FROM 2007
HARRIET BURNS
talks about the Submarines and mermaids

by Scott Wolf

I just love doing interviews with the wonderful talents that have worked for Disney, but Harriet is a particular delight to talk with. I immediately liked her the first time I spoke to her, and every time we ever spoke after that, after she asked has my boys are, she always had some wonderful stories about working for Disney.

It's almost hard to know what she did for Disney because she did so much, but certainly not what you would expect from a lady in the 1950s. She did everything from painting sets for the "Mickey Mouse Club" to literally building Sleeping Beauty Castle for Disneyland.

Who couldn't be impressed with this lady who, with Fred Joerger and Wathel Rogers, were Walt Disney's first three Imagineers? Harriet was even in the meeting when the term Audio Animatronics was coined. I know you'll enjoy my interviews with this incredible lady!

Harriet Burns: (One challenge was...) for the mermaid hair’s for the submarines… with the chlorine in the pool and stuff. We had an awful time. It came clear, transparent, and I dyed the hair all sorts of colors because we wanted them pink and green and purple and everything. And everything faded. Finally I took straight Clorox bleach and I put it in fruit jars and put the hair after I dyed it in the fruit jars. Well, it lasted two weeks and I thought that was pretty darn good. So that’s what I used and it faded out in no time in that pool because of the sun’s reaction with the chlorine and everything in it. So then we had to have it extruded with pigment in it and I had to make new wigs for them.

But, you know everything we did was the first time. We were pioneering everything. The products and the patterns.

All of the guys loved the mermaids. They’d say, “Oh, give me an extra one for my pool area.” Even Governor Brown when he came in said, “I could use a couple of these.”

Two of them were stolen.

SW: From where?

HB: From me. From my desk. The night before we were to take them down to Disneyland the next morning. I worked late, all of us were working late. You’d think all we ever did was work late. Not on all jobs but when we had deadlines.

The Submarines and the Matterhorn were opening at the same time and they were to be televised as a big thing. They were having all these guests. They had an aquacade with swimming mermaids and they had the Sierra Club climbing the Matterhorn. They had all these different hikers and Swiss yodelers. It was a big deal and we had to be on time.

They had floats (for the parade) and our Matterhorn model (created as part of the development of the attraction) was on the float with an H2 gauge train running through for the bobsled.

SW: It’s in a TV show called "Disneyland ’59" (on the Disney Treasures: Your Host, Walt Disney DVD). It’s now on DVD.

HB: Is that right? Oh my. And I brought in my daughter’s leotards at the last moment to cut them up to put between the cars on the railroad for the float because it had to bend. We were always bringing our kids toys in. We didn’t have time to shop. We’d just bring in our kids things and use it for whatever and put it together.

SW: A lot of improvising.

HB: Oh definitely. It had not been done. We didn’t know where to buy things. We had to make them.

Photo provided by Walt Disney Imagineering.

More from Harriet:
Some great stories from Harriet
Disneyland's opening day and employee's skepticism
Pirates of the Caribbean and Walt's last days
Creating the robins for "Mary Poppins"

See other interviews

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.