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Blowing the Pixie Dust Off Disneys Archives
By BROOKS BARNES
Published: September 8, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/m...-NYT-MOD-MOD-M114-ROS-0909-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click (with photos)
GLENDALE, Calif. For the last 50 years, inside an unmarked warehouse here, a historic movie prop has rested in a deep, deep sleep. Last month a Walt Disney Company archivist awakened it.
The prop, along with dozens of other specimens from Disney films that have long been kept under lock and key, will headline an unusual exhibition of memorabilia that opens on Thursday and runs through the weekend at the Anaheim Convention Center in Southern California. Also included: the coonskin cap that Fess Parker wore as Davy Crockett (leading to a national craze), Annette Funicellos Mouseketeer shirt, a costume from the 1950s TV series Zorro and the four-wheeled star of The Love Bug.
The exhibition, Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives, will also include modern grails (Miley Cyruss blond Hannah Montana wig) and items from Walt Disneys own office (like the rotary-dial telephone, dingy cord and all). We would never clean it thats Walts grime, Ms. Cline said.
The exhibition forms the centerpiece of Disneys attempt to stage its own version of Comic-Con International, the giant annual gathering for fans of comics and science-fiction entertainment that has become a major event on Hollywoods calendar. Called D23 Expo, Disneys show will include elaborate pavilions where the companys theme park, movie studio, television and consumer products branches will promote their wares both existing and planned. Over 30,000 people are expected to attend.
Its an overt sales pitch for the Disney brand, already considered one of the strongest in the world. But the company is also keenly aware that the Internet has given consumers added muscle in determining public sentiment over 1,000 blogs parse all things Disney and is trying to superserve that constituency.
D23 is the brainchild of the companys public relations branch. (The 23 is short for 1923, the year Walt Disney opened his California studio.) Disney will auction a handful of items in conjunction with the exhibition, including animation cels from films like The Jungle Book, a pirate galleon vehicle from the Peter Pans Flight ride at Disneyland and props from High School Musical 3: Senior Year.
The event is also emblematic of a philosophical shift at Disney. In previous decades the companys point of view was imperious: we are the great and powerful Disney, and we will tell families how best to spend their leisure time. That approach made some consumers resentful, a sentiment that a new executive team has spent recent years working to soothe. Moreover, Disney now feels competition from Nickelodeon and DreamWorks Animation, among others.
The archives are a good example of the attitude change. The company has given independent researchers access and has occasionally lent or donated items. The Smithsonian Institution has one of Disneylands famous teacups, for instance. But most of the trove has been almost entirely hidden from the public.
Ms. Cline estimates that 80 percent of the collection, which the company says contains over a million items, has never been exhibited. That mandate partly came from Walt Disney himself, who died in 1966: we do not talk about how we make the magic.
The holdings were even a bit of a mystery to Robert A. Iger, who became Disneys chief executive four years ago. He toured the archive after taking over and was surprised at what he found. The 92-item exhibition may ultimately be mounted as a traveling show, similar to what Warner Brothers is doing with its successful tour of Harry Potter props.
It became increasingly apparent that the crown jewels of eight decades of Disney history needed to be shared with the world, Mr. Iger said in an e-mail message.
Ms. Cline and her seven archives colleagues are still trying to catalog everything, while crossing their fingers that some vanished items, like the carpetbag that Julie Andrews carried in Mary Poppins, will turn up. (In decades past, studios either threw this stuff away or let it walk off the lot it just wasnt deemed important, said Tim Luke, a memorabilia dealer in Hobe Sound, Fla., who organized sales that included Disneyana when working at Christies in the 1990s.)
Since Mr. Iger put a renewed focus on the collection, archivists have added about 15,000 items, partly by combing through storerooms. They discovered Walt Disneys travel trunks from the 1930s (he often gave his old personal items to the props department) and a matronly dress Bette Davis wore in the 1978 film Return From Witch Mountain.
One particularly good find was a costume used to prepare Pinocchio in 1940. (The studio shot footage of costumed actors pantomiming action in the script so animators could study their movements.) It was rotting off its hanger in the back of a wardrobe building.
Sometimes we have to get really down and dirty, Ms. Cline said, recalling the time she and a colleague donned hard hats and dust masks to salvage items at a Walt Disney World ride being refurbished.
Less arduous was a recent trip to George Lucass compound in Northern California. Ms. Cline flew there to fetch the white leather uniform Michael Jackson wore in Captain EO, the film that was a 1980s-era attraction at Disneys parks. Mr. Lucas, who produced and was a co-writer of the mini-movie, agreed to lend the costume for the D23 exhibition after Jacksons death.
But much of Ms. Clines attention has been focused on the Sleeping Beauty storybook. With its hammered brass cover and hand-painted pages, the prop cost about $1,500 to make (or $11,000, when adjusted for inflation). Time has not been kind, however, and some of the colored-glass frills need repair.
Ms. Cline will hand carry the book to the Anaheim Convention Center. Its not just a movie prop its part of our bedrock, she said.
By BROOKS BARNES
Published: September 8, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/m...-NYT-MOD-MOD-M114-ROS-0909-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click (with photos)
GLENDALE, Calif. For the last 50 years, inside an unmarked warehouse here, a historic movie prop has rested in a deep, deep sleep. Last month a Walt Disney Company archivist awakened it.
The prop, along with dozens of other specimens from Disney films that have long been kept under lock and key, will headline an unusual exhibition of memorabilia that opens on Thursday and runs through the weekend at the Anaheim Convention Center in Southern California. Also included: the coonskin cap that Fess Parker wore as Davy Crockett (leading to a national craze), Annette Funicellos Mouseketeer shirt, a costume from the 1950s TV series Zorro and the four-wheeled star of The Love Bug.
The exhibition, Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives, will also include modern grails (Miley Cyruss blond Hannah Montana wig) and items from Walt Disneys own office (like the rotary-dial telephone, dingy cord and all). We would never clean it thats Walts grime, Ms. Cline said.
The exhibition forms the centerpiece of Disneys attempt to stage its own version of Comic-Con International, the giant annual gathering for fans of comics and science-fiction entertainment that has become a major event on Hollywoods calendar. Called D23 Expo, Disneys show will include elaborate pavilions where the companys theme park, movie studio, television and consumer products branches will promote their wares both existing and planned. Over 30,000 people are expected to attend.
Its an overt sales pitch for the Disney brand, already considered one of the strongest in the world. But the company is also keenly aware that the Internet has given consumers added muscle in determining public sentiment over 1,000 blogs parse all things Disney and is trying to superserve that constituency.
D23 is the brainchild of the companys public relations branch. (The 23 is short for 1923, the year Walt Disney opened his California studio.) Disney will auction a handful of items in conjunction with the exhibition, including animation cels from films like The Jungle Book, a pirate galleon vehicle from the Peter Pans Flight ride at Disneyland and props from High School Musical 3: Senior Year.
The event is also emblematic of a philosophical shift at Disney. In previous decades the companys point of view was imperious: we are the great and powerful Disney, and we will tell families how best to spend their leisure time. That approach made some consumers resentful, a sentiment that a new executive team has spent recent years working to soothe. Moreover, Disney now feels competition from Nickelodeon and DreamWorks Animation, among others.
The archives are a good example of the attitude change. The company has given independent researchers access and has occasionally lent or donated items. The Smithsonian Institution has one of Disneylands famous teacups, for instance. But most of the trove has been almost entirely hidden from the public.
Ms. Cline estimates that 80 percent of the collection, which the company says contains over a million items, has never been exhibited. That mandate partly came from Walt Disney himself, who died in 1966: we do not talk about how we make the magic.
The holdings were even a bit of a mystery to Robert A. Iger, who became Disneys chief executive four years ago. He toured the archive after taking over and was surprised at what he found. The 92-item exhibition may ultimately be mounted as a traveling show, similar to what Warner Brothers is doing with its successful tour of Harry Potter props.
It became increasingly apparent that the crown jewels of eight decades of Disney history needed to be shared with the world, Mr. Iger said in an e-mail message.
Ms. Cline and her seven archives colleagues are still trying to catalog everything, while crossing their fingers that some vanished items, like the carpetbag that Julie Andrews carried in Mary Poppins, will turn up. (In decades past, studios either threw this stuff away or let it walk off the lot it just wasnt deemed important, said Tim Luke, a memorabilia dealer in Hobe Sound, Fla., who organized sales that included Disneyana when working at Christies in the 1990s.)
Since Mr. Iger put a renewed focus on the collection, archivists have added about 15,000 items, partly by combing through storerooms. They discovered Walt Disneys travel trunks from the 1930s (he often gave his old personal items to the props department) and a matronly dress Bette Davis wore in the 1978 film Return From Witch Mountain.
One particularly good find was a costume used to prepare Pinocchio in 1940. (The studio shot footage of costumed actors pantomiming action in the script so animators could study their movements.) It was rotting off its hanger in the back of a wardrobe building.
Sometimes we have to get really down and dirty, Ms. Cline said, recalling the time she and a colleague donned hard hats and dust masks to salvage items at a Walt Disney World ride being refurbished.
Less arduous was a recent trip to George Lucass compound in Northern California. Ms. Cline flew there to fetch the white leather uniform Michael Jackson wore in Captain EO, the film that was a 1980s-era attraction at Disneys parks. Mr. Lucas, who produced and was a co-writer of the mini-movie, agreed to lend the costume for the D23 exhibition after Jacksons death.
But much of Ms. Clines attention has been focused on the Sleeping Beauty storybook. With its hammered brass cover and hand-painted pages, the prop cost about $1,500 to make (or $11,000, when adjusted for inflation). Time has not been kind, however, and some of the colored-glass frills need repair.
Ms. Cline will hand carry the book to the Anaheim Convention Center. Its not just a movie prop its part of our bedrock, she said.
