Didier Ghez is no stranger to uncovering stories previously lost to time within Disney. As a teenager in the 1980s, Didier was passionate about Disney history, growing up to be the author of a plethora of books and series, including The Drew As They Pleased and Walt’s People. Now President of the Hyperion Historical Alliance, Didier Ghez helps lead the nonprofit organization’s mission to preserve the company’s history. One of the ways he helps achieve those goals is through the organization’s publications through the Hyperion Historical Alliance Monograph Series. The most recent publication, The Origins of Walt Disney's True-Life Adventures, was released last year and traces the events that led Walt Disney to push the boundaries of the nature documentary genre. This interview with the author and Disney aficionado covers the making of this book, as well as future publications from the HHA Monograph Series.
(Hyperion Historical Alliance/Didier Ghez)
Alex: There must've been a lot of reverse engineering to tell this story. Can you tell me about your research that led to discovering that the True-Life Adventures story begins with live-action reference footage for Bambi?
Didier Ghez: That is the most fun to write a publication like this: you are exploring almost virgin territory. Regarding research, there were three big “AHA!” moments. The first one was the discovery of the correspondence of Jake Day and the diaries of his friend Lester Hall. I realized by reading them that those two men, whom the Disney studio had sent on a research trip to Maine during the making of Bambi, were operating the same way as the cinematographers sent years later to film the True-Life Adventures. In other words, by getting access to those documents, thanks to the families of Day and Hall, I uncovered the very roots of the True-Life Adventures. The second biggest discovery were the papers of artist Holling C. Holling. Better known for his work as a children's books writer and illustrator, Holling was also one of the first Disney artists to work on many of the original True-Life Adventures. Therefore, his papers contained dozens of documents that shed light on early True-Life Adventures projects, including many that were eventually shelved. This allowed me to connect the dots. Finally, I tracked down the diaries, the photographs, and the lost autobiography of cinematographers Al and Elma Milotte, allowing me to follow them daily on their one-year adventure to Alaska in 1946. Stumbling upon their autobiography was fascinating since not even their family knew a copy had been preserved! My wife still remembers me jumping up and down around our house with a massive smile on my face the day I received the manuscript.
Alex: As Disney fans, we often hear that the war was Walt's impetus to diversify his studio and get into live-action filmmaking. But your book also traces that back to the propaganda films Disney produced during those years. Would we not have had one without the other?
Didier Ghez: The lessons Walt was forced to learn during the war years were key for what came next. In the chapter I called “The Great Teacher,” I explain how the training films that the Disney studio created for the military as well as the commercial shorts that it produced for several big companies like Johnson & Johnson, General Motors, and Firestone, led Walt to realize that he could teach while entertaining, which eventually led him to move in the direction of what became the True-Life Adventures and People and Places series.
Alex: One of the biggest surprises from the book is that the earliest True-Life Adventure films were attempts to salvage filming that had been done for more ambitious projects. In many ways, this book is also the origin story of the lesser-known People and Places series. Do you feel there's enough untold story to warrant a book about that series?
Didier Ghez: The Origins of Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventures focuses strictly on the series' origins until the release of the first True-Life Adventure, “Seal Island.” There is a lot more to be told, not just about the making of all the other True-Life Adventures (each one could justify its monograph!) but also about the making of the People and Places series and about the other parallel educational series that Walt had in mind at the time. One of our members is already starting to research the making of the People and Places, and I am working on a monograph about two other series that Walt had in mind in the early 1950s: one about Music and the other about History. The story is fascinating, which takes us all the way to the making of the shorts Ben and Me, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, and several others!
Alex: The book holds a lot of artwork and photographs that have never been published before. How difficult is it to clear permissions, and is it more challenging since the book isn't published by one of Disney's imprints?
Didier Ghez: The Hyperion Historical Alliance is lucky to benefit from the full support of The Walt Disney Company—especially The Walt Disney Archives and Disney’s Animation Research Library—which simplifies the approval process. The fact that we are an official non-profit association also helps a lot, as does our focus on sharing accurate information and fully documented stories that have not been told before (at least not in this amount of detail). In some instances, especially when securing approvals for the use of photos pertaining to third parties, the fact that the monographs are not released by one of Disney’s imprints simplifies things by clarifying the fact that the project is not a commercial one (by definition it is not-for-profit if released by the HHA).
Alex: The first book in this series was about Fun & Fancy Free, which appeals more to Disney animation fans. But the True-Life Adventures book has a surprisingly large amount of Disney animation history. What would you say to a Disney animation fan who initially dismissed this book, thinking it wouldn't interest them?
Didier Ghez: When you start researching Disney's history, you quickly realize that all is connected. Walt Disney’s brain operated in such a way that animation led to live-action production and theme park designs in an endless loop. While researching The Origins of Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventures, I learned a lot more, not just about “Seal Island” or about the making of “The Alaskan Eskimo” (the first of the People and Places series), but also about the making of Bambi and the making of Donald’s short The New Spirit, about Donald’s educational stories in Life magazine, and some odd abandoned animated projects like The ABCs of Music. I admit that some of my favorite discoveries were related to the obscure commercial shorts from the mid-1940s, including “Bathing Time for Baby” and the abandoned “If Tires Could Talk.” I love the characters designed for those last two projects, and it was a joy to present them for the first time in this volume.
Alex: Can you share your plans for a possible 3rd volume of the Hyperion Historical Alliance Academic Monograph Series?
Didier Ghez: Yes, indeed. The plans for the series are ambitious ones. The next volume, which will be released before the end of 2023, will be a monograph about Walt Disney and El Grupo in Latin America. This monograph about the 1941 trip is a collaboration between J.B. Kaufman, Ted Thomas, and yours truly. This is the first day-by-day account of the trip, complete with 240 never-seen-before photographs. The layout is complete and awaiting final review. This should be followed by a monograph by Imagineer Tom Morris titled Walt Disney Imagineering: In the Beginning, the first of several volumes by Tom Morris about the early history of WDI. I cannot wait to read this publication which took years for Tom Morris to research, and which will revolutionize our understanding of WED/WDI’s history. Next will come a series of two or three monographs about Mickey Mouse on Stage and Radio in the 1930s. A collaboration between myself and my friend Libby Spatz, this series will explore a subject that has never been discussed in so much detail. The number of discoveries we made while researching it is staggering from a text and illustration standpoint. You will never see Mickey Mouse the same way again after you get those monographs. In the 1930s, he was everywhere! This volume will move to layout soon and should be released next year. There will also be a monograph about The Making of Disneyland ’59, another one about The Making of Walt Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson, one about The Making of Walt Disney’s Darby O'Gill and the Little People, a sequel to The Origins of Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventures titled Walt Disney's Adventures in Music, History, and Nature, a sequel to the Walt Disney and El Grupo in Latin America monograph titled Walt Disney and El Grupo Return to Latin America — 1942 to 1944, and many others. It's all very, very exciting!
Visit HyperionHistoricalAlliance.org to learn more about the organization. Click here to purchase your copy of The Origins of Walt Disney's True-Life Adventures by Didier Ghez.
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