Lady. Disney

Warren Beatty once observed, “If you get married in Hollywood, you should always get it done before noon. That way, if it doesn’t work out, you won’t ruin your evening.” But in 1925, Walt Disney, still getting his feet wet in Tinseltown, wasn’t interested in pampered stars. He had his eye on an employee of his named Lillian Bounds, originally from Lewiston, Idaho, who worked for him as an ink painting girl for fifteen dollars a week. She reminded her of the working girls she knew when she was growing up in Missouri. For her part, she found him charming, the way he grew a mustache to look older at business meetings and how he refused to visit her until he could afford a new suit. Since he was gentler with women than with men, she was spared from his temperamental swearing with his cheerleaders. Walt later quipped, “I didn’t have enough money to pay her off, so I married her.”

Early in their marriage, Lillian loved going to the movies with him and would listen intently as he critiqued his competitor’s cartoons and shared her own exciting insights. But as time went by, she became more defiant. Perhaps she understood that he needed a sounding board, he was surrounded by men who were afraid of him. I don’t like the name Mortimer, she told him in 1927. Why don’t you call your mouse Mickey? She agreed with his business partner and brother Roy in 1934 that making the first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, would ruin them. When it turned out to be a huge success, Walt was very pleased to hear Lillian admit that she was wrong. But then he scared her again. “Why would you want to build an amusement park?” She asked him. “Amusement parks are dirty. They don’t make money.” Her answer didn’t make her feel any better. “That’s the point. I want a clean one that will.” But she was at Disneyland the night before she opened with a broom, sweeping up dust from the Mark Twain Steamer.

Walt was a good provider for Lillian and her two daughters, even if he had to go into debt to do it. He ached when he had to sell his Mercedes during the depression to pay the studio payroll, or when old friends called for a loan and he was so exhausted he turned them down. They were both content to spend evenings at home avoiding the publicity glare of Hollywood parties. When times were better, he put up with Walt calling his owning six polo ponies his “one sin,” which he paid dearly for by suffering a nasty stroke. He became a lifelong whiskey drinker to ease the recurring pain in his neck. Her next hobby annoyed her the most, a miniature railroad in the backyard that ran through her flowerbed. She gave in only because she seemed to free him from the pressures of the study. She sometimes thought that maybe he was using the wrinkles to hide and avoid facing overwhelming problems. Later, Disneyland would provide her with a bigger train so that Lillian would have more peace at home.

Lillian wasn’t worried about Walt cheating on her with another woman, but she did get jealous of his work sometimes. She often came home late and preferred to spend the night in the studio hanging around her animators’ desks, even going through her trash cans to get her best ideas. She once was late for a date and drunk. Angry, she locked him out of the house. She made amends the next day by presenting him with a puppy in a hat box. That event later became the basis for the Disney classic Lady And The Tramp (1955).

The Disneys were world travelers. Lillian was delighted to get the call from Walt to pack for his upcoming surprise vacation and marvel at how he would turn his experiences into Disneyland attractions. They fell in love with skiing in Switzerland and that led them to the Matterhorn Bobsled Ride. They enjoyed shopping for antiques in the French Quarter, which inspired the creation of New Orleans Square. They learned about hidden treasure on an island near Cuba, which prompted the construction of Pirates of the Caribbean, which Walt did not live to see completed.

Lillian did not fulfill her own dream. She did not share Walt’s love of classical music, preferring to listen to Lawrence Welk. But she felt her pain when Fantasia (1940) flopped at the box office. In 1987, 21 years after her death, she donated fifty million dollars to build Walt Disney Concert Hall, which would be the new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. What better legacy than to bring Beethoven and Mozart to the masses as Walt wanted. But she was disheartened when her idea of ​​a simple brick building became much more elaborate in the hands of architect Frank Gehry. She soon ran out of fifty million and she wanted it back for fear that she had wasted her money on a sketchy waste. Her daughter Diane convinced her that Gehry’s design was wonderful, but she died six years before the room opened.

One great thing about Walt building Disneyland was that he and Lillian got to play tour guides for world leaders. Gol Ms. Disney was sorely disappointed when Russian boss Nikita S. Khrushchev and his wife didn’t come to the park in 1960. Anaheim police said they couldn’t provide enough security. The Soviet premier morosely settled for a star-studded lunch at Twentieth Century Fox. During the meal, Frank Sinatra was informed of Mrs. Khrushchev’s disappointment at missing The Magic Kingdom. Old Blue-Eyes slammed his fist down on the table. Fuck the cops. I’ll take the old lady down there and watch her myself. He grabbed her hand and was near the door when he was stopped by the KGB. Back at Disneyland, Walt made Lillian smile by telling her that he was just as disappointed as she was. She was dying to show the communist ruler his new submarine fleet.