Customer Reviews

Walt's People Volume 1: Talking Disney With The Artists Who Knew Him

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I've read many books about Walt Disney. What I loved about this one is that the stories come from the people Walt worked with every day. Some of them even go so far back as Kansas City. Some of the interviews go deeper into the production of many of the films, especially the early ones.

Didier Ghez runs two very important sites in the Disney online community: Disney History and the Ultimate Disney Books Network. Didier has been researching Disney animation since his teens and co-authored Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Realitywith Alain Littaye.

The Walt's People seriesis five volumes with a sixth one on the way. Didier is the editor of the series and has put together some amazing interviews with Disney artists. In some cases, the interviewer is as well-known as the interviewee!

The compilation of interviews that Didier has collected makes this volume so very important to anyone researching Disney. The interviews are not just with animators, but artists that worked with Walt on Disneyland and went on to work on the Walt Disney World project. The stories, recollections and anecdotes are priceless and proffer a view of Walt that you can only get from talking to the people that worked directly with him.

The interviewees include:

* Rudolf Ising
* David Hand
* Bill Tytla
* Ken Anderson
* Jack Hannah
* John Hench (two interviews)
* Marc Davis (two interviews)
* Milt Kahl
* Harper Goff
* Joyce Carlson

The interviewers are equally impressive: J.B. Kaufman, Michael Barrier, George Sherman, Paul F. Andersen, Jim Korkis, Alain Littay, Didier Ghez, John Province, Michael Lyons and Robin Allan.

In the forward, Didier puts forth some important thoughts about the interviews.

...it is important to always keep in mind that no statement from any interview should ever be considered as the absolute truth, as the interviewee might have misremembered the facts, may have seen only part of the project described, or may have his own personal reasons for representing reality in a certain way. Hence the further importance of the various perspectives provided throughout this series.

Didier's work is going to play an important role in the future of research into the Disney Company. Many of the artists were involved in classic Disney animation at a time when credit wasn't clearly given or assigned. It is a chance for the artists to speak for themselves and offer an insight into the Disney Company that we will not likely find elsewhere. You might pass up a book like this if you are a theme park junkie, but reading the stories from artists like Hench, Davis, Carlson and Anderson--that worked on Disneyland and Walt Disney World projects--are wonderful.

Bottom Line: It is hard to place a work like Walt's People in the overall Disney literature--it doesn't focus solely on animation or the theme parks. The interviews collected are amazing and offer insight into Disney, the Studios and the theme parks. The volumes are not for everyone, but the Disney historian, enthusiast and geek will take a lot away from Dider's work. It is a great place to get your Geek on and delve into what it was like to know and work with Walt Disney, Roy Disney and the talented people in the organization.

I can't wait to start the next volume in the series!

www.imaginerding.com

If you have any interest in the Disney company's/animation history, this is the book for you. The whole thing was some of the most entertaining reading I've had in a while. Amazing never-before-published interviews with artists, the poster boys who have done a million of them, and also the artists who you never see in any of the Hyperion books. I know that to purchase the whole series is a hefty investment, but it will be worth it. I have found myself re-reading the interviews for inspiration. Looking forward to buying more volumes in the future.

This is a great series of collections of older interviews primarily with artists that worked for Walt Disney, most now deceased. Most them are fascinating if you are interested in learning about the creative culture that existed during the golden years of animation under Walt's watchful eye. For the most part the interviews are centred on the artists being interviewed - on what they did and how they did it - but also contain interesting anecdotes about other's whom they worked with.

If you are interested in the Walt Disney story, read Bob Thomas' Walt Disney: An American Original. But if you want to learn about the creative side of the business by those who worked there, and their trials, tribulations, and personal stories, these research interviews are priceless. Kudo's to Didier Ghez for his work in collecting and editing these fascinating volumes, and to the copyright owners who have been kind enough to allow for their publication in book format.

For anyone doing research on Walt Disney and those who worked for him, these books are priceless.

I have read many books on the life of Walt Disney. This book offers a different perspective than one would find in official authorized works about Walt. It is a collection of interviews of several of the (many) people who worked for him. What I liked most, is the candor of the people being interviewed. They felt free not to "sugar-coat" any of their answers, giving very truthful responses. To think that most of the people interviewed are no longer living, makes me appreciate the work of the various interviewers, capturing all of this valuable insight, that would have otherwise been lost. I enjoyed this book very much, and will be buying the other two in the series.