Scott Wolf: What was your role as the first Disneyland Ambassador?

Julie Reihm Casaletto: As (Walt Disney) told me, I would travel domestically first for them, and then I would travel internationally. What he impressed upon me is he said, "You will carry the name of Disneyland as the Disneyland Ambassador. You will also represent the studio.

We have a very important movie coming out, as you realize..." and that was "Mary Poppins." He said, "There are times when neither Julie Andrews nor Dick van Dyke will be able to be at an opening and we're going to ask you to be there so that you can represent the company and that type of thing."

He said the other thing is, "You'll be representing the company, representing the studio, but the other thing that is equally as important is you'll be representing me personally. I have people that I owe visits to right now. I'm getting older and I am not going to be doing a lot of traveling. I have gifts that I would like to have taken to them. So on certain days when you're away traveling for the Disney organization, you will be spending a day or two in this place doing my errands for me... personal errands. Going to their homes, going to visit with them, to carry my word to them. My gifts, my letters, whatever it happens to be." So that's what I did.

Did you enjoy it?

JRC: Oh yes.

Do you have any particular favorite memory from your time as Ambassador?

JRC: Well, there's just so many, I wouldn't even know where to start. I think the most important part of it, and it sounds maybe a little selfish, but the most important part of it was the fact that he trusted me so much with the name of his organization and with his name, and his older brother Roy did. At times when I had one or two questions, to ask a question of them, I felt such a degree of just their warmth and their kindness and their trust, when one of them would look at me and say, "Do what you think whatever is the best, because we know it's going to be right. Do what you need to do."

At times it baffled me because I thought I'm really young and I knew that at times there could be those in the company who would rather doubt the trust that had been placed on me by these people and by Walt. I know it bothered a couple of them. There are those who would talk to me very openly and there are those who would never talk to me about it during the time I was in the contract and traveling for them but who talked to me about it afterwards. People who are very close friends to Walt and who worked for him and with him and been his friend for years. That type of thing.

I was very moved by the fact that he did put such confidence and faith in me and when I would think about it at times, and I am a religious person to a degree like any of us are, and when I would say a prayer I was very grateful that he felt that way, but I also realized that I truly was the kind of person that I would do anything and everything not to let him down, not to let his organization down and not to let Disneyland down and the people there, the Cast Members there.

What had been created there didn't get created overnight and I knew that. So to me it was an obligation, it was a responsibility that, no, you don't let that down and you do everything that you can and when you're traveling and you get tired or somebody has not treated you well in an interview or whatever, you bounce back and you do the very best that you can and you carry your head high and don't let them get you down. It was just something that I thought, if he were here I know that's what he would do, and therefore that's what I did.

Was the 10th anniversary of Disneyland TV show the only one that you appeared in or were there others?

JRC: No, that was the one.

You were brought around to all the models of like "Haunted Mansion" and "Pirates" and "small world." Was it actually the first time you had seen those or had you seen those before?

JRC: Some of them I had seen before and then some were entirely new to me.

Did you know any of the people that Walt introduced you to in the show?

JRC: Yes. I had met them when I was up at the studio for different things before we ever did the show, but this would be a way of introducing the people who were watching the show to who they are and what they've done, by introducing me to them even though I had met them before and I knew what they had done.

In fact, John Hench and I had sat around one time when he was telling about other things that he was still working on, things that weren't going right, and he was still working on them because Walt had certain expectations for certain things and they weren't going the way that either John wanted them to go or Walt wanted them to go and he was still working on them. He was showing me things that he was doing.

Was that all shot at the studio?

JRC: Yes. When the show was shot, but when I met them it was at WED, Imagineering. The show was shot on the soundstage.

In it Walt of course gives you a tour of the latest upcoming creations for Disneyland.
Did you have a script for that?

JRC: No, we didn't have a script. Walt didn't like working from a script.

I know he introduced you as Julie Reihms instead of Reihm, and you just let him and didn't correct him. I think he even called you Juliet.

JRC: He might have. He did a few things, too, as the year went on that he just would just surprise me.

One day we were at the elementary school in Anaheim and they were just naming the school for him and we were there for the ceremony and for him receiving a plaque and some other things in honor of the school being named for him and he was to address them and I was to say something and then we were to have pictures and of course Mickey was there. So the three of us are up on this stage and that's all taking place and he is going to introduce me, and he introduces me as Julie Disney.

I thought, well, this is a live mike and you don't get up and correct your "boss." You just don't do that. So I just went up and said the few things that I was supposed to say and then stepped away from the mike and waved to the people. Then as I came down to the stage the press people had gathered and of course by this point I was getting to be enough aware of what happens, because I had been doing it now for several months, that I thought, okay I know what this is about. I know why they're all at the foot of the stairs. He called me Julie Disney and they're all going to have questions... am I really his daughter?

I was just thinking, oh boy, now we have this little needle in the haystack that they're going to "yip yip yip yip yip" at, and you know how that can go, so of course that's what it was and I assured them that my last name was Reihm and that my parents were in Long Beach and that I had been born in Galveston, Texas just as my bio had said. They said, "Yes, but it's Walt Disney that said that and we know that Walt Disney that said that and we know that Walt Disney KNOWS." I said, "So you don't think that I do?" And they said, "Well, we're going to go ask him. We're not just going to just ask you this type of thing." Then they dash over to him and he's talking to them and not answering them. Just not answering them. Then he turns around and says, "C'mon, Julie. Let's get in the car." He reaches through the crowd and pulls me by the hand to get in the car and I'm looking at him and I'm trying to keep that smile because you know the cameras are right there and we get into the car and I was supposed to go back to the park at that point. This car was going to take him on up to the studio. That was my understanding.

So he pulls me into the car and we're sitting there and he says, "(friendly) Got any questions for me?" I said, "As a matter of fact, yes. Was that intentional?" He smiled and said, "Yeah." I looked at him and I said, "Why?" I said, "You knew what that would do." He said, "Yup." I said, "Oh my word. (pause, then friendly) How does Lillian put up with you? How does she do it? What about (daughters) Sharon and Diane? How do they... oh boy." I said, "So we're going to cope with this for awhile?" He said, "Yup." I said, "That's alright, but oh my goodness." He said, "You're fully capable." I said, "Oh my goodness. Well... okay. So we just kind of have to play the ball." He said, "That's right."

Do you think it was a gag or do you think he thought it would get publicity?

JRC: I'm not sure of the intent. I didn't ask the intent, but I did look at him and I just couldn't quite figure it and I did not ask the intent. What were the multi-layers of it. I just didn't, I was just kind of like, "I don't believe you just did that." At first I thought it was just a mistake, he was just so used to having Diane or Sharon around. He said it quickly, and then of course as I came to the foot of the stairs and I saw all of them there I thought, "Whoops. This wasn't done just by a slip of the tongue." Then when he reached through and pulled me through them to get me into the car and here I was thinking I'm supposed to be going in the other guys car, I thought, "No. There's something up. Oh, you sly little fox you. You've done something again."

Were there any other uncomfortable situations like that?

JRC: Well, it wasn't uncomfortable with him.

Surprised?

JRC: Yes. Surprise and not really sure. I thought for sure the media would just back off immediately. They did not back off immediately. They kind of had their fun with it for awhile and they kind of kept poking but it didn't mean anything because all the records were there and he had two daughters and that had been known for a long time. I don't know.

There was only one other time when I felt slightly, I might say just perturbed, at a media person and that was all the way down in Australia and of course I came back and reported out about it because I was perturbed. I wanted him to know and he laughed. He said it wasn't the first time. I said, "Why? Have they done this before?" He said, "Oh yeah."

What happened?

JRC: I was down there and I was naturally representing him and I had gone to something for "Mary Poppins" and lots of activities down there. He had a very good friend down there, a very close family friend that he wasn't going to get to see. I was taking a gift to that individual way out in the country.

When I did this one TV show, the guy was so nice when we were off camera. He was just absolutely so nice and the minute the camera's were rolling he started challenging Disney about not being an artist at all and it was other people who did the work and he didn't do it, and there were many people who were much better animators in Australia. In fact, there was one who had been doing comics before Walt had ever even put out the first one, "Steamboat Willie." I was just taken aback. I just could not believe that he was saying it and I wanted to get up and leave but I thought I can't do that. You just have to keep going.

I didn't really feel as if anything I could say would nullify what he had said because I know that I was there in Australia and the names that he's mentioning probably the people listening know and they're probably saying, "Bully for him that he's telling the old American!" But at the same time in my mind I realized that Walt was a creative genius so I handled it in a way that I didn't want to offend the audience.

So I just said to him I'm sure they did have many fine people in Australia who were grand animators and I'm sure there are many throughout the world of different nationalities who were fine animators and surely those there in Australia, but I was representing an American who was a very fine animator and had created not only animation but also a theme park that seems to attract people from around the world to the happiness of it and I'm fortunate that I'm representing this man and his creation, and no matter what year it was that one first invented an animation, to me that's not the importance of my travel to be here with you in Australia. The importance to me is the essence of the man and what he has created. To me he has done something for the entire world. For you. For me. For your entire audience and for people from around the world who want to come to what he has created, forget their worries and their concerns and simply enjoy the moment of the sheer joy and beauty of that place. If that's possible, then to me he is a great person.

So the guy sat there and he just looked at me and then said, "Well, ours did it first." I just thought I had answered it the best that I could. I wasn't really happy with my answer, it didn't say enough - I really wanted to look at him and say, "I don't like you and I don't know about your facts. If you had presented it to me earlier I would have gone and researched it." (laughing) Things like that don't happen, though. Many people who are in any kind of public eye don't get the chance to go off and research something when anybody wants to irritate them or kind of rattle them.

That was the worst time to me because it was calling Walt a liar and not a great animator and what he had invented is really small to what "our guy did first." I was so irritated.

I thought, "Okay. This is why you did that training. It's because you're going to smile through it."

More from Julie:
The tests she was put through before becoming the first Ambassador
Walt convincing her to go for Ambassador and telling Walt she was leaving Disney

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