October 13 - Dave Smith

On this day, in 1940, David Rollin Smith was born in Pasadena, California. Growing up in Southern California meant that Dave was able to spend some time soaking up Disneyana. He enjoyed going to see Disney movies, liked watching Disney television shows and was able to visit Disneyland on a regular basis. The history of the company and its founders, well that wasn't something he ever gave any thought to. Until he happened to be in the right place at the right time.

After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, Dave traveled across the country to do an 18-month internship at the Library of Congress. When his stint there ended, he came back to the west coast and became a librarian for UCLA. During the later half of the Sixties, Dave did some work with the Walt Disney Company, helping to compile a Disney bibliography. Through that process, he got to know some people around the place. After Walt died, the remaining leadership began to realize that the people who knew all about all the projects that the company had done weren't going to be around forever. Dave heard that the company was looking to start an archive of the company's history so he offered his services. He was taken up on that offer and the Walt Disney Archives was born.

His new job began on June 22, 1970. Dave's first task: to catalog everything in Walt's office at the Burbank studio, most of which had been just lying around untouched since his passing. Since then, Dave says it's been an incredible journey. Anything and everything about anything and everything to do with the company has to be read, preserved and cataloged. Need to know something about the Carnation Ice Cream Parlor in Disneyland that hasn't been open since 1997? There's a file on that. Need to see an original script of Steamboat Willie? They have one. From photographs to Walt's personal correspondence to merchandise samples, Dave spent forty years making sure that the Disney legacy was preserved for all to see. Well, not all, you do have to be an employee or a scholar to get into most of the archive.

Another project that Dave is proud of happened early on in his employment with the company. In his spare time, he helped Walt's brother, Roy O. Disney, research and compile a Disney family history and tree. He says one of the most interesting things about the family is that while Walt and Roy come from a big family (they had 65 first cousins!), since their father came into the United States via Canada, most of the other Disneys in this country aren't related to them.

All those years steeped in Disney lore of course had to leak out somewhere. Dave has written a number of books about the company. Some are straight up trivia books, one is a compilation of Walt quotes, one is a history of the first 100 years of Disney and one is an encyclopedia titled Disney A to Z (I have an autographed copy of that one). In 2007, Dave was made an official Disney Legend for his work on the Archive (I wonder if he then had to make a file on himself). These days he stays mostly retired as Chief Archivist Emeritus, although occasionally one might find him leading a limited tour of the archives for the lucky few who gain entry.

Also on this day, in American history: Lenny Bruce