“To all who come to this happy place, welcome. Disneyland is your land.”
Walt Disney July 17, 1955
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Just when you thought you have seen and read everything there is about the opening day of Disneyland on July 17th, 1955, comes another eye-opening book from best-selling author Aaron H. Goldberg.
Presenting Disneyland features forgotten, never-before seen colored, candid photographs from Disneyland’s opening day more than sixty-eight years ago.
The 160-page hardcover book captures images of everyone involved in the opening day ceremonies from host Walt Disney to his cast of celebrity emcees and invited guests.
Goldberg’s book allows avid-Disney fans and readers to step into the wonderful world of color photography to experience opening day like never before.
The photos are courtesy of a Walt Disney Studios photographer who was invited to attend opening day ceremonies. “This was this guy’s day at Disneyland,” Goldberg notes. “He worked for the studio and was fortunate enough to get an invitation,” the author says.
So, who was the photographer who captured these remarkable images? While his identity remains anonymous to readers, Goldberg says he worked in the camera department as a photographer for the Disney Studios between 1954 and 1956.
Goldberg acquired the images when a family member of the photographer reached out to him to see if he would be interested in the items. Once in possession Goldberg discovered a treasure-trove of more than one hundred Kodak Kodachrome slides in relatively good condition given their age. Before he could do anything with the images, Goldberg knew some slides would have to be repaired and cleaned before they could be digitized and placed in a book. “I had the pictures, I then had to figure out what to do with them,” Goldberg notes.
“The story has been told a million times,” Goldberg says. What helped him decide how to use the images was the fact they were not in black and white. “They were in color,” Goldberg realized adding that “Disney didn’t shoot in color on opening day.”
Armed with piles of information, text, and artifacts that he has collected over the years, the best-selling author married his newly acquired images with these materials. The result is a unique contribution to Disney history.
As if the photos are not special enough, Goldberg was able to have legendary Imagineer Bob Gurr to write the forward to his book. The idea came to Goldberg after he discovered a photo of Gurr in the images. “Gurr was riding an Autopia car in the opening day parade at Disneyland.” Goldberg reached out to the Disney legend who was gracious enough to recount his experiences on opening day escorting actress Gail Storm and her family around Walt’s park.
Presenting Disneyland is available on Amazon and on his website AaronHGoldberg.com.