GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA - Walt Disney Imagineering, the Animation Research Library and Walt Disney Feature Animation have loaned rare artwork depicting Will Rogers as well as classic sketches of the cowboy-humorist playing polo with Disney cartoon characters to the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore.
The loan includes special Walt Disney Imagineering-created sculptures of seven presidents who were friends of Will Rogers. The sculpture all came from the archives of Walt Disney Imagineering, which included the cowboy-philosopher in its special American Adventure attraction at Epcot - part of Walt Disney World in Florida.
“These are beautiful works of art and billboards of American entertainment history,” Michelle Lefebvre-Carter, director of the Will Rogers Memorial Commission of Oklahoma, said.
Oklahoma Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary officially opened the exhibit during a Monday visit. National VFW Auxiliary President Linda Meader of Concord, N.H., here for the state convention, shared the ribbon cutting with Jim Hartz, Will Rogers Memorial Commission chairman; Doris “Coke” Meyer of Bartlesville, Will Rogers’s great-niece; and Lefebvre-Carter.
Using a collection of historic items from Walt Disney Imagineering, the Animation Research Library and Walt Disney Feature Animation, Lefebvre-Carter said the special exhibits is in two parts:
“ ‘Will Rogers . . . Friend of Presidents’ exhibit combines Will Rogers’ comments concerning the seven presidents that were so artfully sculpted decades ago by renowned Imagineer Blaine Gibson.”
“The second exhibit ‘Walt Disney & Will Rogers’ includes an early-day cartoon featuring Disney characters playing polo with movie stars of the day. Will Rogers was intended as a character, but his untimely death caused his deletion from the cartoon’s cast.”
“Walt Disney Imagineering has provided great works of creative art featuring Will Rogers as an Audio-Animatronics® figure. Gibson’s study sculpture is exhibited along with other fine art works from the American Adventure in Florida.”
With common Midwestern backgrounds, a warm friendship grew between Walt Disney and Will Rogers during the early days of moviedom.
During the period when he was amidst the dramatic ascent of his Hollywood career, Disney played polo at the Rogers ranch in California with Will Rogers.
During the final month of his life, Will Rogers wrote about Walt Disney in his nationally syndicated newspaper columns.
“We were all down to a mighty fine dinner they gave to Walter Disney. He is the sire and dam of that gift to the world, ‘Mickey Mouse.’”
“. . . that Three Little Pigs, why I would have given my life just to have played one of them. That’s the best picture every made.”
“. . . Disney didn’t talk much,” Will Rogers reported. “Everybody that does things, I have noted, they don’t talk at public gatherings . . .”
United States Presidents were no exception. As demonstrated in the rare fine art renderings of the seven presidents that served during the peak years of Will Rogers’ career, finding the perfect words of the early 20th Century pundit posed a challenge.
Will Rogers’ typical appraisals of each of the seven presidents were extrapolated from the archives of the Will Rogers Memorial Museum where “Will Rogers . . . Friend of Presidents” is on display.
“These two exhibits are uncanny views of an early day in Hollywood when Will Rogers was a top star and Walt Disney developed a new medium and a new form of entertainment,” Lefebvre-Carter said.
“Cinema history and the fast friendship between two greats of motion pictures could not be told in a more fascinating manner.”
At Walt Disney World’s Epcot, Will Rogers is included in the American Adventure as an Audio-Animatronics® figure “that is incredibly lifelike,” Lefebvre-Carter said. “Walt Disney Imagineers bring American history to life with the same pulse and personality depicted in Will Rogers.”
“The American Adventure celebrates the spirit of our nation, through the eyes and words of many great Americans – from Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain to Chief Joseph and our presidents,” said Martin A. Sklar, Executive Vice President and Imagineering Ambassador. “We wanted our story to be true, warts and all, including several Will Rogers classic witticisms. The realism Blaine Gibson captured with his sculpture, and our animators ‘brought to life’ through Audio-Animatronics®, is a true highlight of the show. No one could top Will Rogers in clear commentary through humor.”
“Walt Disney and Will Rogers both made inspiring history,” Lefebvre-Carter said.
In addition to the nine-gallery museum, the Will Rogers family burial site is located on the campus. Twelve miles north is the 400-acre 1879 living history ranch where Will Rogers was born in a log-walled house.