t have a single show on the air that rated among the top twenty-five. In the end, that worked to Roy’s advantage. Unlike the others, ABC was willing to do whatever it took to get Disney on board. They understood the power of the Disney name and they desperately needed something that would make an impression with the audience.
After long discussions with network executives, Roy managed to get ABC to agree to a deal in principle: Disney would provide a one-hour weekly TV series to them in exchange for $500,000 paid directly to the park, and loan guarantees of up to $4.5 million to finance the rest.
“They bought an amusement park,” Roy said, shaking his head in disbelief, “so they could get a TV show.”
Despite Roy’s attempts to relay the deal matter-of-factly, Walt was exuberant on the other end of the phone. Roy was excited as well, but, unlike his brother, he couldn’t stop worrying about one small wrinkle in their plan: He and Walt had absolutely no idea what the TV show was going to be about.
Burbank, California
October 28, 1954
Reviews from the previous evening’s debut episode on ABC flooded in. Walt Disney’s secretary sifted through various newspapers, telegrams, and phone messages.
From his desk, Walt could see that his show had exceeded everyone’s expectations—ABC’s, the Disney company’s, Roy’s, their sponsor’s, heck, even his own. The overnight ratings were astonishing: The program had beat every show on television, except for I Love Lucy—and they’d even given that a run for its money.
Ratings aside, the show its
elf was a huge win for Walt. The Disneyland Show was basically an hour-long, ABC-funded commercial for Walt’s theme park idea. He introduced viewers to the park’s concept, talked about its various areas and attractions, and mixed in some cartoons.
Walt was reenergized by the news. He already had more ideas for the show—a live-action story about Davy Crockett, and plenty of new cartoons—but far more important in his mind was that money for the park was no longer a concern.
Walt’s next task was to prove the skeptics wrong; skeptics he knew still included his big brother.
Burbank, California
March 10, 1955
Roy sighed. He had heard all of this before. Many times before. As polite as people were as they spoke, they were making it clear that Walt was being a pain in the ass.
Roy had sympathy for the complainers, but he rarely let it show. No one criticized his brother too strongly in his presence, despite how much justification they might have had. “My brother made me a millionaire,” he would tell people when they expressed their frustrations with Walt. “And you wonder why I want to do everything I can to help him?”
Whenever he needed to find his brother, Roy would invariably have to seek him out in Anaheim, the site of the park, where he was busy driving everyone crazy in person. In his straw hat and ugly shirts, he would eat hot dogs with construction workers while micromanaging their every move: There had to be stained glass, not cut glass; they had to move a tree six feet because it was too close to the entrance of Adventureland; and Walt had even insisted on a Disney University of sorts to train all workers so that there was consistency no matter where visitors ventured. “The thing that’s going to make Disneyland unique and different is the detail,” he insisted to everyone who’d listen. “If we lose the detail, we lose it all.”
Walt was also driving the park’s designers crazy with his endless demands. The other night one of them had called Roy to complain that Walt had taken plans for an amusement park ride and redrawn it overnight to reflect “the way it should have been.” When someone later explained that they needed to build a water tower on the site, Walt had almost thrown him out of the office. He told them that nothing so ugly and obstructive would ever be permitted at his park. Walt was even feuding with Orange County building inspectors who didn’t know how to apply city ordinances and codes to something like Sleeping Beauty’s castle.