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Disney History Institute Podcast · Disney History Institute

The Life and Art of Mary Blair - Part Twenty-Three

·38 min·2 clips
Mary tells Rolly Crump he spent more time with her sons in two hours than Lee had in five or six years.
The episode starts just after a success. Mary Blair has helped bring It's a Small World to the 1964 New York World's Fair, with Walt and her family there for the ceremonies. The glow does not last cleanly. The host moves into the summer after the opening, when Mary's career is riding high and her marriage is going the other way. Most of the story stays at the drafting table. Mary is still the attraction's lead stylist, and Rolly Crump knows even practical revisions have to go through her. Then a carpeted section causes trouble. Mary spends a few weeks working up a model, but Walt reacts sharply when he sees the carpet and says the team needs to take a hard look at it. Mary takes the criticism hard. After the meeting, Rolly steps in to keep the project moving, telling Dick Irvine that he and Joyce Carlson will fix the section. Mary checks out of the work for the day, has a couple of martinis, and flies home to New York. Crump and Carlson adjust the designs without throwing out the basic idea. The fix is plain but it works: remove the carpet, make the additions fit the existing stages, send it back, and get Walt's signoff five days later. Then the job grows again. Walt wants Disneyland's version to have a decorative facade with more personality than the New York barn structure. Mary brings concepts that pull in global references, including the Eiffel Tower, a Middle Eastern mosque, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a Dutch windmill, and a Japanese temple. The episode is strongest when it stays in that messy middle, where Mary's style, Walt's eye, and the production team's fixes all have to land in something playful and buildable.

As heard by us

A close look at Mary Blair after It's a Small World, when revision becomes the main story.

Mary Blair's post-It's a Small World stretch is treated less like a victory lap than a working phase. The episode moves from the 1964 New York World's Fair into the revisions that followed, including Walt's sharp reaction to a carpeted section and the facade idea built from…

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Why you'd press play

You want the next Mary Blair chapter after It's a Small World opened.

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