That Time Tommy Walker Was Kidnapped and Nearly Murdered

Because of this man--Darlene Farley, pictured here in his mugshot as a 19-year-old--Disneyland may very well have never had Date Nites, Dixieland at Disneyland, 76 trombones led by Meredith Willson for the Disneyland '59 event, the 1960 Winter Olympics ceremonies (at a "Disney level"), or even synchronized fireworks and music. That's because on February 23, 1956, Farley kidnapped Disneyland entertainment director Tommy Walker (pictured below) from his home in West Anaheim and held him for a harrowing night around the city.

Tommy rose to prominence while at the University of Southern California, where he was the band's drum major and (simultaneously) the football team's placekicker. Along with Dick Winslow (another character also later involved with Disneyland), Tommy wrote the "Charge" trumpet anthem used by USC and then the Los Angeles Dodgers and seemingly every other athletic team in the country. After graduation, he stayed at the university as the assistant band director, and later the director. He came to Walt Disney's attention during the halftime show for the 1955 Rose Bowl, Walt attending because Disneyland had a float in the parade that year. Walt invited him to orchestrate the Park's grand opening six months later, and Tommy stayed on for the next twelve years.

Presumably Tommy was at work that February day. Since I have written a Disneyland Almanac, I can provide some color for the day. The Park was scheduled open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and had a whopping 979 guests show up, due to the 0.16 inches of rain which fell. I know Tommy would have different feelings, but that's a date I'm going to mark to go back to.

Tommy and his father Vesey--another historic Disneyland employee as leader of the Disneyland Band from 1955 to 1968--lived on the same suburban street in West Anaheim, in houses constructed the same year Disneyland opened. I just drove on the street past their houses two days ago, so I can attest to the quiet nature of the neighborhood.

Farley, a man unknown to Tommy, showed up at his door that Thursday night, blood-spattered and slightly drunk. Conveying that he had been in an automobile accident and needed a tow truck, Tommy drove him to his father's house. (Tommy apparently did not have a telephone.) This accomplished, Tommy drove Farley to Farley's house, where he returned to the car with a .22 caliber rifle.

Farley had Tommy drive him to the garage where Farley's car had been towed. Failing to get the mechanics to immediately fix his car, Farley ordered Tommy to drive him to a girl friend's house. The Associated Press account provides the chilling details Tommy told police:

When Walker refused to call for the girl, Farley ordered him to drive down a lonely road.

The police account said Farley then commanded Walker to stop the car, get out and stand in front of the headlights.

Walker said he tried to cover his heart and head with his hands as Farley's voice came from the darkness:

"You've been nice to me. But I killed my brother and I liked my brother a lot more than I like you."

Then the gun fired, The first shot splattered in the mud at Walker's feet. The next two whizzed past the ex-drum major's head.

This quasi-execution failed, Farley ordered Tommy in the car, stating they were going to Mexico. They stopped in a bar where Tommy was "well known" (I really wanted this to be the Doll Hut, but that didn't exist until 1957). Unfortunately, Tommy couldn't communicate to friends that he was a captive. Farley had Tommy drive him back to the garage where his crashed car was awaiting repair.

En route police officers spotted them and decided the pajama-clad Walker and his bloody companion looked suspicious.

The last newspaper article I saw about this indicated that Farley was set to stand trial in Orange County Superior Court on May 27, 1956. He was charged with two counts of armed robbery and kidnapping; the kidnapping charge could have brought a possible death or  life imprisonment. I admit to not having looked into the court record; if anybody out there does, PLEASE let me know the outcome of the case!

I was just so struck by how early this was in Tommy's career. Anything entertainment-related at Disneyland from 1955 to his resignation in 1966, he had a hand in. More personally as a former Tour Guide, he was in charge of Customer Relations at the time the Guided Tour program came into being. But leaving his Disney contributions aside, Tommy was a major entertainment figure in the 1960s through the 1980s. He continued to do Olympics ceremonies (including the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles), Fourth of July shows, balloon events, Super Bowls, Presidential Inaugurations (including Richard Nixon's second in 1973 and Ronald Reagan's first in 1980), and the Statue of Liberty's centennial celebration in 1986, among so many others. Tommy died way too young, at age 63, during open-heart surgery in Birmingham, Alabama.

Tommy's contribution to Disneyland's history is impossible to quantify. Like other extraordinary members of the early Disneyland, Inc., team, he made Disneyland what it was and shaped expectations for the generations to come. It's amazing to think that one terrifying, oddball night could have derailed so many good memories we've all had through the years. But as my current research is showing, Disneyland wasn't a complete fantasy environment, walled off from the "real world." It was and is very much a part of it, and I feel that makes it all so much more meaningful.

Thanks for the fireworks, Tommy. They're about to go off outside my window.

(Photo courtesy Stuff from the Park)

An Assortment of Obituaries

My search for Disneyland newspaper articles and advertisements would be greatly simplified if I only paid attention to those that were obviously about the Park (e.g., "Disneyland Prepares for Job Applicants," Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram, May 7, 1961). Instead, I'll give at least a cursory glance to each article that mentions Disneyland to see how it relates, and then determine if it's worth saving. There are certain types of repeating articles that I can immediately discount: those that talk about YMCA trips to Disneyland; articles about meetings, conventions, and speeches at the Disneyland Hotel (while it would be very interesting to compile a list of all of these because of the incredible range of subjects discussed and organizations represented, the task is hopelessly beyond the capabilities of even this thesaurus); and references to something being "a" Disneyland. Yeah, those writers and columnists bandied the term about without regard for how much it clutters up my searches!

But all this effort is redeemed (somewhat) when I come across small bits of information buried in longer articles. I can't always determine the accuracy of this information, but it at least gives me something to check out. Obituaries are one such source for this information, and below I share a few such things for eight people all previously unknown to me before my newspaper searches. For each person I provide a few biographical facts and all I know about the Disneyland connection from the obits; if anybody out there has more information on these people and Disneyland, please leave a comment or contact me!

George W. Smith. Died July 4, 1955. George was a 40-year-old foreman at Disneyland and had worked at MGM's set department for 20 years before going to Disneyland. No cause of death is listed, which heightens my curiosity about this man and his role in Disneyland's construction.

Ford B. Dicker. Guest who died July 4, 1959 at Disneyland of a heart attack. He was an executive in the assembly division at General Motors. I don't know the earliest fatality in Disneyland's history (unrelated to anything mechanical), but this seems pretty early. Other noteworthy heart attacks: on June 22, 1960, a 42-year-old member of the royal party of King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit of Thailand died of a heart attack while visiting Disneyland, and on October 21, 1962, singer Monette Moore of the Young Men from New Orleans performing group collapsed on Main Street and died from a heart attack.

Emil E. Mazenec. Died June 8, 1963. Emil was the 45-year-old director of the Disneyland Polka Band. He was previously a trombonist with "many big name bands" before coming to Anaheim or Disneyland (the obituary is unclear) eight years before. (Actually, the obituary gives the surname as Mazenec, but I think it might be spelled Mazanec.)

Kafpar Burgi. Died July 10, 1963. He was a 57-year-old president of his own landscape construction company, coming to Los Angeles from his native Switzerland in 1927 and entering the landscape business in 1933. He helped landscape Disneyland, Century City, and "a number of other projects."

Harvey T. Gillett. Died October 1963. Harvey was a 58-year-old WED Enterprises employee who served as art director of lessee activities at Disneyland. (Does anybody know what that even means? Did he interface with the lessees to make sure what they wanted to do fit in with the Disneyland aesthetic?) He had previously been an artist for film studios.

John Edwin Barber. Died October 2, 1973. John was a retired financial executive. He was apparently "closely associated with Disney Enterprises and was instrumental in arranging the financing of Disneyland." Unfortunately Buzz Price's book omits an index, so I couldn't easily check to see if he's mentioned there. I do not know how he knew Walt (which he must have if he were so instrumental!).

Daniel S. Hoblick. Died September 25, 1974. Daniel was president of Danly Engineering Co., "which installed the Haunted House ride in Disneyland and most of the rides in Disneyworld." Danly Engineering's web site can be found here. There's not much on the site: "Since 1965. Structural steel fabricators and erectors. Miscellaneous and ornamental iron." Maybe they have some interesting Haunted Mansion records! Daniel's son Stephen is listed as the owner in a recent listing of Huntington Beach business licenses, so I guess it's still a family business.

Walter Fon Lee. Died October 1982. The 65-year-old Walter was a restaurateur; his grandparents had opened the Man Jen Low restaurant, which was LA's oldest Chinese restaurant (in its history it moved around a few times, became General Lee's, and closed in 1987). The article states, "At one time there were Men [sic] Jen Low restaurants at Farmers Market, Disneyland and Pacific Ocean Park." Now, the fact that the obit consistently misspelled the restaurant name as "Men Jen Low" makes me question its veracity. I know of no restaurant in Disneyland's history that fits the description. (The only possibility I see is the Adventureland Bazaar, but Lawson Engineering operated that. The Bazaar, also operated by Lawson, had a Lee Bros. store, but this did not sell food.) The fact that POP is mentioned makes me wonder if "Disneyland" really should have been another amusement park name. Anybody have a guess on this?

Tencennial Summertime Entertainment Advertisements

As a follow-up to Friday's post on the overwhelming amount of Guest Talent booked during the summer of 1965, I present a few of the advertisements which ran in area newspapers. I pieced my schedule together from over fifty articles and advertisements, so this is really a very small sample!

May 23, 1965, Disneyland Holiday Swing:

July 5, 1965, Hootenanny:

July 20, 1965, Humdinger:

September 17, 1965, Dixieland at Disneyland, 1965 Edition:

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that the Humdinger announcement uses "Fantasyland Theater," whereas I prefer "Fantasyland Theatre." (Are you out there, eagle eyes?) Some sources--including a few guidebooks--use "Theater," but the signage always said "Theatre," and other sources concur. In the absence of a good reason to go against it, I side with the signs.

More Early Matterhorn from the Newspapers

I had a brief post about an early Holiday Hill mention in 1955. A February 1956 item by gossip columnist Mike Connolly is somewhat intriguing: "Walt Disney is about to spend another $250,000 at Disneyland for a huge ski ride." Too bad he didn't have more to say about it!

The Earliest Mention of Holiday Hill?

In a pre-opening column on Disneyland, May 23, 1955, Hedda Hopper writes in the Los Angeles Times:

One hill is completely covered with pines, and [Disney will] have a snow machine working full time, so that kids in this area who've never had a sleigh ride can rent a sled and sail down hill.

It sounds like Cosmic Waves--but frozen!

I'll probably have a Thesaurus Thursday post tomorrow (yes, on a Friday!). I found some interesting documents online that I want to write about...

Lakewood Day(s)

Van Nuys Days certainly seemed like a big community-building event, right? All that sense of community and a visit to Disneyland (or at least the big circus tent next to it)! I do not know if this inspired the city of Lakewood, but they tried for their own day in the sun. In honor of the fourth anniversary of the city's incorporation in March 1954, Lakewood arranged for a party at Holidayland for Saturday, March 15, 1958. Residents were able to pick up free tickets to the Holidayland event at City Hall, city parks, and some businesses in the city. Featured at the party were to be performances by the Mouseketeers at 11:30 a.m. and 2:15 p.m.

I say "were" because this day in the sun never happened. Rather, the skies opened up and buckets of rain began to fall before dawn on that day. The city's public relations director Guy Halferty stated he "wanted to go into hiding" because of the mess the rain caused the event. He arrived at Disneyland around 9:45 to find 100 Lakewooders under the Holidayland tent. Because of the rain, Disneyland closed at 2 p.m.(!!), but not before 575 Lakewooders had visited the Park and been treated to two hour-long shows at The Golden Horseshoe, by the Mouseketeers and "other Disneyland entertainers" (the Golden Horseshoe cast?). I think they were granted free admission because of the inclement weather.

Lakewood Day was rescheduled for Saturday, May 3, 1958. The party was again to be held at Holidayland, with free tickets distributed around the city. The Mouseketeers had scheduled performances of 11:30 a.m. and 3:15 p.m, the first performance following an introduction and "community sing." I wonder what a community sings at an event like this, anyway? Disneyland that evening was open until midnight, with three dance bands performing, but their free tickets didn't get them in there! Suckers! In addition to the Mouseketeers, Lakewood provided some of its own entertainment, with the Boy Scout Drum and Bugle Corps, the Legionettes and the Drillettes parading through the Park and performing in Holidayland.

I imagine if Lakewood Days were a bigger success, we would have seen photos from it turn up. There were no follow-up stories to the second Lakewood Day, so I have to assume it went off without a hitch.

Van Nuys Days at Disneyland

"'Disneyland welcomes Van Nuys'? That's mighty neighborly of them to welcome a whole town."

The above is from Gorillas Don't Blog on August 15, 2007 (to whom, thanks for the photo!). What is Disneyland doing playing host to Van Nuys? This 1955 promotion was a fairly big deal in the district and well-coordinated with Disneyland. First Disneyland went to Van Nuys, and then Van Nuys went to Disneyland!

As the culminating event of the annual "Back to School" sale, the Van Nuys Business Men's Association arranged for a grand event on September 17 along Van Nuys Boulevard (that's the real one, not what they called Main Street, U.S.A.). In addition to the events I'll get to in a moment, twenty free trips to Disneyland were awarded in a local drawing, registration occurring at more than eighty local merchants. Also, thousands of tickets to the Park were given away to youngsters. I've included a couple of ads from the Van Nuys News. I've left them large so you can patronize those business that are still around and helped to make Disneyland such a success. Somebody was a little type happy, though, and changed Spaceman K-7 into Spaceman XK-17:

And another one:

The breadth of the rest of the rest of the events was, well, breathtaking. They included:

• Spaceman K-7 flew in on a Navy helicopter. Upon landing in a parking lot, he then got into an Autopia car (Walt's car?) to drive up and down the boulevard.
• Spaceman was joined by Indian actor from Disneyland "Little Sky" (more on him in a future post), riding on horseback.
• For those wishing to pay homage to local "celebrities," honorary mayor Andy Devine, Miss Van Nuys Claire Weeks, and chamber of commerce and Business Men's Association officials paraded in a buckboard from the Park.
• Appropriate "back to school" sales at a number of different shops.
• I don't even know what to make of this, but would love to see a photograph: "Some 400 store clerks will wear Disneyland sun bonnets."
• Disneyland music played from loudspeakers along the road set up just for the occasion. Additionally, the voices of Davy Crockett (Fess Parker) and Donald Duck (Clarence Nash) were heard urging people to attend Van Nuys Days at Disneyland. (Creepy!)
  

Finally, Devine read a proclamation declaring the next weekend (September 24 and 25) Van Nuys Days at Disneyland. This was accepted by Jack Sayers (in lieu of Walt Disney), acting on behalf of the Disneyland Operations Committee. If only Isaac had been alive to see this!

The paper promised "special surprises" for Guests at the Van Nuys Days, but is frustratingly short on details. (I guess they wouldn't then be surprises, right?) They added some entertainment--such as an orchestra to play on Main Street for a "Van Nuys Days Dance" and had a special showing each weekend day of the Golden Horseshoe Revue. An article mentions a "special treat" inside the Frontierland entrance stockade, but I can't fathom what that might be.

So why weren't there more people there? Well, as evidenced by the "back to school" tie-in, the kids had just gone back to school. The thousands of free tickets awarded were good beyond just the Van Nuys weekend, so perhaps the special surprises were not enough to pull people in. Or perhaps Major's photographer just got there really early? As a subtle nod to this event, 46 years later Imagineers included Bing Crosby's "San Fernando Valley" on the Sunshine Plaza area music at Disney's California Adventure. (Yeah, that's why they did it...)

Newspaper Advertisements, May 1956

I do not have too much commentary for what I am offering today--a series of newspaper advertisements that ran in local papers in May 1956. Some of these are only text; some include an angry and/or demented Donald Duck. Somebody needs to ask Jack Lindquist what they were thinking with these things! Given all the other newspaper advertisements I've seen, I was surprised to not only find these tiny, tiny text blocks, but to see the logo and all directional information missing. Were they cash-strapped as they were opening the Skyway, Tom Sawyer Island, Rainbow Caverns and Storybook Land, and maybe couldn't afford larger/more graphic advertising? Has anybody seen anything like these before?

Sources: Newspapers

I am a completionist by nature. That can be handy from a research standpoint--I doggedly pursue leads--but also assuredly time consuming. What this means for the encyclopedia is that I am trying to identify and acquire (sometimes merely as digital surrogates) as much of the vast universe of sources about Disneyland as possible. I've been summarizing the types of sources for years, back to the first proposal Kevin and I had for the Disneyland Compendium. Periodicals (such as The "E" Ticket Magazine, Vacationland); books (Disneyland: The Nickel Tour, Disneyland: Inside Story, Window on Main Street (you'll get it back, Jim, really!), etc.); Cast Member publications (Disneylander, Disneyland Line...); and interviews are among those sources. I might have future posts in-depth about each of these various sources (and others), but today I want to talk about newspapers.

Newspaper articles--while sometimes (often?) factually in error--can provide a starting point for research into some aspect of the Park's history. I've used them (and newspaper advertisements) often in response to questions posed by other Disneyland bloggers. The historical (and current) Los Angeles Times is available via ProQuest subscription (through an institution like a local library or university); other California newspaper articles can be found at NewspaperARCHIVE.com, which targets a popular audience (and has personal subscription rates that aren't too bad). Both of these services have as their source microfilm copies of newspapers, so the scans often leave something to be desired (color, for one thing!).

The ProQuest search interface is wonderful, very clean and customizable, and the search results are usually good. The elements of each newspaper page are broken up into various categories--articles, display ads, obituaries, etc.--and individual articles usually (though not always) show up as individual results. The NewspaperARCHIVE.com scans are usually moderate to poor and their unit of searching is one page of the newspaper. Unlike ProQuest, they have not split up the page elements, sometimes leading to erroneous matches. The OCR, additionally, is poor on those scans. They've scanned some newspapers multiple times and their search interface seems really dumbed down and does not allow for a user to enter complex Boolean queries. Until recently, it was not even possible to sort results chronologically!

Despite all this, I have persevered in trying to save every Disneyland article of substance/interest from these services for research in the encyclopedia. There are a lot of red herrings, like when Disneyland is mentioned in discourse as a means of comparison, or when some social group is going to have a get-together at the Disneyland Hotel. (I don't know how many thousands of DLH convention articles I have glossed over.) But if I find even one statement in an article where I think, "I'd like to know that later," I'll save it. I currently have about 4,000 articles and advertisements up to the late 1960s and the search continues each week. Not all of these are unique--some advertisements appeared in more than one paper, and while I often excluded multiple copies, sometimes I couldn't determine which scan I liked better, or it seemed notable that they had advertised an event far off in the Oakland Tribune or the Fresno Bee.

Not every newspaper is fully or partly available in digital form, of course. There are surely articles in the Anaheim Bulletin and the Santa Ana/Orange County Register (pre-1987) that would not simply rehash a press release or repeat a wire story. I do plan to look through clippings at the Anaheim History Room as circumstances allow in the hopes that that will fill in some gaps.

Some of the things I share on this site will be stories that come from these articles and advertisements. Disneyland has appeared in the newspapers quite a bit over the past 50-odd years and been the subject of many stories--some of which I even believe!