P.L. Travers Resists Walt Disney
Grauman's Chinese Theatre,
Los Angeles
August 27th 1964
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It is all smiles as Walt Disney and his most recent
collaborator, P.L. Travers, pose with Julie Andrews at the world premiere of
Mary Poppins. This, he tells reporters, is the movie he has been dreaming of
making ever since 1944, when he first heard his wife and children laughing at a
book and asked them what it was. At his side, Travers, aged sixty-five, appears
equally thrilled. 'It's a splendid film and very well cast!' she enthuses.
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The premiere is a lavish affair. A miniature train rolls
down Hollywood Boulevard with Mickey Mouse, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,
Peter Pan, Peter Rabbit, the Three Little Pigs, the Big Bad Wolf, Pluto, a
skunk and four dancing penguins on board. At the cinema, the Disneyland staff
are dressed as English bobbies; at the party afterwards, grinning chimneysweeps
frolic to music from a band of Pearly Kings and Queens.
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The next day, Travers is over the moon, wiring her
congratulations to 'Dear Walt'. The film is, she says, 'a splendid spectacle
... true to the spirit of Mary Poppins'. Disney's response is a little more
guarded. He is happy to have her reactions, he says, and appreciates her taking
the time, but what a pity that 'the hectic activities before, during and after
the premiere' prevented them from seeing more of each other.
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Travers writes back, thanking Disney for thanking her for
thanking him. The film is, she says, 'splendid, gay, generous and wonderfully
pretty' - even if, for her, the real Mary Poppins remains within the covers of
her books. On her copy, she adds a note saying that it is a letter 'with much
between the lines'. The same month, she complains to her London publisher that
the film is 'simply sad'.
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Those smiles at the premiere are, in fact, the first and the
last they will ever exchange. Pamela Travers is a long-time devotee of
Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti, Yeats and Blake. For her, the Mary Poppins books were
never just children's stories, but intensely personal reflections of her
Alphabetti Spaghetti blend of philosophy, mysticism, theosophy, Zen Buddhism,
duality, and the oneness of everything. In the last year of her life, she will
reveal to an interviewer that Mary Poppins is related to the mother of God.
Disney's own conception of the finger-clicking nanny is rather more
straightforward.
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Nothing about the film of Mary Poppins has been easy. The
contract alone took sixteen years to negotiate: Travers finally accepts 5 per
cent of gross profits, with a guarantee of $100,000. But this is to prove
inadequate compensation; she soon begins to complain that Disney is 'without
subtlety and emasculates any character he touches, replacing truth with false
sentimentality.
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Walt Disney's attitude to Travers is one of damage
limitation. He wants to keep her on board, but positioned as far as possible
from the driver's seat. This does not stop Travers making frequent lunges for
the steering wheel, generally with a view to forcing the vehicle into reverse.
She complains about everybody and everything, even stretching to the type of
measuring tape Mary Poppins would use.
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(Recordings
still exist of the daily conferences between the scriptwriters and P.L.
Travers. On the first day, they start from the beginning: '17 Cherry Tree Lane,
the Banks household is in uproar ... The father comes home to find the children
misbehaving. Mr Banks talks of his wife's job:
'Just
a minute: says Travers. 'That's, that's, not job, ah, ah .. .'
'Domain?'
'Er,
yes:
'Responsibility?'
'Well, we can't have job.')
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She objects to all the Americanisms that seem to be creeping
in - 'outing: 'freshen up: 'on schedule', 'Let's go fly a kite' - and considers
the servants much too common and vulgar. Furthermore, the Banks home is much
too grand, and any suggestion of a romance between Mary Poppins and the cockney
chimneysweep Bert is utterly distasteful. Finally, she objects to Mrs Banks
being portrayed as a suffragette, and considers the Christian name they impose
on her - Cynthia - 'unlucky, cold and sexless', her own preference being
Winifred.
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Somehow, Walt Disney manages to keep her from meeting Dick
van Dyke. By mid -1963, with filming under way, Julie Andrews writes to Travers
telling her not to worry about anything, adding that Dick van Dyke is good as
Bert, but that 'he will be an "individual" cockney instead of a
"regular type" cockney.' Disney originally wanted Cary Grant to play
the part, but he turned down the role, as did Laurence Harvey and Anthony
Newley.
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When Walt Disney is dying of lung cancer, he asks the film's
composers, the Sherman brothers, to play his favorite song from the soundtrack
when they drop by every Friday. Each time they play 'Feed the Birds', Disney
goes over to the window and weeps.
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Travers even believes her responsibilities extend to the
casting. The day after Julie Andrews gives birth, she phones her in hospital.
'P.L. Travers here. Speak to me. I want to hear your voice.' When they finally
meet, her first remark to the actress is, 'Well, you've got the nose for it.'
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Mary Poppins is a worldwide success. Costing $5.2 million to
make, it grosses $50 million. But the more the money rolls in, the more
Travers' attitude to the film and its creator sours. She tells Ladies' Home
Journal that she hated parts of the film, like the animated horse and pig, and
disapproved of Mary Poppins kicking up her gown and showing her underwear, and
disliked the billboards saying 'Walt Disney's Mary Poppins' when they should
have said 'P.L. Travers' Mary Poppins'.
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She writes to a friend that Disney wishes her dead, and is
furious with her for not obliging. 'After all, until now, all his authors have
been dead and out of copyright.' But there is always the promise of a sequel,
and yet more money. It is only when Disney dies in December 1966 that her
objections become more concentrated and vocal. In 1967, she says that the film
was 'an emotional shock, which left me deeply disturbed: and in 1968 that she
'couldn't bear' it - 'all that smiling'. In 1972, she declares in a lecture
that 'When I was doing the film with George Disney - that is his name, isn't it
- George? - he kept insisting on a love affair between Mary Poppins and Bert. I
had a terrible time with him.'
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Her invitation to the world premiere is, it later emerges,
not achieved without a struggle. Failing to receive an invitation, she
instructs her lawyer, agent and publisher to demand one on her behalf. When it
is still not forthcoming, she sends a telegram to Disney himself, informing him
she is in the States, and plans on attending the premiere: she is sure somebody
will find a seat for her, and will he let her know the details? Her attendance
is, she adds, essential 'for the dignity of the books'.
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Disney writes back saying that he has always been counting
on her presence at the London premiere, but is now delighted to know she will
also be able to come to the premiere in Los Angeles. And yes, they will happily
hold a seat for her.
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Craig Brown "Hello Goodbye
Hello" (2011)
