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. 22 The studypointed toward a location southeast of Los Angeles in Anaheim, in OrangeCounty just oª the Santa Ana Freeway.That freeway was then under con-struction, but most of it between downtown Los Angeles and OrangeCounty was scheduled for completion in 1954.It would be the main routeto Disneyland. I had a precise assignment, Price said in 2003, and I didn t burden my-self with the idea, is this crazy? For example, how do you figure the locationof this thing that s going to draw a lot of people and it s going to have world-wide interest.Where do you put it in southern California? There were waysto measure that, and we did it, and we put it in the right place. 23Disney s behavior in 1953 was as entrepreneurial as it had been thirty yearsearlier, but with a major diªerence.He now understood that he needed solidfooting of some kind before he made a speculative leap.Even then, economicstudies could not tell him whether an amusement park like Disneyland wouldbe successful, but only how to improve the odds for success.Harper Goª re-membered that Disney recoiled at first from the implications of Price s study,taking refuge again in the notion of a Riverside Drive park. The StanfordResearch people said that when Walt Disney puts in an amusement park, he s240 he was i nteres ted i n s omethi ng els e got to have a lot of space, but Walt was horrified, Goª said. He said, Theythink I m making a lot of money, and they re trying to get me to spend a lot.I can t go into a big thing like that. But finally Walt was convinced when theysaid there wouldn t be enough space for parking at the Riverside Drive site.24Goª s own involvement with Disneyland was limited at the time becausehe was the de facto art director (a title that union rules denied him on thescreen) of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.It was while Disney was ramping uphis involvement with Disneyland that work on that film got under way.Forthe first time, Disney had signed top-rank movie stars Kirk Douglas andJames Mason for one of his live-action films.Douglas s salary alone, fortwelve weeks work, was $175,000, which Douglas later claimed, probablycorrectly, was the most Disney had ever paid an actor in his live-action films.25Making 20,000 Leagues would entail other expenses exceeding any previouslyincurred on the studio s live-action films.The new sound stage was only thebeginning; underwater filming oª the Bahamas and abundant specialeªects still lay ahead.20,000 Leagues was one of the first films made in theCinemaScope wide-screen process, a major weapon in Hollywood s eªort towin back audiences lost to television.Disney was making his entrance into real Hollywood filmmaking as flashyas possible, clearly with the idea of establishing himself immediately as some-thing more than a producer of children s films.20,000 Leagues was unusual,Disney said, in that Roy Disney had confidence in the film, even as the budgetclimbed past four million dollars. For some reason, from the very start hebelieved in that picture.I got worried then.I thought there was some-thing wrong with him. Harper Goª remembered that Disney himself could not suppress anxietyabout the risks he and his brother were taking.Goª had designed the Nau-tilus, Captain Nemo s submarine, to suggest a sea beast, with prominent eyes and saw blades on the prow that could tear through the hulls of wooden ships. I had to sell the features in my drawings of the Nautilus to Walt.He d say, Do you think all of this is necessary? Do you know what all of this is goingto cost?. Walt tried everything he could to keep things simple and keepthings cheap because he hadn t made any money from these pictures yet.Heonce said to me, Harper, all the money that my brother and I have made inour lives is tied up in this one stupid picture. 26Other members of the Disney staª sensed in Disney who was now inhis early fifties some of the same unease. Walt Disney had to make a lotof difficult decisions in the 1950s, Frank Thomas said in an interview withThe E Ticket. He scaled back animation, increased his involvement withes capi ng from fi lm, 1 953 1 959 241 Disneyland and live-action filming.I don t think he was that sure of himselfon a lot of his decisions, at that point.I can remember the way he said thingsto us, and the way he acted, and the way he squirmed in his chair.I felt thathe wasn t sure, but he didn t want to admit that he wasn t sure, because hewas our leader. 27Whatever Disney s worries, they did not slow his improvised research forhis park.In August 1953, when The Sword and the Rose was released, RichardTodd was in New York doing a promotional thing for him I was there damnnear a month, and I was living at the Waldorf-Astoria in the Towers, beingvery well looked after. Disney had just returned to New York on August 9from a month in Europe. He rang me up one day and said, Come to ConeyIsland with me. I could feel my face falling.It wasn t my ideal place, but,anyhow, I said, Yes, yes, thank you. We had a hell of a good day, actually.That was the beginning of Disneyland.He was going to see what the thingswere that people liked doing.We did everything the switchbacks [rollercoasters], the horses, everything.We ate the fluªy stuª [cotton candy].Wehad a lovely day, thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. 28In California a few days later, Todd and his wife spent a day with Waltand Lillian at their home in Holmby Hills, where Todd saw cabinets full ofthe objects he loved: tiny things; miniatures of all sorts in china, wood ormetal. Disney gave Todd a tiny potbellied stove that he had made himself, a beautiful little thing about six inches high, painted in white, green andgold. 29With a site for his park chosen but his own resources exhausted, Disneyneeded the studio s help to buy the 160 acres Disneyland would require.OnSeptember 11, 1953, he won his board s support by arguing, in eªect, that tele-vision could be used for more than promoting the studio s theatrical films,until then the prevailing rationale.He would use television as a lever to bringhis park into existence, by making a network s investment in it a conditionof his providing a program.Then he would use his TV show to promote thepark itself.30But first he had to find a willing partner
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