from 2008
LARRY BILLMAN
talks about his role in "Miracle of the White Stallions,"
and Disneyland live entertainment

by Scott Wolf

I find it interesting that there is very little written about the Disney resorts' live entertainment. There's plenty of information about the history of the parks and the attractions, but ever since Disneyland's opening day, live entertainment has been an integral part of the experience. Some of the most talented people in the entertainment industry have been involved in Disney's productions. I've had many goose bump moments seeing a parade at Disneyland, and at Tokyo Disneyland I was literally moved to tears by some of their amazing stage productions. Larry Billman is a foremost authority on dance in America and for over forty years was a key figure in some of Disney's greatest live productions. I'm thrilled to be able to share our conversations with you! 

HIS PRE-DISNEY DAYS AND MIRACLE OF THE WHITE STALLIONS

SW: How were you involved in the movie “Miracle of the White Stallions” before you worked for Disney?

LB: I got drafted in 1961 and thought it was the end of my career. I was going to be in the movie “Gypsy” as one of Dainty June’s Farm Boys and had to leave it all. I thought, “Oh no, there goes the end of my career.” Well, it wasn’t, it was the beginning of my life.

After basic training at Fort Ord, I was assigned as a company clerk in Germany where I very luckily lived and worked in Heidelberg. During my Army years, I was also directing shows at The Roadside Theater, an Army-funded theater there. Then also the German commercial theater asked me to direct for them.

Upon recommendation of a friend, film director Arthur Hiller, who was coming to Vienna to direct a movie called the “Miracle of the White Stallions” decided to cast me in the film.

“Miracle of the White Stallions” is one of those “lost” Disney movies because it’s based on historical fact about the rescue of the Lipizzaner horses from the Spanish riding academy by the American troops led by General Patton. The invading Russians were killing animals and Austria feared they would steal – or kill - them and they were considered National Treasures. So that’s the story. Not a children’s fantasy or a lot of laughs.

A representative of the Austrian Disney unit contacted me and asked, “Could you come to Vienna and do a couple of weeks on this movie?” I’m sure I was hired to save costs, as rather than flying somebody from America, it was cheaper to get an American PFC from Germany. So I accepted, went to Vienna and had a great time. It was an incredible experience.

After I finished filming, one of the Disney executives asked me if when I completed my tour of duty in the Army, which was December of ’63, if I would come to Vienna and sign a contract to work for Disney there. Not many people know this, but during the war, millions of major film studio dollars got locked in banks around the world, so Disney actually had an Austrian unit that had to spend their money there. In addition to “Miracle,” they made a film with Walter Slezak about the Vienna boys choir and one about Johann Strauss, “The Waltz King”. They were looking for actors who were compatible to what they were doing and there must have been something “Disney” about me – even then! So he asked would I be interested in a contract, and stupid me said no, no. I went back to Hollywood on unemployment, but had I accepted that, I don’t know where my life would have gone.

So that was my first experience with Disney. It was several continents removed. There weren’t really any traditionally Disney people around.

SW: What was your role in “Miracle of the White Stallions”?

LB: I played an American soldier, typecasting, who’s back at the castle. The army comes in and takes over a castle and set up a whole radio room and I’m the radio guy who is listening. They are sending me messages and telling me they’ve located the horses, they’ve caught up with the horses, they’ve turned the horses around and the horses are on their way. So I deliver all these messages to Lilli Palmer and Eddie Albert, so forth. The horses are all mares so I have some line about, “(in a Texas accent) Tell them your girlfriends are on the way.” It’s an interesting piece of levity in a rather serious movie.

WORKING AT DISNEYLAND

SW: How did you end up coming to work for Disneyland?

LB: After working on “Disney on Parade” as one of the choreographers, (You can read about Larry's experience on "Disney on Parade" here) I then was introduced to Bob Jani, as he had been told that I also wrote shows, he asked if I would like to write something coming up, which was a summer show.

It was to be a revue performed outdoors at the so- called temporary Tomorrowland stage.

SW: It was temporary?

LB: It was temporary for about 30 years. Trailers parked behind it for offices and dressing rooms. We always laughed about this. We could have built the Disney concert hall by the time that we’d spent all the money we did to rehab or refix or reinstall this temporary location as the shows there became more and more lavish.

They had name talent appearing there as well as the Kids of the Kingdom shows which was a spinoff from the Young Americans, Up with People and all of those popular, squeaky clean American kids kind of thing. But Bob Jani wanted to try something a little different. They wanted to try a revue with musical comedy people in it. Bob knew that I had worked in New York and Las Vegas and had musical theater training and sensibility rather than a young generation, young Americans kind of sensibility, so I was a good fit for that. That night at the meeting, I’ll never forget it, somebody said, “We ought to get Gower Champion to direct it,” and I remember Chuck Corson said, “What are you crazy or something?” He said, “Larry, do you want to direct it?” And I said, “Yes.” “Okay, then it’s done.” So suddenly I was a writer/director.

The show, “Show Me America”, we had titled “See America First”. The opening number was called “See America First”. Publicity didn’t like the title “See America First”, so it was called “Show Me America”. The show’s lyrics were written by Tom Adair who also worked on the (Golden) Horseshoe and later worked with me on the Hoop-De-Doo. We were partners in crime.

SW: An incredible songwriter.

LB: Yes. “Let’s take a trip to Niagara…” you know the song, “Let’s Get Away From it All.” And also an arranger/ composer named Paul Suter, who also then worked on "Hoop Dee Doo." So we were the three kinds of cuckoos that were assigned to this show.

SW: Were you all part of Disney?

LB: None of us were part of Disney. We were for hire. Consultants. We were all just gig for gig. I don’t even remember what kind of contract I had. I think I was guaranteed six weeks at x amount of dollars a week. So we had no affiliation with the company other than we were consultants for Disney. I was still performing at the time and Tom and Paul were the same, too, because they were doing television and all kinds of TV, recordings and things on the outside.

The show had a through line, which always makes me kind of get a little bit upset when all these people say “Beauty and the Beast” was the first “book” show the theme parks ever did. Not! Not that we did anything that was out of the ordinary. This was about a group touring across America, and what they discovered. There was an older mother and father with a teenage daughter who was played by Sherry Alberoni. Sherry of the Mouseketeers. We purposely tried to be politically correct and hired two wonderful African American performers to play the lovers, the young newlyweds.

The tour was led by a wonderful, crazy, hyperkinetic, tour guide played by an actor named Jim Begg, who I read passed away recently. If most television fans saw his face, they’d know exactly who he was. He did every television show in the world. Really kind of “out there” with a sweet, chubby face, but anyway, he was the tour guide trying to control all of this. And along the way, the Statue of Liberty on roller skates showed up, played by Teri Garr. Incredible cast.

John Scott Trotter who had been Bing Crosby’s conductor was the orchestra conductor. The orchestra was in front of the stage and we built a passerelle that went all the way around it. So not only was the show on the stage, but it could come out and surround the orchestra.

Teri Garr went into that pit at least once a week. She’d say, “Look out, John, here I come!” It was just hilarious.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time doing it. That show ran for one summer very, very successfully and brought a new group of guests to the park.

When Walt Disney World was about to open and they needed a Contemporary Hotel convention show they asked me take “Show Me America” to Florida, kind of rearranging it because it was all very California oriented. There was one terrific freeway number called “L.A. Is” written by Billy Barnes where the cast all had little steering wheels in their hands, and sang this funny song. That didn’t work for Florida.

So we went down to Florida. I think there were very few of the original cast who wanted to go to Florida, so it had to be recast. It ran for conventions for awhile.

I was the people director; Bob Jani didn’t assign me Disney Characters. “Show Me America” didn’t have a single character in it. “Hoop-De-Doo” didn’t, we didn’t do that at that time. Now characters are in everything.

At that time, Disneyland was still being shaped and it was a place where, and I’m very proud to say, everybody who worked for entertainment, Barnette Ricci, Chuck Corson, Jim Christensen, Ron Miziker, Forrest Bahruth and all of those talented people, introduced several generations of young people to live theater. It could have been the first live theater they ever, ever saw.

After “Show Me America” played, the following summer we went back to the star system which was each week a different star and I loved that. Olivia Newton John, Helen Reddy, Tony Orlando and Dawn. It was just terrific. Bob Jani asked Barnette and I to devise an opening number. The first year I believe was called “The Great American Music Machine” and the set was a giant jukebox. Every week, Jack Wagner, the musical genius of all time, used to create a medley of the top ten songs of the week on tape and Barnette would then choreograph to it.

We would check out the Billboard charts to find out what were the top hits and include them. Some of the songs existed all summer, but we had such fun with that because it was spontaneous and as each song would come on, the audience would get excited about it.

As the Opening number was reaching its climax, the jukebox would sputter and shake. Lights would flash and the jukebox would finally explode and on a moving platform through smoke and flashing lights, down came the live star out of the jukebox. “Ladies and gentlemen, Helen Reddy!” Terrific show.

The next year we created another concept which was a giant pinball machine. To change the songs, the dancers would bang against the bumpers on the machine. Lights would flash, whistles would blow and the song would change. That would then blow up and out would come the star.

The last one we did was called “The Great Rock Circus”. What we did, again on that terrible temporary stage, was to use a design motif of a circus tent which rose from the roof as the show began. Then girls went up and did aerial work 30 feet over the top of the theater to Bette Midler’s hit of “Your love keeps taking me higher.” As it reached its peak, out came the star. Barnette and I had such fun with those shows. We also kind of pushed the boundaries of what we were doing because we were not “hard rock” at that time. That’s always been a dilemma with being Disney. And also there was a lot of conservative attitude within the company in the ‘70s. I remember I was always against the costumes. The girls were always covered from their necks to their ankles and my young daughters at that time were watching Cher on television. They saw her booty and her bellybutton and I thought, “This is what America’s seeing. Who are we kidding?” People did not go around in sweaters and pleated skirts anymore. So that transition was interesting. We finally got to belly buttons with Princess Jasmine!

SW: Were you involved in parades at all?

LB: I didn’t do parades. Barnette was one of the masters of that.

SW: As a director or a choreographer?

LB: When I first met her, she was an assistant choreographer to Forrest Bahruth on “Show Me America”. Forrest Bahruth was a friend of mine. I had worked with him as a performer in Las Vegas and so he did the choreography and Barnette assisted him. Forrest then went to Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disney Resort with me and Barnette then went onto greatness.

Barnette’s creative genius became everything then, eventually, with the “Kids of the Kingdom” concept when she got to the medley shows, the “Disneyland is Your Land”, medley, “Show Biz Is…” “One Man’s Dream” and all of those, those were her babies. She would ask me for my ideas, but Barnette really did those, with Tom Bahler who wrote all those musical medleys. He was the inventor of that Disney “Kids of the Kingdom” sound. The boys, really high with the tenors, and it was a mainstay for the whole Disney look. We weren’t doing lots of character shows but Barnette was integrating characters into the medleys, which was the perfect combination. And the prototype for many international theme parks to this day.

EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS AND CAST MEMBERS

Reading your interview with Bruce Healey, he talks about “Fun with Music”, which was yet another all-people show that I did. That was created as part of an educational program, performed in the Fantasyland Theater. They used to show movies in there in the early years so it was another terrible venue. There was no backstage. It was really the worst. But that show was quite inventive and educational. It had a film projection “Overture,” and that was my first time to be able to go to the Disney Studios and pick and choose sound effects and animated clips for the rhythm and melody in nature.

The characters were Harmony, Melody, Rhythm and Father Music and was the basis of a significant Disney educational program led by John Anello. That show turned over many times a day with multiple audiences of school kids who would come in, see the show, and then they would be given a workbook which was part of their day that they would then go around the park and see examples of what they learned like with the Disneyland band, The Mad Hatters, etc.… The educational programs Disney used to have are great.

For one year, Disney had the where-with-all to have an All American musical comedy workshop… only one year.

This was an intense training program in which not only did we give kids discipline, we gave them exposure. And we could look around and spot the bright ones. Marilyn Magness who’s one of the original cast members of “Hoop Dee Doo” is working for the company as well as she should. She’s an incredible lady. She’s the original Dolly Drew.

“Hoop Dee Doo” opened in the summer, it was supposed to run for six weeks, and it was such an overwhelming success that somebody in the company said, “Maybe we ought to extend that,” because it was just put on as an economical college workshop. The script was all written, but, as a “workshop,” the cast was encouraged to improvise. Part of its success is about those actors understanding their characters so well, they could tell a whole room full of people to do something and they’d do it.

Over the years it has had an incredible amount of performers. I continually meet people who say, “I was in “Hoop Dee Doo”.” and I say, “Of course you were.” Over 35 years, three times a night, seven days a week, you know, the whole world could have been in “Hoop Dee Doo”. But it was proof of the pudding that the investment in education had serious payback. Not only for the students who were involved in it, but also the company. Where else can we observe people? Where are the go getters? Where are the brains of tomorrow? And in the live entertainment area. But in the original All American College programs, Julie Andrews was lecturing them, the Sherman Bros., Henry Mancini. Where are you going to go and get paid to have that kind of experience?

When I look back at all of my eventual – and valued - Disney coworkers: Tony Peluso, Bob Radock, Dave Goodman and many others all came out of those programs.

More from Larry:
"Disney on Parade," "Disney on Ice" and Tokyo Disney Resort

See other interviews