FROM 2007
DAVE SMITH
talks about his favorite Disney memory

by Scott Wolf

(Pictured right is Dave Smith in the Walt Disney Archives in 1990 holding an original drawing of Mickey Mouse by Walt Disney himself.)

Like many Disney employees, I met Dave Smith on my first day working for The Walt Disney Company. I was entranced with the department and particularly the treasures that Dave showed us, but what I didn't realize at the time was that Dave was not only the head of the Archives, but he started the Archives officially on June 22, 1970! Dave is as an important a part of Disney as any treasure within the walls of his department. I'm grateful I was able to sit down with him to learn about his history with the company and the history of the Walt Disney Archives, and I'm so pleased to be able to share my conversation with you.   

Scott Wolf: Do you have any favorite parts of your job?

Dave Smith: No, my favorite thing is the variety of it and having the opportunity to meet and know so many of the Disney legends through the years and finding out what delightful people these have all been.

SW: Dave, do you have any favorite memories of working for Disney?

DS: I think some of my favorite memories go back to my earliest years with the archives because when I started here Roy O. Disney (Walt Disney's brother) was still working here, Ub Iwerks was still working here, the “nine old men” were still working here and I got to talk with them and know them. Roy, in fact, hired me in my spare time to compile the Disney genealogy and sent me on a trip around the country to visit with Disney family members and to search out gravestones in cemeteries and all sorts of interesting things like that so I really was fascinated by that work that I did for Roy and I think he was very appreciative of it. I was able to show him my slides and go over the information I found not too long before he died.

SW: Roy was an essential part of the company right from the beginning, in fact originally it was the Disney Brothers company wasn’t it?

DS: Correct.

SW: We hear so much about Walt of course, what kind of a person was Roy?

DS: Very modest. He didn’t want to be in the forefront, and one thing that I hear a lot was that even thought they started as the Disney Brothers Studio, Walt was the one that forced them to change it to the Walt Disney Company. Well, that’s not what Roy told me. Roy was very insistent that he didn’t want his name on the company and he felt that the creative brother should have his name on the company so it was his idea to change it Walt Disney Productions.