from 2008
MIRIAM NELSON
talks about her work as choreographer on Disneyland's opening day

by Scott Wolf

Miriam Nelson was already a successful Hollywood choreographer when she took on what was perhaps her most unusual job... choreographing all the dancing for the live televised grand opening of Disneyland! But that's just one milestone! Throughout her career she's worked with the likes of Julie Andrews, Ingrid Bergman, Doris Day, Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, John Travolta and Billy Bob Thornton, to name a few. While I generally I don't disclose the ages of those I interview, when I interviewed Miriam and she told me she was 89 years old, I just about fell over. She must have found the Fountain of Youth because she is the most youthful 89 I have ever seen. She continues to dance! She has big travel plans! And she is a complete inspiration! I am reminded of what George Burns once said, "You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old."  He must have known Miriam.

Scott Wolf: I know you choreographed many of the dances for Disneyland's televised opening day. You have a story about the night BEFORE it opened, don't you?

Miriam Nelson: That night before, it was so late they sent us to motels, they got us motel rooms so we didn't have to go all the way home and come all the way back because the next day we had to be back early to do run-throughs before we went on camera. I went to the motel and was told I'd be in room whatever and I went in and there were twin beds and there was a girl that looked like she was asleep. I remember thinking, "Who is that?" I think it was the script girl or somebody like that they had put up. She was holding a cigarette and it was almost down to her fingers. She fell asleep in bed with the cigarette! I remember that pretty good! So I went over and took the cigarette out of her hand and put it out.

I washed out my underwear because I didn't bring anything, nobody brought anything, and I went to bed. They had to buy razors for the guys to shave and we just wore the same clothes back that we had on the day of the rehearsal.

SW: So for the opening day, you choreographed dances all over the park, right?

MN: Yes. I ran from land to land! Jack Regas was my assistant that opening day.

SW: Did you rehearse at Disneyland?

MN: Oh sure. We rehearsed out there. First we rehearsed here in town and then like the last week we were out there.

SW: What are some of the things you remember from that day?

MN: I remember a group came up to me and said, "Where do you want all these horses and cowboys?" I said, "I don't know!" So I picked out a good looking one for the "white knight" and a villain for the "black night" at the opening of the (castle) drawbridge and then we had horses come in to Frontierland, that was a scene! My assistant was standing at the flagpole in the middle, kind of directing, so some would go this way, some would go that way... and he was scared to death of horses! I didn't know it until the show was over and then he told me.

In Frontierland we had this dance and it was supposed to be cement, but then it was gravel and dirt, so they're dancing and kicking up the dirt!

SW: Was that the Davy Crockett dance?

MN: Yes, we had Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen singing, "Bang! Went Ol' Betsy!" with that gun.

They had a big truck to put the dancers on to take them in a hurry to the next land where they had to change clothes.

SW: So you used the same dancers throughout the park?

MN: Yes, the same dancers. They lost the dancers once! The driver didn't know where he was going on the back roads back there and the dancers were all saying, "No, it's this way!" "I'm sure it's that way!"

SW: Did they make it there on time?

MN: Yes, they made it on time.

In New Orleans we had girls up on a balcony, those wrought iron things and the boys were going to slide down these poles and they said, "Oh, they can't do that! We just painted them!"

The whole show was like that. It was crazy!

SW: So what did you do with that dance?

MN: We just had to change it.

The New Orleans section opened with a little boy tap dancing. We were all ready to do that (on live television) and nobody could find the little boy. Somebody said, "I think he's down by the riverboat!" My assistant, Jack, RAN down there, and there's the kid with his hand in the water, la dee da. He picked him up, carried him back, put him on his mark, jumped out of the way and the red light (on the camera) went on and he was on. We were LIVE!

SW: Were the crowds a problem? I've heard people even hopped the fence to come in and I think people even had counterfeit tickets.

MN: Well... I was told that the people who worked out there were allowed to have their children come. There were going to be like twenty kids or something and I had worked this whole thing out when the drawbridge would lower and the kids were going to run into the castle.

I had the rabbit, and all those were my dancers in costumes. They were in the parade and they waited so long before the parade started, and it was so hot that day I thought they were all going to keel over if we don't start this thing.

So for this, it would be like the rabbit was assigned to pick up kids and put them on the saucers and another person would pick them up and put them on the merry go round. They all had jobs but we never rehearsed because we never had any of the kids. They just knew what they were supposed to do.

The dancers were supposed to go across the bridge, hippity hop, hippity hop. Then toward camera, (motioning) "C'mon!" and the kids were all going to be running from behind the camera and follow them. Well... they went, "Come here," and there were HUNDREDS of kids! They were going crazy putting that one here and that one there. They were throwing them onto rides! When some saw hundreds of kids coming at them they turned and ran!

SW: Had you worked in live television before that?

MN: Yes, I started on Red Skelton, that was my first television show. And Bob Hope was live. All of those shows... Colgate Comedy Hour, all live shows.

SW: At least you had that experience.

MN: Yes, I'm used to crazy. This was a little bigger than crazy.

SW: Did you get to meet Walt Disney?

MN: Yes, he walked by a few times when I was rehearsing out there and one time he wrote me a note... I could kill myself, I didn't know that all those things would have been so valuable if I had saved them, or take a picture with him, or anything. I could have if I had any brains. But, he wrote a note would I please have the girl dancers be more covered up... it was so hot they were wearing little halter tops, shorts... he said because the work men were slowing down watching the girls! He wrote it and it was cute when I think about it. He made a joke out of it.

SW: You did get to meet him, though?

MN: Oh sure.

Sherman Marks had really thought through in his head what this whole thing was going to be. He had what they called a Central Control booth built. There were other booths in different lands. I can't visualize where they were but I know I ran in and out of booths. The directors, while they were rehearsing, and I think it was the night before, they were calling their shots and Sherman could hear everybody from every booth. He was connected to everybody. Each land had its own television director. They were all good ones and I knew some of them from NBC. He would say things like, "I think it ought to be..." blah blah blah and the directors were getting pretty upset. They had a little meeting and I went to it and they decided they weren't going to do the show because they were being told too much and it's too late to be quibbling (with Marks), now they have to get the show on.

Walt obviously found out about but he said, "All of you who want to do the show, be in my office in half an hour," at Disneyland, "and if you don't want to do it, goodbye." Now I'm sitting there with the directors and they're saying, "What are we going to do? We can't just walk out. That's not very professional." They decided, and this is in my book (available at Amazon!) , that they would take off their head sets and not hear (Marks) give any instructions at all and they would do their show. So they wouldn't hear him and they would do the shots that they had worked out. They used to do all their shots on paper or the AD (Assistant Director) would have them all and he would be setting them up each time for the director to call it.

Well, we went to the office, everybody went, and it was like, "Yeah, we're going to do the show and there's no disgruntle, it's going to be fine."

More stories of Disneyland's opening day:
HARRIET BURNS
BLAINE GIBSON
JACK LINDQUIST

See other interviews

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