“Dream It! Do It!”
Marty Sklar, Disney Editions, 384 pages, $24.99
Marty Sklar served as president of Walt Disney Co.’s Imagineering unit, which designs the company’s parks and hotels, and has now written a memoir called “Dream It! Do It!”
The book includes recollections of the tumultuous opening day of Disneyland. “Walt’s dream is a nightmare.” “Crowds gripe over long waiting lines.” These were the first newspaper reviews of the California theme park that debuted one scorching day in July 1955. As a junior publicist hired a month earlier, Sklar had an inside view of the event which included women’s heels stuck in the hot asphalt, not enough water fountains because of a plumber’s strike and doubled attendance because of counterfeit tickets.
He remembers “Davy Crockett” star Fess Parker, mounted on his steed, pleading: “Marty, help me get out of here before this horse kills somebody.” Sklar escorted them both backstage.
Disney’s PR staff turned things around by inviting the press to come back at night, when the park wasn’t so crowded.
