Marc Davis - Disney Family Album Part 3

one of the most fun things Simon saved I've ever had in the studio was doing the villain in 101 Dalmatians Cruella De Vil, she was a fun villain and even though what she was doing wasn't very nice, she was an entertaining character herself, huh? You know? There were certain personality traits that she had, she could never, ever make him listen to anything. I know several of those people, they do the talking and with the completion of Cruella De Vil, Marc was ready to tackle something new and Walt Disney had just the thing that the 1964 New York World's Fair marked on himself designing cavemen, a time-traveling

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, the children of the world, and our 16th president, all in three dimensions. so you had to do you had to think of something that he could make believable what he was a big fan of abraham lincoln listen i think i remember they said even when he was young he portrayed abraham lincoln and school and unlike a birthday or kind of in the type so Walt asked me to think about it for a bit and I did a number of things from how simple things work in anatomy to how maybe a mechanical hand could work this was pretty naive and thoughtful because really our problem wasn't creating a mechanical man it was really creating an illusion mr.

Lincoln would have to get up from a sitting position, move one leg forward, and then stand up. We had huge technical difficulties getting the character to move properly in New York and God would do great, then all of a sudden he would. make a big jerk Horace decided to sit out so anyway it was a very difficult period of time and we were about two weeks late for mr lincoln to operate which he was very nervous we were all nervous today he finally came for mr. Lincoln's first performance by golly mr. Lincoln went all the way to the end, in fact, we were so successful with this in the delusion that the critic, I think, from the New York Times saw it and explained how Mr.

Lincoln stood up and walked onto the stage and gave us directions so the illusion was pretty good it forms the bulwark of our freedom and independence it is not our golden battlements our bristling shoreline it is not our confidence against tyranny after the World's Fair all four Disney attractions moved to Disneyland and Mark she went with him when I started working there. There was nothing funny about any of the rides if I can remember and this is what I tried to do throughout the entire process. to bring it in i did the jungle river ride redevelopment and added the elephant pool and trap safari and that sort of thing to that and i think that trap safari was probably the first laugh that doesn't even have an attraction each new Disneyland attraction opened up another dimension to Marc's art and earned him some great advice from Walt Disney.

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well. let's look at this very closely okay when you're moving and like on a boat you don't see things you're moving through you see something here you see something there you're always looking ahead so the highly developed auctioneer figured out that people from there really was quite unnecessary and i said this to others he said hey look brand said it's great said you know he said we get so much repeat business here that means every time we go down we'll make him see something we didn't see before we Walt never got to see the entire Pirates of the Caribbean about two weeks before Walt died and he came into my office and he sat down he wanted to talk about affecting Jared it's a fact and he saw these drawings on the wall and he laughed like a shell he looked really big yes we went out we had a meeting a little thing we were doing he came back and walked down the hall he said goodbye i never saw him after that he never said goodbye to anyone in his life we'll see him next week or so but anyway, Probably the last laugh he had was these bear drawings in the mid-'60s, the brand was a mainstay on Wed, where Disneyland attractions are created, his designs are the basis for the country Bear Jamboree the Haunted Mansion and for the last job before his retirement America Sings and even though these projects were completed without Walt Disney Mark always remembers the best advice his boss gave him I remember one time I had a talk with Walt and this was in his office and I said you know what there is two ways they could do this a time expensive an expensive way he said he didn't say brand i know i know he said he says i think when you do something and you do it well enough the public will pay you and i think when other people understand that I believe you can do anything as an artist, Marc Davis could do anything, story sketches, animation, Disneyland design, he was the artist of an artist whose talent was a cornerstone of the Disney world. his fellow artists at Disney who presented him with the most cherished memento of his career sits in his home honorably situated among priceless pieces of New Guinean art a wonderful gift not from the company or the executives of the people he did things with i think these are compliments you could get