AN OLD FRIEND COMES HOME

Every now and again, I spot one of my signed books on ebay and am chuffed to see what the bookseller is asking for it while, at the same time, being utterly disconsolate that I earned so little from it first time around!

That said, of course, there are just as many times (or more) when I find one of my titles going for 1p plus postage!

Sometimes – very rarely – I decided to "reclaim the goods".  For several months I've been havering over purchasing a particular volume: a copy of MICKEY MOUSE - HIS LIFE AND TIMES (1986) written with my friend and fellow Disney historian, Richard Holliss,

The copy in question was originally inscribed for the legendary Disney animator and Imagineer, John Hench (1908-2004) among whose many accomplishments were his designs for Disneyland, Walt Disney World and EPCOT Center, his collaboration with Salvador Dali on the film DESTINO, and a series of 'official portraits' of Mickey, marking the Mouse's 25th, 50th, 60, 70th and 75th birthdays.

I loved and admired John very much and I am particularly pleased to now be able to look after this book, linking him, Mickey and Disney with Richard and myself.

PLEASE NOTE: I no longer live at the address on my letter to John.

To read more about John and his associations with Disney and Dali –– and to see examples of his personal Christmas cards that I revived over many years, CLICK HERE

SCHICKEL AND DISNEY

The death occurred last weekend at the age of 84 of veteran American film critic, Richard Schickel. Longtime reviewer of film for Time magazine, he authored numerous books and was an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker.

Over the course of his life, Schickel once estimated that he’d seen around 22,590 movies, the first being Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1938.

It was the name of Disney that first introduced me to the name of Schickel when, in 1968, just two years after Walt's death, he published The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt Disney: a relentlessly harsh analysis of Disney that went very much against the grain of received opinion at the time.

In the UK the book was published under the simpler title, Walt Disney, but with an eye-grabbing dust-wrapper design...

 

Ethan Mordden in his book, The Hollywood Musical (1982) wrote of The Disney Version that Schickel's "resentment of Disney's wealth and power" stood out "like a soapbox nut's exhortation — horror of horrors, the man was a capitalist."

The book shocked and outraged a great many Disney fans as can be seen from Al Kilgore's brilliantly savage cartoon depicting the assassination of Mickey Mouse to accompany his highly critical review of the book in the September 1968 edition of Film Fan Monthly.

 

Today, after several decades of Disney hatchet-jobs, Schickel's book now seems comparatively bland, but back in 1968 it was rated as being little short of blasphemy! 

Certainly to the young Disney-devoted Sibley, The Disney Version was a clarion call to arms and for the next three years I worked on a biographical appreciation of Disney aimed at redressing what I saw as the damage done by Schickel's book. 

Entitled Disneydust (from that bibbidi-bobbidi-boo sparkle of magic seen in numerous Disney films) it was never published, although it did get as far as being listed (without the author having a contract!) in a catalogue of a publisher of somewhat dubious repute!

Later, however, some of that work would find its way into various chapters of The Disney Studio Story which I wrote in 1988 with Richard Holliss and the research and writing experience it gave me helped shape and focus my later writing career on many topics – Walt Disney among them.

So, Mr Schickel, may you rest in peace knowing that – whatever we thought about your assault on the Dream Merchant – you helped develop a young writer who was just awaiting that necessary spark of inspiration.

SWORDSMANSHIP

Following on from my recent post about The Once and Future King, I am sharing early photographic evidence of my attempts at getting that sword out of the stone.

Even with the sterling assistance of my good friend and fellow Disney historian, Richard Holliss (who excavated the photo) the effort defeated me. But then this was – as you can tell from my trim form and athletic posture! – long, long ago in a distant realm called Disneyland...

Photo: Christine Holliss