Inside the Whimsy Works: My Life with Walt Disney Productions

215 Pages·2014·2.977 MB·English

by  Jimmy Johnson, Greg Ehrbar, Didier Ghez, Grey Johnson

InsIde the WhImsy Works
This page intentionally left blank
My life with Walt Disney productions
JiMMy JoHnson
edited by greg ehrbar
and Didier ghez
University Press of Mississippi • Jackson
www.upress.state.ms.us
Designed by Peter D. Halverson
The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of
American University Presses.
Copyright © 2014 by Grey Johnson
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2014
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnson, Jimmy, 1917–1976, author.
Inside the whimsy works : my life with Walt Disney Productions / Jimmy Johnson ;
edited by Greg Ehrbar and Didier Ghez.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-61703-930-0 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-61703-931-7 (paper) —
ISBN 978-1-61703-932-4 (ebook) 1. Johnson, Jimmy, 1917–1976. 2. Walt Disney
Company—History. 3. Sound recording executives and producers—United States—
Biography. 4. Music publishers—United States—Biography. 5. Executives—United
States—Biography. I. Ehrbar, Greg, editor. II. Ghez, Didier, editor. III. Title.
ML429.J64A3 2014
780.92—dc23
[B] 2013030497
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
To my wife, Ann, and my children, Grey, Glenys, and Gennifer
J.A.J.
To Suzanne, Katie, and Colin
G.E.
To Rita, the music of my life
D.G.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Foreword
ix
editors’ introduction
xiii
Author’s introduction
xvii
Chapter 1 Halcyon Days at Hyperion
3
Chapter 2 World War II
19
Chapter 3 Back to the Studio
25
Chapter 4 The Perilous Postwar Years
39
Chapter 5 Disney Publications
47
Chapter 6 Music Publishing and How Davy Crockett Turned It Around
57
Chapter 7 We Take the Plunge into the Perilous Record Business
73
viii • Contents
Chapter 8 Disneyland Park Springs from an Orange Grove
97
Chapter 9 Buoyant Days at Burbank
105
Chapter 10 Music and Mary Poppins
115
Chapter 11 Walt and Roy and the Right Wavelength
135
Chapter 12 Walt Disney’s One World
145
Chapter 13 Roy Completes Walt Disney’s Dream
161
A World at War
175
epilogue
179
notes
181
index
185
ForeWord
wAlt disney needed Boy scouts. lots oF Boy scouts For the
final scenes of Follow Me, Boys! starring Fred MacMurray, Vera Miles,
Kurt Russell, and Lillian Gish. No studio employee with a son was ex-
empt, and of course who wouldn’t want to be in The Movies? So we all
stood tall and looked trustworthy during the casting call. And I’ll never
know whether I just looked more trustworthy than the rest, or that my
father had something to do with the fact that I was one of four boys
chosen for the Color Guard.
We spent a chaotic day on The Walt Disney Studios backlot, all
marching around a fake city square in front of the fake Bijou movie the-
ater following Fred MacMurray’s open convertible as he was heralded
by the town as the best Boy Scout leader ever, because he’d saved the
troubled Kurt Russell from a life as a juvenile delinquent. And then we
spent an even more chaotic day marching around at the Disney Ranch
doing similar activities.
It was awe inspiring, but the thing I remember most was the form
I had to fill out at the casting call. It must have been an all-Hollywood,
Screen Actors Guild, or other sort of General Form that every extra in
any film for years before and years after filled out. And the impressive
thing to me was the list of movie studios that you had to look at, and
then check the one that was making this movie. In nonalphabetical or-
der the list read something like this:
MGM
Paramount
20th Century Fox
United Artists
Universal
Columbia
ix