A MOUSE CLUBHOUSE EXCLUSIVE 1997 INTERVIEW
ALICE DAVIS
talks about Pirates of the Caribbean

by Scott Wolf

My wife Shani & I adored Marc & Alice Davis and although Marc has passed away, we are so grateful to still know Alice, such a talent in her own right.

Alice initially wanted to get into animation, but was told that women don't do animation, and at the suggestion of Mrs. Chouinard at the Chouinard Institute got into costuming.

It's a joy to be able to bring you some of my conversations with Alice Davis.

For Pirates of the Caribbean, Alice designed and manufactured the costumes for the characters.

Scott Wolf: You got to work on the pirates ride with Marc, right?

Alice Davis: Yes. They had an open house shortly after we started working on "Pirates of the Caribbean" and Walt had them do a whole wall of nothing but Marc’s drawings of the pirates.

So we were standing around talking and Walt came over and took me by the arm and he said, “Alice, come here, I want to show you something.” Whenever Walt wanted to compliment somebody he’d always tell somebody else who he knew would run to you and tell you that Walt complimented you on something so he was going to tell me so I’d run and tell Marc, so like he congratulated me on Marc taking off some weight and I said, “You’ll have to tell Marc that because he took it off himself, I had nothing to do with it.” And he said, “I congratulated you.” And I thought, “Oh boy, I just blew that.”

Anyway, he took me over and said, “I just want you to look at these drawings.” And I said, “I look at them everyday. I’m working on the costumes.” And he said, “No, I don’t mean it that way. I want you to look at these and see the genius in this. Marc’s a genius. He can do anything I ask him. He can work in any style, he can do animation, he can do story…” he said, “I have a whole building over there and that’s all they can do. Marc can do anything I want and ask.” That was a pretty nice compliment.

SW: And, of course, you did the costumes on "Pirates"…

AD: Yes, when I was working on the costumes, they said, “Just make one costume.” And I said, “You should have two costumes for each figure because if something should happen you need something to fall back on.” They said, “That’s okay. Do one costume until we get the show open and then you can do the second set.” I said, “It doesn’t take that much longer to make two sets because you can cut them out at the same time. It would be much cheaper just to do all at once.” “Well, that’s alright, we just want one.”

Well, I had to go the bookkeeper every time I wanted fabric and tell him how many yards I needed of the fabric and how much it cost and fill out all these forms so I can get the material. So I thought, well they don’t know how much material it takes to make a pair of pants. So I just went ahead and ordered material for two costumes and then made two costumes and I hid one. (Marc chuckles.)

So they were all made. And the hats, especially like the hats that were stacked on his head (on the pirate selling hats in the fire scene)… well, I did two sets of those because those hats take well over a week to make because you have to do it step by step and the buckram you have to wet to make the shape and then you have to let it dry and sometimes it can take three days for it to dry and then you have to cover it with the fabric for the show anyway.

The ride had been opened two, three months and they had a fire and three of the figures burned.

SW: A real fire?

AD: Yeah, and it was in the fire scene of all places... and the two drunks (pirate figures) that were hanging on the lamp post… it was the most gruesome thing you ever saw. For science fiction it was wild, because there were these glass eyes and there was this melted “skin” around them. Instead of bones there were metal tubes and instead of blood vessels there were different colored wires running thru and everything was all melted. It was just gruesome.

Anyway, Dick Irvine was head of WED at the time and he said to me, “Alice, how long will it take to get the costumes made because we can’t open the show again until we get the costumes.” And I said, “Well, if you have somebody bring a fishing pole over and give me a half hour to put the hats on you can have everything.” And I showed him the second set of costumes… he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Whether to hit me or compliment me, but from that time on there were three costumes for every figure.

(Note: The pirate selling the big tall stack of hats on his head which sway back and forth have a fishing pole going through them holding them up. Just a little bit of Disney magic.)

We'll bring you more from Alice Davis in the future.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in the interviews are solely those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mouse Clubhouse. Mouse Clubhouse accepts no legal liability or responsibility for any claims made or opinions expressed within.