Friday, December 07, 2007

Walt's Photo

In my rush to MouseFest, I was only able to post the photo for Walt Disney's birthday on Wednesday. Jim Korkis sent on the following background on that particular image that I selected:
I am sure you realize that the Walt photo you posted yesterday was the last official photo ever taken of Walt Disney. There are actually a couple in the series including one of Mickey waving. In this one, Mickey is pulling on his tie to be "neat and pretty" just like he did on the Mickey Mouse Club television show. I believe that may be Paul Castle under the Mouse head. You will also notice the gloves that Mickey is wearing. Mickey has four fingers and a thumb. This photo (and the others in this series) were staged by veteran Disney publicist Charlie Ridgway. Charlie told me a while ago that he believed the photo shoot was the end of August or early September. Unfortunately about three months later, Walt passed away.

Walt's daughter Diane, when she was interviewed by writer Pete Martin for Walt's biography that was published in the Saturday Evening Post in the 1950s, said that "(Dad's) not sentimental about Christmas. He's more sentimental about family relationships like birthdays... about his own birthday. He feels very sentimental about that and you don't dare slight him or forget because he would be very deeply hurt. If you mention it, he's fairly assured you will remember. But if he thinks that you don't remember, when it has arrived he just feels a little bit slighted."

0 comments: