Scott Wolf: What were you doing with Disney before you were Ambassador?

Ellen Coleman Marchese: While I was in college I was in The Deck, which is the employee cafeteria behind “Pirates” and I was there casual seasonal in the summer and it was quite an experience. When I got hired I was all excited that I was going to work for Disneyland and I was in The Deck! So I didn’t get to work with the guests but I got to know the employees, which was really a great experience.

I really wanted to be a tour guide, but I had heard rumor that you had to speak a second language, and that Cicely Rigdon was a real tough nut is what I heard.

I was in college, I was a communications major and a friend of mine in the public speaking class was a tour guide and said, “You should go for it.” So I applied and was selected and I was really excited, but Cicely interviewed me and hired me, and moved on to the Ambassador program and another fellow, Larry, came in.

So I became tour guide and loved it, casual seasonal, and I did that through college and when I graduated from college I thought, “I really should get some interviewing skills.” Mindy Wilson, who had been a Disneyland Ambassador, said, “You should apply for the Ambassador program,” so I did, and I thought maybe I should just do it to interview. I had no intention of pursuing it. But then, when I was selected top 10, I got serious and really wanted to do it.

I had heard that you could only be selected as Ambassador if you had been the top 10 or top four the year before. So I just was floored when I was selected.

SW: Do you know how many tried out that year?

ECM: There were 200. It was popular. Then they narrowed it down to ten and then to top four.

There were ten of us, and you had a luncheon at Club 33.

SW: Don’t the executives kind of interview you during that?

ECM: Yes, I remember thinking, do I eat or do I not eat? We also did a mock television interview out at the ranch which was where they train the horses back there. That’s where the audio visual department was back there, so you would go back there and it was a mock interview and they would interview you as if you were the Disneyland Ambassador at that point. You didn’t see that, they reviewed that. So that was a fun thing but you were nervous about it.

Then they interviewed those ten again and they asked you really unusual pertinent questions of the day like I remember being asked what Jane Pauley had said on the “Today Show” or something. They asked about an athletic award, I think Greg Louganis got it, you had to be up on current events.

You got a phone call that you were one of the top four and you were then flown to Orlando, and that was like a week long where you had lunch one day with the executives, you did all of this, you toured the park, but you knew you were on, being watched. You also hosted the golf classic. They used the four Disneyland finalists and the Walt Disney World finalists to host the golf classic, and then you flew back home and you waited for the Ambassador ceremony.

SW: What was the ceremony like?

ECM: Mine was ginormous because it was the 20th year of the Ambassador, so Cicely made a big deal of it. They flew out all the (former) Ambassadors, they paid for their flights to come out and everything. I was not part of that, but it was evidently a lovely celebration for all of them.

The ceremony was beautiful, it was a homecoming for the Ambassadors, so they had a big show with all the princes and princesses, and they did a whole “Welcome Home Ambassadors” for them, and they had a wonderful choir singing to that performance and that show and then they had the New Mexico University marching band walk through with Mickey Mouse and his baton, and then they had an envelope that they opened up, I still have that envelope. They opened it up and named the Ambassador to the World. That was also the first year they had us say something. As they announced your name, we had to step up to the podium and give a little spiel.

I just remember that the four of us were crazy behind the castle, nervous, and there were all the past Ambassadors there, lovely ladies, and one of them was due that day, Susan Donald Edwards was expecting that day.

Sherry Alberoni was my emcee.

SW: From the original “Mickey Mouse Club?”

ECM: Yes. And so they whisked those three finalists off to the club, Club 33, and they took the Ambassador to the Plaza Inn for lunch. It was a press lunch, so you sat there with the press and answered questions. They had this beautiful cake that looked like a fairy book.

I was thrilled because I got to have lunch with Sherry Alberoni who was an original Mouseketeer, and she was just delightful, it was very exciting.

Afterwards, Cicely would take you to Pendleton Woolen Mills, the Pendleton store (in Disneyland) and she would show you the fabric that she had selected. In those days, prior to your being named, she kind of eyed the fabric for the four finalists and she would see what would be good with the coloring of each girl. So when I was named she selected the fabric for me and I went that day and got measured and all of that, so that was very fun.

SW: Did you ever go back to being a tour guide, or was it boom, that was it?

ECM: No, that was it.

SW: Did you think you had a good chance to become Ambassador?

ECM: Not a clue. I knew I didn’t! So when my name was announced I didn’t react, and then I looked over at my mother, who evidently the press clippings say she was saying, “Oh! Oh!” So I looked at my sweet mother and realized it.

The next day my picture was on the cover of L.A. Times and all that good stuff. It got my husband and I back together! He was off going to college in Greece and his parents some my picture in the newspaper and said, “Hey, you’re old girlfriend is Disneyland Ambassador!”

SW: And you ended up marrying him. I love that! Did your official day as Ambassador begin on January 1st?

ECM: Yes, but right away you had a new job and you were up at the administration building, so your office was up there.

SW: Was the building in the park?

ECM: It was right outside, the old administration building. So on that floor was the key executives and the legal department, and the Ambassador shared an office with Participant Affairs, Pete Clark’s office. At that time, Jennifer Grey, who later became the Ambassador coordinator was his secretary. That’s how that whole connection came to place.

So as soon as you were named Ambassador it started, and Cicely had established a cross-training program which had never been done before because she felt that the Ambassador should truly represent the cast and not just be a marketing tool for the park. She had a philosophy and she was a manager so she wasn’t going to be chaperoned. She was going to be a manager and manage this program. She arranged all the travel and all the press and got that going, but first and foremost she wanted to make sure that that Ambassador was part of the cast and that the people who were part of the magic and knew the person that represented them. So, for example, she had me going down to The Deck everyday for lunch. I wouldn’t be going to lunch with her. I would be going to the In Between or The Deck (the two employee cafeterias), so that I could get to know people. One day I did janitorial all day and one day I did foods all day and one day I did attractions all day and entertainment so that the employees would get to know me and know that I was not just some head cheerleader or something, this was somebody who had their best interests at heart in representing them to the world.

So then I trained, and I would go along with (the current Ambassador at the time) Mindy (Wilson), to press interviews so I could kind of school and learn from her, and of course the press wanted to interview us both and talk about the transition from year to year, so that as exciting.

Then you got your feet wet a little bit. Back then there was a big Community Service Awards that was the first thing you did as Ambassador, and that was like in late November. The Resort gives money to worthy causes within the community. For example, Children’s Hospital of Orange County would get $50,000 from the resort, or Orangewood Home for Children. So that was a night where community organizations were recognized for their contributions to the community, and in turn Disney allocates funds to assist them. So that was the first event as an Ambassador that you would do. The current Ambassador wasn’t there, you were the newbie.

Then on January 1st you were off then, kicking.

SW: Was there any event or anything for you on that day?

ECM: No, you just wore your uniform. I can remember my first tour was the Rose Princesses and the Rose Queen and Illini and USC were playing that year, so you hosted the football teams and the princesses and gave them a tour through Disneyland.

SW: Are there any other tours that you gave that particularly stand out?

ECM: I was very fortunate because it was the 1984 Olympics (held in Los Angeles) so I was the official hostess for Orange County. So I actually got to hold the torch as it went by Disneyland. I went out with the characters and cheered the runners on, but there were some mock torches that we got to keep as a result of that as they went down. But I had all of the athletic teams, I had Princess Anne of England and the king and queen of Denmark and ambassadors from several countries, the prime minister of Iceland.

So my year, in terms of dignitaries, was fabulous because all the athletes were here and all the government key officials were here. It was really wonderful because then we had “Wonders of China” open that year (in the Circle-Vision theater), and so I had the dignitaries from China. Back then it was a really communist country, so they had their whole entourage when we watched the “Wonders of China.” They hadn’t seen half of their country so it was exciting for them to see. It was a fabulous year in terms of tours.

SW: What other things opened that year?

ECM: The big thing was that Fantasyland had opened with Mindy (Wilson) the year before, but “Alice” had not. So I was able to open “Alice in Wonderland.” We didn’t have any big attractions opening that year.

The big marketing thing was Donald’s 50th birthday, so I went around the world with Peking ducks and Donald Duck, bringing ducks to zoos.

SW: You mean actually live Peking ducks?

ECM: Yeah, the white ducks, because Donald’s a white duck and it looked like him and it was his 50th anniversary, so we would deliver those to zoos around the world.

Donald and I would go to zoos and present the zoo, Auckland Zoo or even the San Diego Zoo we brought ducks to.

SW: That’s fascinating.

ECM: It was hilarious. On “Good Morning, Australia,” I was interviewed with a little tub, like a play tub, a splash tub for kids, with my feet in it because we were celebrating Donald, and Donald was there with me in the background, and there I was interviewed on television, and there were making us feel welcome because we had a duck.

SW: That’s one of the most unusual Ambassador stories I’ve ever heard!

ECM: In New Zealand we came in, Donald and I, in a helicopter for one event and landed in the middle of what was a horse race facility and Donald and I got out of the helicopter, we landed and were presented.

SW: How many countries did you visit on the tour?

ECM: It was throughout the year, it wasn’t one tour. I didn’t count, but Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, England, which was fabulous because Cicely’s English so that was a wonderful trip, and the western United States.

SW: What else was going on in the company at that time?

ECM: It was a struggle for me because we had a whole change of administration. We had Michael Eisner and Frank Wells come in. We had a buyout situation that was going on with Saul Steinberg trying to buy Disney. Ron Miller, the man who had hired me was, who was chairman of the board, he had been ousted and they brought in Eisner and Wells which was a whole different corporate philosophy, so that was rather hard, we had our first “R” rated film, “Splash,” and we had a strike, so that was very difficult.

The ride operators, Teamsters union was on strike, so all of us, Ron Dominguez, Dick Nunis, Cicely Rigdon, we were all working in the park. I was in Guest Relations in City Hall and it was very hard coming in to work every day, crossing a picket line, because I was a cast member. These were my friends who were on strike. So that was rather a difficult position.

SW: So executives were working in the park because there was such a shortage?

ECM: Not a shortage. We didn’t have cast members. So all of management. They considered keeping me on an extra year because this was happening during the Ambassador interviews. This was at the peak, so it was a very tumultuous time.

I think (future Ambassador manager) Jennifer Gray was on “Storybook (Land).” It was really something.

SW: Did the strike end before the ceremony?

ECM: In October, so yes.

But it was a grand ride and I was very fortunate to work with wonderful people. When I was a little girl I got to go to Disneyland once a year and I loved that day. I just loved representing Disneyland and it was absolutely magical for me.

SW: Even though it was Donald’s celebration, did you travel with Mickey Mouse at all?

ECM: When I was visiting children in hospitals and the big tours, all five characters were there.

My first trip was the Aid to Zoo horse show in Phoenix, Arizona, and all the characters and I went. We would do television shows, because we brought the Lipizzan horses with us, so we’d do the television shows with the Lipizzans, and Donald would be there and Mickey would be there and I would be there.

When I went to hospital visits, that was primarily Mickey, because Mickey is that symbol.

We did a second tour to Australia and that was with Anaheim Visitor and Convention Bureau, and we had Goofy with us for that. Mickey as well, but the whole thing was “Sports Goofy” had just come out.

SW: What was “Sports Goofy” in 1984?

ECM: He was being marketed. That was the first time that “Sports Goofy” was being marketed, and because it was the Olympics, the sports thing.

I also did the first Disneyland Band for second graders throughout Orange County. Now they do it at the Performing Arts Center and they bring the second graders to them. We did it, going out into the schools. So we would go to schools with the entire Disneyland band, and we’d go to an elementary school in Laguna Hills or something and we would present a band to those second graders. I got wonderful letters from little kids, “Thank you, Miss Coleman, for coming…”

SW: In 1984, was the Ambassador considered the representative of the cast members?

ECM: Yes. There was a time when you walked through the administration building to work, when you came through the hallway there was a series of pictures of all of us. There were 20 pictures of girls through the years, and our official portrait was in that hallway. You’d pass that every day, so you knew who your current ambassador was.

It was really marketed to the employees as being your representative. Not just a marketing tool for the company.

SW: Do you have a favorite memory of being Ambassador?

ECM: England was absolutely magical for me because we opened up a wing of the Ormond Street Hospital, the Peter Pan wing, and it was dedicated to Walt Disney. That was really wonderful because the little kids could not imagine that Mickey Mouse had come all the way from the United States and they could not believe it was the real Mickey Mouse. That was fabulous for me.

There were comical things. I was in the Portland Rose Festival. There are amazing roses in there, and Donald Duck and I were the grand marshals of the Portland Rose Festival. That’s as big up there, I did not realize, as the California Rose Parade. They asked me if I wanted my hood ornament, which was gorgeous, gorgeous peach roses, like a gigunda thing of roses! I said, “Yes, thank you, I would.” So Cicely and I are in an airport, and I’m wearing high heels which are just beautiful, part of my costume, and I’m carrying these roses up and escalator and she’s way up above me and you can’t see me because I’ve got these ginormous flowers and she says, “Dear, are you all right?” I said, “I think I’ve just broken my Pappagallos,” and I had one heel that came off, so I was going down a jetway with this, and was I going to let go of those roses? That would be a no! And so then we get into the airplane, PSA sponsored our flights every interview I was on, I flew “courtesy of PSA,” and I’m trying to jam these into the overhead and wouldn’t it be a Disneyland former tour guide who was the flight attendant who’s helping me get these in. That’s a huge comical thing for Cicely Rigdon that I insisted on bring what must have been four dozen roses.

There was being in Mexico in a parade and “Donald” had eaten off of a street vendor and Donald and I were in the parade. Donald was not feeling well in the parade. Parades there are different. They come right up to the car and I’m blonde and they want to touch you, so they would want to put their children in the car. So here I am with Donald not feeling well and we’re in this parade and we’re inching along because there’s people there. That was the Fiesta de Octubre. Cicely chose not to go on that. She knew better, so she sent Ronnie Rubin. He was the marketing guy that went with me and Judy Nunez, and Donald and I got to go to a real rodeo. They tried to get me to go into the rodeo and I wasn’t going to go in the rodeo. “My contract said no.” They wanted me to go inside and ride the horse. That wasn’t my favorite trip. Guadalajara.

In those days the Ambassadors had something that they always did. They always did the Portland Rose Festival. They always did the Fiesta de Octubre. There were things that were just tradition.

One thing that was fun for me is that I was from Whittier, California and they asked Mickey and I to be the Grand Marshals of the Whittier holiday parade, so that was kind of momentous for me, because “Whittier girl goes good.”

The Ambassador ceremony with the doves going off into the sky was just the start of like a fairy princess situation. I was very blessed. There wasn’t one absolute thing.

SW: What did you do afterwards?

ECM: After my year it was a difficult time because there was like an awful Friday the 13th. In December they let go of hundreds of people. We didn’t have jobs to go back to. Your job was over. You had to interview again. That was the precedent. More often than not they went to the Disney University. (Ambassador of the previous year) Mindy got a job at the Disney University, but there wasn’t a job for me because they couldn’t have hired me if they had laid of lots and lots of people. So I interviewed and I was very fortunate that Mary Jones hired me on a consulting basis to work with (1980 Ambassador) Nancy Englert Murray. We had 30 children fly in from around the world, representing 30 countries and we took a big picture of them in front of the castle. We put a ginormous red bow on the front of the castle, and it was a photo opportunity for 30 children around the world in their costumes, so I helped Nancy Murray organize that, and that segued into a position for me at the Disney University at the studio.

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