from 2007
KAYE MALINS, THE QUEEN OF MARCELINE
talks about what it was like to know Walt Disney

by Scott Wolf

Kaye Malins lives in Marceline, Missouri and in fact she lives in the very home that Walt Disney lived in as a child. Kaye and her family were fortunate enough to consider Walt their friend.

Talking to Kaye Malins, whom I consider the Queen of Marceline, it's easy to see why Walt was so inspired by this small town city that today remains very much the same as it was in the early 1900s when Walt lived there. He was was so inspired that he based Disneyland's Main Street on the city and his inspirations are evident throughout the city.

If you're the slightest bit of a Disney fan or simply long to take a relaxing step back in time, you should consider a trip to Marceline. It won't take you long to see why Walt was so inspired, from Town Square to trains to old-fashioned hospitality.

Kaye is an incredibly inspirational person herself, and her enthusiasm and passion for Marceline is enough to make anybody want to visit.

Please enjoy my special interview with the Queen of Marceline, Kaye Malins.

Scott Wolf: When did Walt Disney move to Marceline?

Kaye Malins: Walt Disney came to Marceline from Chicago when he was nearly five years old so that was that wonderful magic time between four and five and he said from the moment he stepped off the train he knew there was something special. Later he said that it really was in Marceline that he found the magic of his life.

SW: How long did he live there?

KM: He lived here short of five years. I think we all have that time in our life, maybe it's that summer in camp that you frame as that very special time as the perfect summer. Well, for Walt Disney, the time that he spent in Marceline was absolutely the time he framed in his life that was that perfect time.

SW: You and your family knew Walt, right?

KM: Yes, I was very fortunate. We had decided here in Marceline to build a little swimming pool and park and this was in the 50s. Even now, we're a town of 2,500 good and talented people. We're located in rural Missouri, kind of in the Northern corridor, halfway between Hannibal and St. Joe. So to have a swimming pool in the late 1950s was just unheard of in a small town in rural Missouri.

We contacted Walt Disney and said, "Would it be okay if we named it the Walt Disney Swimming Pool and Park?" We got a letter back immediately and he said he would be thrilled and then the next letter back was were we going to have a dedication or anything and we replied, "Well, we sure could." They said, "He sure would like to come and Roy would like to come and they would like to bring their wives."

As all of your Disney friends know, he was a little busy in 1955.

SW: With the opening of a little place called Disneyland.

KM: Yeah, a little place in California. (We laugh) So he came back to Marceline in 1956 to dedicate our swimming pool and park. We didn't have a hotel that we really wanted to put Walt Disney in at that time. We had a new ranch style house with air conditioning so they asked my dad if the Disney's could stay with us.

It was on that visit in 1956 when I was eight years old that I met Walt Disney for the first time.

SW: Do you actually remember meeting him then?

KM: Oh yeah. It was really interesting. We didn't have a big house, it was just a regular ranch style house that people lived in, and Walt and Lillian stayed in my bedroom. I can remember the next morning and we're all having breakfast and I was thinking, okay, he's Walt Disney, and my dad was in business and so we had a lot of his business associates at our house quite often and he just seemed like one of those kinds of guys.

He was just so down to Earth and wonderful. And Roy had this amazing sense of humor. Everybody thinks of him as the business guy and he was really a funny guy. They were just both so charming.

My dad and Walt and Roy became good friends after that visit and it took me awhile to really figure out that Walt Disney was "Walt Disney."

SW: Were you a Disney fan before you knew him?

KM: I really was and here's a cute story. When they came back in 1956, Walt held the Midwest premiere of "The Great Locomotive Chase" starring Fess Parker here in Marceline. It was a gift to the people of Marceline. Walt took the stage and he looked at the crowd and said, "You children are lucky to live here. My best memories are the years I spent here." That really had an effect on me. I thought, "We ARE lucky to live here," because we can be a kid a lot longer.

Actually, I'm still not grown up.

SW: Neither am I! (We laugh)

KM: But, it was at that moment that I felt a connection with him, and yes, I was a Disney fan. They wanted us to sing the Mickey Mouse song to Walt when he walked in the theatre but we didn't know it. We didn't get it here. We'd heard of it but we didn't get the "Mickey Mouse Club."

So they taught us the song so we could sing that to Walt when he walked into the Uptown Theatre for the premiere. It was a lot of fun.

SW: Did you see Walt regularly once your dad and he became friends?

KM: Well, in that visit in '56 Dad and Walt were sitting in our family room and Walt said, "Rush..." My dad's name was Rush Johnson, he said, "Rush, do you know who owns my boyhood farm?" and Dad said, "Yes, I do." Walt said, "You can buy it cheaper than I can... go buy it."

So they formed a partnership. Walt had an idea. He wanted to do a 1900s working farm here in Marceline with Disney educational values. He was such a visionary he said, "There'll come a time when a child won't know what an acre of land is. There'll come a time when a child won't know what happens when you put a seed in the ground." So his idea was to have here on the Disney farm in Marceline, an educational process that would be entertaining and educational. He even sent Buzz Price back to do the feasibilities on it.

There were many, many trips back and forth and my dad going to California and a lot of other people here in Marceline were involved in it and we made a lot of trips out there.

You get a little spoiled... my brother and I never knew you had to stand in line at Disneyland. Walt always had a special table at the restaurant that we always got to sit at and we were headquartered out at the apartment, so when we went back later it was like, "I don't want to stand in this line. I think I should go around the back."

SW: When did you first visit Disneyland?

KM: I was there in 1956. I had never been there until I went with Walt Disney.

SW: You were with him?

KM: Yeah, the first time I went to Disneyland I was with Walt Disney.

SW: That is so cool. What was that like?

KM: Well, I didn't know any different. We walked around some on our own but most of the time there was somebody with us and then we'd just go in the back way to the rides, so it was a lot of fun. We got to go to the studio several times.

At the studio Walt had a table and Roy had a table and we usually all sat at Walt's table. My little brother lost a tooth... I was just mortified. He was about five years younger than me and we're sitting at the table and he loses his tooth in his hamburger bun, I just wanted to kill him. I was mortified at the studio.

We got to go several times onstage and I just knew that Hayley Mills was going to be my best friend forever and ever because I got to meet her. The only person I didn't get to meet that I really wanted to meet was Annette. I never got to meet her. I always wanted to meet her of course.

Right before Walt died he had me apply for a job. He sent my dad an application and said, "I think Kaye oughta come out here and work." Walt died that December and I was supposed to go the next spring, it was after my freshman year in college, and I almost didn't go but then Roy called and said, "Get yourself out here."

I was on the first crew when the "Carousel of Progress" came back from the World's Fair.

SW: That was my favorite attraction. I still remember the day I walked over there in Disneyland and found out it was closed for good.

KM: It was interesting because we worked for Disney AND General Electric. Back then, inspections were pretty tough. Every morning when we walked out of wardrobe, not only did we have to walk past the Disney inspection but there was a person from G.E. who looked over us, too.

SW: Each day?

KM: Yeah, and that's when bouffant hair was kind of coming in. There was this one girl that challenged them everyday with that. But it was great. I had a lot of fun working there.

Check back for more from Kaye Malins in the future with lots more about Marceline

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.