June 28 - Herb Ryman

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On this day, in 1910, Herbert Dickens Ryman was born in Vernon, Illinois. When he was 9, Herb's family moved to Decatur. He began following in his father's footsteps as a medical student at the private Millikin University there, until he became deathly ill with scarlet fever. His mother, who had pushed for the medical studies over what Herb wanted to pursue, an artistic career, became concerned for his health and relented, allowing him to enroll in the Art Institute of Chicago. He graduated cum laude and, in 1932, moved out to Los Angeles, California to try his luck at making money with his art. He quickly found a job at the MGM Studio, as a storyboard illustrator. For a while during the studio's Golden Age, Herb was the only illustrator on staff and helped design the looks of such classic films as Mutiny on the Bounty, David Copperfield, the Emerald City portion of The Wizard of Oz and The Good Earth.

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Something about The Good Earth really struck a chord with Herb. He was inspired enough by his work on that film to quit his job and spend a year traveling around China. He made hundreds of sketches and paintings during his Asian tour, publishing many of them in a book when he returned to the states in 1938. As part of his homecoming, Herb had an exhibition of his work at the Chouinard Art Institute which was attended by Walt Disney. Walt was so impressed with Herb's paintings, he asked him if he wanted a job. Herb said sure and became Disney's art director on Fantasia and Dumbo. In the summer of 1941, when Walt and an entourage took a goodwill tour of South America on behalf of the United States government, Herb was one of the artists that went along for the ride. His sketches from the trip influenced the look of both Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros.

Following the end of World War II, Herb got word that 20th Century Fox was developing a film based on the novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. He had actually become an acquaintance of Margaret during his time in China and was interested in working on the film. He amiably resigned his position at Disney and changed studios again. Over the next several years, Herb worked on Fox films including Forever Amber, David and Bathsheba and The Robe.

For two summers, in 1949 and 1950, Herb took leaves of absence from Fox and literally joined the circus. He traveled with the performers of Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey, preserving their way of life through his paintings. During his time with the circus, he became good friends with Emmett Kelly, one of the greatest clowns of all time.

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On September 26, 1953, Herb received a desperate call from another old friend, Walt Disney, asking for an immediate meeting. Intrigued, Herb agreed. When they came face to face, Walt began describing all his ideas for a new theme park and asked if Herb could produce some drawings bringing those ideas to life. Herb said sure, when do you want them? Walt said how about right now? The two men worked pretty much non stop throughout the weekend to finish several detailed sketches. It wasn't long after that when Roy Disney took those sketches and showed them to the investors who would agree to finance Walt's latest dream. Without them, Disneyland might never have become reality.

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Once the plans for his theme park were securely in place, Walt asked Herb to come back to work at Disney. This time around, Herb worked mainly with WED Enterprises, designing and creating concept images for theme park attractions. For Disneyland, he helped design Sleeping Beauty Castle, Main Street USA, New Orleans Square, the Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean. He was integral to the development of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln for the 1964 World's Fair. He was the chief designer of Cinderella Castle when the Florida Project was taking shape.

In 1971, Herb officially retired from Disney, but like most old timers of the era, he never completely walked away. By 1976, he was back consulting with the company on plans for EPCOT Center, giving style to the American Adventure and the China pavilion. He then helped design a history of Japan show for the opening of Tokyo Disneyland called Meet the World. His last project with Disney was creating concepts for the version of Main Street USA that would eventually debut at Euro Disneyland.

Image courtesy rymanarts.org

Outside of his work with various Hollywood studios, Herb was a prolific artist. In addition to his paintings with the circus, he created watercolors of the California coastline and portraits of various celebrities. He was a member of the American Institute of Fine Arts, the Society of Illustrators and the California Art Club. His paintings were collected by the Guggenheims, the Barrymores and Cecil B. DeMille among others.

In late 1988, Herb became ill and he passed away on February 10, 1989 at the age of 78. In 1990, he was officially declared a Disney Legend for all his work shaping the beloved Disney theme parks. That same year, his sister Lucille, along with Marty Sklar, Sharon Disney and Buzz Price, created the Ryman-Carroll Foundation in Herb's honor. The Foundation's main purpose is running Ryman Arts, an organization that provides free art classes with master teachers to Los Angeles area high school students. You can find out more about their work, and the man that inspired them, at rymanarts.org.

June 15 - Bill Martin

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On this day, in 1917, Wilson E. Martin was born in Marshalltown, Iowa. Bill, as he was known, and his family moved to Los Angeles, California when he was still pretty young. After high school, he went to Los Angeles Junior College and then on to the Chouinard Art Institute to study architecture. Following his graduation from Chouinard, Bill got a job as a set designer for 20^th Century Fox in 1940. His career was interrupted by World War II, which he spent in the United States Air Force as a bombardier trainer. Following the war, Bill worked for a company called Panoramic Productions before returning to Fox, this time as an assistant art director. Then, in 1953, he got an offer he couldn’t refuse.

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While working at Fox, Bill got a phone call. Someone from the Walt Disney Studio was wondering if he would like to switch companies. Disney was looking for new talent to become part of a group of employees referred to as Imagineers, was he interested? Bill jumped at the chance and became part of the team working to make Walt’s Disneyland dreams come true. One of his first assignments was to travel around to existing amusement parks to study existing systems and figure out what was working and, more importantly, what wasn’t. Then it was back to Burbank for massive brainstorming sessions.

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Bill would be the first to admit that not all of his ideas were great ones. Take, for example, the corset shop he dreamed up for Main Street USA called The Wizard of Bras. Obviously that particular shop never made it past the idea phase, but it was that kind of creative thinking that convinced Walt to make Bill the art director for Fantasyland. As a result, he was integral in shaping the design of everything in the area, attractions like Sleeping Beauty’s Castle and Peter Pan’s Flight, as well as the land’s general layout and look. Once Disneyland was opened, Bill would move on to other projects in the ever expanding park. He helped design the Autopias, Bear Country, the monorail system and New Orleans Square including both its signature attractions, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion.

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By 1971, Bill had become the Vice President of Design at WED Enterprises (now called Walt Disney Imagineering). He was the man in charge of the master layout for the company’s newest theme park endeavor, the Magic Kingdom of Walt Disney World. Bill’s personal design projects included the famous utilidors (the ‘tunnels’ underneath most of the Magic Kingdom’s guest areas), Cinderella Castle, Main Street USA (still no corset shop though) and the system of canals which connect various areas of the entire Florida property. As if that wasn’t enough, he also designed a wide array of watercraft that was going to be used in those canals, including the large ferry boats that run between the Magic Kingdom and the Transportation and Ticket Center and various smaller steam launches and side wheelers.

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Bill officially retired from Disney in 1977, but, like so many of the influencers of that era, he didn’t simply walk away. He continued to keep his hand in the theme park creation business, just on a consultation only basis. His influence can be experienced in the Mexico and Italy pavilions at Epcot and the master layout for Tokyo Disneyland. Bill was, naturally, declared an official Disney Legend in 1994 for taking the theme park design torch from Walt himself and carrying it right on into the future. He has also been honored with not one but two mentions on Main Street USA windows. If you are in Disneyland, look above the Main Street Bank and you’ll see a window with his given name, Wilson Martin, right over the name Gabriel Scognamillo, who was the art director for Tomorrowland during Disneyland’s creation. If you find yourself in the Magic Kingdom, Bill is named as part of a larger group of Walt Disney World’s original designers on a window above the Plaza Restaurant. That window reads “Walter E. Disney - Graduate School of Design & Master Planning - Instructors, Howard Brummitt, Marvin Davis, Fred Hope - Headmaster, Richard Irvine - Dean of Design, John Hench - Instructors, Vic Greene, Bill Martin, Chuck Myall.” Bill passed away on August 2, 2010. He was 93.

February 27 - Dorothea Redmond

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On this day, in 2009, Dorothea Holt Redmond passed away in Hollywood Hills, California. Born in Los Angeles on May 18, 1910, Dorothea became an architecture student at the University of Southern California earning her degree in 1933. She loved school so much, she rolled on into the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, earning a second degree in illustration in 1936.Two years later, she began working at Selznick International Pictures, the movie studio created by David O. Selznick, as the first woman to ever be hired as a Hollywood Production Designer.

The men Dorothea worked with were typical of their time (not that times have changed all that much in the last 81 years). Absolutely offended that anyone thought a woman could design a movie set, they insisted that she get her own, fully enclosed space to work, decidedly separate from them. I'd place money on the fact that the peace and quiet she got from that arrangement helped fuel the extraordinary work she produced. It wouldn't be long before Dorothea was considered the best illustrator working anywhere in the motion picture industry.

One of the people to notice Dorothea's talents was the director Alfred Hitchcock. Her aesthetic dovetailed perfectly into his own, giving him visual cues he could pass on to his cinematographers to help enhance the look of his films. Starting in 1940 with Rebecca, Dorothea and Alfred would work closely together on seven of his films, including Rear Window and To Catch a Thief. While the director was notoriously hard to work with, Dorothea declared him to be one of her favorite people in the industry, a sentiment which probably did as much to foster their relationship as her designs.

Not only did the Selznick studio bring Dorothea professional notice, it also brought her the love of her life. While working on pre-production designs for both Gone With the Wind and Rebecca, she met Harry Redmond Jr., who was working on the set of The Prisoner of Zelda at the time. They married in 1940, designed and built a house together and lived happily for the next 69 years.

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After her work in the film industry, Dorothea took a position with an architectural firm working under Charles Luckman and William Pereira. She designed interiors for both Los Angeles International Airport and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Later she was part of the team in charge of the Seattle Space Needle, but it was her firm's involvement in the Disneyland Hotel project that eventually earned her a place in this blog.

In 1966, WED Enterprises lured Dorothea away from her architecture career designing mundane things like airports and needles and introduced her to the exciting world of Imagineering. One of her first assignments was New Orleans Square in Disneyland. She helped shape the look of stores, restaurants and even created an apartment above the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction that would have been Walt's new residence within the park. The area, almost complete at the time of  Walt's death, was never used until 1987, when it became the Disney Gallery. It was refinished in 2008 to look exactly as Dorothea design it and to serve as the Disneyland Dream Suite, which was given to random guests to enjoy until its closure in 2014.

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Dorothea was also instrumental in helping bring Walt Disney World to life. She was in charge of the design team for Fantasyland and parts of Main Street, USA. And if you enjoy the mosaics as you walk through Cinderella Castle, you have her to thank, whether you're visiting Florida or Tokyo Disneyland. Fellow Imagineer Marty Sklar always felt that her sketches of places were extraordinary in their ability to bring a place out of imagination and into reality.

In 2008, Dorothea was made an official Disney Legend for her lasting contributions to Disney parks around the world. Less than a year later, she passed away at her home from congestive heart failure. She was 98.

February 15 - Cinderella

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On this day, in 1950, Walt Disney Productions' twelfth animated feature, Cinderella, had its world debut in Boston, Massachusetts. The Disney Studio had limped through World War II. With most foreign markets unavailable (and folks at home focused on making sacrifices for the war effort), the features Disney released during those years had failed to turn much, if any, profit. With a limited staff (most of the guys had enlisted), Walt cobbled shorts together into "package" films just to keep the place open. By the war's end, more than $4 million in debt threatened to force Walt into bankruptcy (again). As the boys returned home, Walt, desperate for a hit, turned attention to the land of fairy tales and implored them to dig up a diamond.

Walt's first take on Cinderella happened in 1922 when he produced a Laugh-O-Gram cartoon based on the French tale. In the early Thirties, he wanted to make a Silly Symphony of the story, but it quickly became apparent that it would be too hard to condense the narrative enough. In 1938, it was decided that Cinderella would probably make a good feature and work began on a script. Ideas were kicked around and refined over the next few years. Production was ready to start in earnest when most work the studio was doing was stopped by order of the United States Government. It wouldn't be until 1948 that Walt blew the dust off Cinderella's script and everyone sharpened their pencils once more.

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Cinderella marked the first film that all of Walt's Nine Old Men would work together on as supervising animators. It also marked the first film that Walt wasn't overseeing on a daily basis. He was in England off and on supervising the filming of the studio's first live action picture, Treasure Island.  While that gave the Men more autonomy, it also made the movie more expensive. Every time Walt would show up, he had all sorts of little changes he wanted done to work that was already finished. By October 1949, pencils and paintbrushes had finally been laid down and Cinderella was ready for her coming out party.

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The picture was Disney's biggest critical success since Dumbo and its biggest financial success since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Cinderella grossed over $8 million and became the sixth highest grossing film of 1950. It did even better in England, coming in at fifth. Not only did Cinderella wipe out the studio's debt, it provided enough cash flow to last the rest of the Fifties. It received three Academy Award nominations (Best Sound, Best Song and Best Score) and won the Golden Bear (Music Film) at the first Berlin International Film Festival.

Since then, Cinderella has become a staple in the Disney family. She's spawned two animated sequels and a live action adaptation. She even has two castles, one in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World and another in Tokyo Disneyland (never mind the fact that that upstart Aurora has three). She may not be the smartest or the most assertive Disney Princess, but she does possess that special something that means she'll be around for many more years to come.