Disney Lengends Statue
The first Disney Legend award went to Fred MacMurray, best known
these days as the father in the 1960's television sitcom "My Three Sons,"
but famous to Disney fans as the star of "The Absent-Minded Professor" and
"The Shaggy Dog", among a string of films Disney made in the early 1960's. Mr.
MacMurray was a famous actor in Hollywood, starring in several film noir classics
like "Double Indemnity" with Barbara Stanwick and Edward G. Robinson. A
close friend of Walt's, Mr. MacMurray was happy to help out when Walt needed a star
for a series of small-budget family movies to bolster the company's finances. Most importantly
to animation fans were the inductees in 1989 when the Studio honored the great original
animators including Ub Iwerks - Walt's original partner who drew Mickey in the first Disney
cartoons, and the famous Walt's Nine Old Men - the legendary animators who created the features
from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" through "The Rescuers" and beyond.
As noted on the Official Disney
Legends page, the new Disney Legends Plaza at the Walt Disney Studios was dedicated on October 16, 1998, with a
replica of the bronze statue first used in Disneyland Paris that is an enlargement of the
Legends Award figure given to the honorees. And there is a bronze plaque for
each honoree lining the statue.
Other years have honored actors, artists, and technicians - from
Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke to Eyvind Earle. Iwerks Entertainment, the engineering
company operated by Ub's sons, is also among them. In 1995, the company honored the original
stars of Disneyland's Golden Horseshoe Review - Wally Boag, Betty Taylor, and Fulton Burley, as
well as the famous voice artist Thurl "Tony The Tiger" Ravenscroft, whose
deep baritone is heard distinctively in The Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted
Mansion soundtracks and was the first announcer on the Disneyland Railroad. These are just a few
of our favorites from The Disney Legends. The list goes on and on.
Comments or Questions?