A brief Q & A with Jeff Kurtti (author “Travels With Walt Disney - A Photographic Voyage Around The World”), featuring excerpts from his most recent guest lecture at THE HILBERT MUSEUM of CALIFORNIA ART on Saturday, December 1, 2018.
HOW DID YOU COME TO WRITE A BOOK ABOUT WALT DISNEY’S TRAVELS?
“TRAVELS WITH WALT DISNEY - A PHOTOGRAPHIC VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD actually grew out of another idea. I was doing a presentation on a Disney Cruise Line. I had done a presentation called Walt on The High Seas which was about him going on cruises. It was a cute little presentation for the cruise ship guests to see Walt. . . doing his sailing. A guy came up after the presentation and said, ‘You should have a little book about that (Walt’s travels by cruise ship) that we could get in the cruise line gift shop’. I made a pdf out my key notes, sent it to my editor, and asked, ‘Is there a book here?’ She responded, ‘There’s a book here, but you’re too narrow! People don’t know what a world traveler Walt was. They don’t know how much of an internationalist he was.’”
HOW DID RESEARCHING WALT DISNEY SHAPE YOUR VIEW OF ‘THE MAN’?
“The idea of Walt as an internationalist seemed strange to a lot of people because he’s viewed as…a reflection of the American mid-west and the values he came from growing up. . . in Marceline and Kansas City. To have confirmed to me how he was greeted in foreign ports for instance. . . he went to England and was actually bombarded in a press conference (a frenzy that went on for hours). . . I think the thing I discovered was that the affirmation of an idea that I had all along - this notion about Walt Disney…a narrowly-focused pedestrian world view - as “the consummate American” (in a negative way) was completely incorrect!”
“Walt spent much of his life personally and professionally seeking out the world to explore…bring home…and show us. He was a frequent and enthusiastic tourist. He was in foreign capitals and destinations around the world attending premiers or supervising a film production or just vacationing with his family… He became a citizen of the world - from Denmark to Argentina, from England to Greece. Austria, Chile, Canada, France - all of them welcomed Walt Disney as an emissary of his good name, good works, and his good reputation. And he brought back ideas, artistic inspirations.”
HOW DO YOU SUPPOSE A ‘SMALL-TOWN BOY’ LIKE WALT GREW TO APPRECIATE AND ENJOY TRAVELING?
“There was little variety or adventure for a boy who was growing up in the American Midwest in the early years of the twentieth century. It was limited, it was landlocked, and many people in this region never left the few square-miles surrounding their birthplace. For Walt however, the appeal of exploration was so strong and it was fueled by the tales of his immigrant and somewhat peripatetic relatives (his family ventured from property in Canada to Florida before Walt was even born). There were the tales of literary fiction - Walt was a reader when he was a kid. Then of course, he grew up in a little town called Marceline (which even to this day a train goes though there about every seven minutes). He grew up with that ‘call to roam’ as the poet says…From the earliest days, Walt wanted to move on.”
WAS WALT CHANGED OR SHAPED BY THE LOCALES THAT HE VISITED?
“In the summer of 1918 Walt was living in Chicago and did not want to return to High School. He was caught up in the patriotic fervor of World War I, and Walt remembered, ‘I just had to get in there’. Walt was only sixteen and seventeen was the minimum age for enlistment, so Walt hatched a plan to join the Red Cross Ambulance Corp. by forging his birth certificate…So Walt was to Company A of the Automotive and Mechanical section of the Red Cross Ambulance Corp. and you see photos here. He spent much of his time in Evacuation Hospital Number Five. He took full adolescent advantage of this sort of world tour he was involved in. He climbed a tree in Paris to try to catch a glimpse of President Woodrow Wilson. He played poker. He was a chauffeur for ‘Army Brass’. He was later relocated outside Paris to Neufchateau, a village on the countryside. He recognized and his brother recognized as he came home - Walt had made a transition from being a boy to being a man. That experience in Europe had transitioned him into adulthood.”
Jeff shared a rare treat of a previously ‘unknown’ trip Walt and family went on (some time before the release of Mary Poppins). The ship traveled throughout Polynesia and even docked in New Zealand, where Walt was interviewed by then Australia Broadcasting Corporation reporter Suzanne Baker (pictured on screen)!
DID YOU MAKE ANY ‘NEW’ DISCOVERIES ABOUT WALT DISNEY’S INTERNATIONAL EXCURSIONS?
“One of the things I didn’t get to feature in the book was this trip which I found referenced in files and travel notations in Walt’s desk diaries. This clipping that. . . Paul Anderson from Disney History Institute sent to me - it’s from an Australian TV magazine. In October of 1962, Walt and his kids and grandkids boarded the S.S. Mariposa which sailed from Southern California to the South Pacific. It docked in New Zealand. I never knew that Walt had this experience in New Zealand, Pago Pago, Bora Bora, Papeete, Nadi, and then Honolulu. I had no idea about this trip. It seems like it was a family excursion, but I could find precious little detail about it in any of the record. So, not in the book! I’m going to find out one of these days.”
WALT’S TRAVELS - Walt enjoys a walk on St. Stephen’s Green in 1959, Walt and Ward take a holiday during 1948 and enjoy Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, Walt films the penguins at the London Zoo during 1935, and Walt and daughter Diane explore the Henry Ford Museum on April 12th, 1940!
HOW HAS WALT DISNEY’S LIFE ENCOURAGED YOUR OWN LIFE AND WORK?
“I never wrote a book until I wrote a book. I never directed a documentary until I directed a documentary. There isn't a ramp up to that or stair steps to that. You sort of dive in and do it. That’s a lot of what Walt did - he dove right in and did it!”
HOW HAVE YOU PERSONALLY BENEFITTED FROM RESEARCHING WHERE WALT TRAVELED?
“I never have stopped learning about him. Someone had made a. . . comment about how I had wasted my life studying Walt Disney and his life’s work. I have a family and we’ve been all over the world and have done all that we have because of him (Walt) and the work that I've done with his company and in documenting his life.”
“Travels With Walt Disney - A Photographic Voyage Around The World” is available through fine book retailers for this holiday shopping season. What a “photographic voyage” - as page after page is filled with colorful rarely-seen photographs of Walt and family globe-trotting for business and pleasure!