Scott Wolf: What was your vision of the Disneyland Ambassador when you first created it?

Jack Lindquist: The reason for the Ambassador was that I thought that we should annually select a young lady to represent all Disneyland employees, she would meet and greet all VIP guests that come to the park and would appear nationally and internationally at events, parades, celebrations, tourist industry activities, media events, always as the Official Representative of Disneyland as well as The Walt Disney Company.

The Disneyland Ambassador should not be a beauty contest, but it should be an attractive young lady with the kind of wholesome personality that Disneyland was becoming famous for. The Disneyland Ambassador was conceived as a program that blended together all the qualities of a Homecoming Queen, Miss America and Cinderella.

Each year the new Ambassador should have been introduced to the world on the Johnny Carson show.

I wanted to form a team of people that would function full-time in scheduling Ambassador appearances, and setting up national media events and trips to ensure maximum exposure for their Ambassador program. This group would also serve as PR liaison with the Ambassador.

In the '60s, the Ambassador would be a big deal and little girls all over the country would dream that someday they would grow up to be the Ambassador. We should have gone to top fashion designers and manufacturers to design a special Ambassador wardrobe, plus jewelry, makeup, luggage; the whole ball of wax.

The first Ambassador went right through the auditions, she was a finalist and showed up for the announcement. There were five finalists and they said, "The 1965 Disneyland Ambassador is Julie Reihm." One of the things we promised her, I worked out a deal with the Ford motor company, I had this friend at Ford and we worked it out that they would give her a new Ford for the year and then she'd get to keep it at the end of the year. She was a great Ambassador and she was the only one who was on TV with Walt.

Cicely was so important to that program, but before Cicely it was a guy named Frank Forsythe. Cicely did an outstanding job, but when Cicely inherited the program it was pretty well established. Frank took it from its infancy and all the girls that were Ambassadors between 1966 and 1980, he was like a father to them and he was great.

During that time there were intentionally no male Ambassadors?

JL: To have a male Ambassador, and I'm not being chauvinistic, to me certain programs are devised for one or the other of the sexes. You're not being arbitrary, but there's one thing about having a lovely young lady walk into a broadcast station and say, "I'm the Disneyland Ambassador." Some of the guys have been great, some of the guys before we had male Ambassadors were great, and at the time I'd tell the judges, you can all elect a male, I'm going to go against it. It's not discrimination. There are certain jobs, if we have a spaceman character it shouldn't be a woman, it should be a space "man."

Did you have any special criteria for choosing an Ambassador?

Not really. I think the best answer to that question is to look at all the wonderful Ambassadors who have represented Disneyland for over four decades.

Part of it, when you got down to the final twenty, you started to know there's a certain person that just stands out and you can't always describe it because representing a place like Disneyland is very special and it takes a lot of qualities, but it's a wonderful program and probably one of the things I'm most proud about ever bringing to Disneyland.

Also, see Jack's interviews on my sister site www.mouseclubhouse.com

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