Rolly Crump

Roland Fargo Crump began his career in the late 1950s at the Disney Studios as an animation in-betweener, where he worked on Sleeping Beauty (1959) and 101 Dalmatians (1961) before moving to Walt Disney Imagineering. In the beginning of his Imagineering career, Rolly worked on early concepts for the Haunted Mansion, as well as the development of various tiki gods and goddesses for The Enchanted Tiki Room, which opened in 1963. Rolly also worked on developing concepts for the 1964 New York World's Fair, notably it's a small world. Walt wanted an architectural landmark to accompany the pavilion, which would capture the spirit of children at play. Walt asked him to incorporate color and lively movement into a tower to be positioned outside the "Small World" building. Rolly's vivid design for the "Tower of the Four Winds" rose from the attraction's forecourt as the tallest symbol of "Disney at the Fair."

- From Company Literature

The following is a speech given by former Imagineer Rolly Crump at a special Ryman-Carroll Foundation tribute event at the Disneyland Resort on October 7, 2000.

All right, I'm going to start ... I'll try to go a little more chronological this time.

I got a job as an in-betweener with the Disney organization back in 1952. And at that time I was a head dipper at a potter's, dipping, uh, you know, glaze. Plaster pieces into the glaze. But I always wanted to work for Disney because I always liked to draw when I was a little guy. And so my mother said, "Well, why don't you apply for a job?" So I said, "OK." So I did. I applied for a job as an in-betweener at the Disney Studios and they called me back and they said, "Yes, we'd love to hire you." Fine. I said, "OK, good." And they said, "And your starting salary is $30 a week."

Well, I was making $78 a week as the head dipper and my wife was pregnant with our first child and the freeway was going through the house I was in. And I thought, "Oh, my god." So I went to my mother and I said, "I don't know." She said, "Honey, you always wanted to work for the company." She said, "Go for it." So I said, "OK."

So I took the job but what I did, like a lot of us who were in animation that didn't make that much money, we got a second job. So on the weekends, I worked with a friend of mine building sewer manholes. I mixed the mud and lowered the bricks and the mud to him so that I could continue working at Disney.

And of course it all paid off because what I learned from the company was absolutely unbelievable. In fact, I have a slide show I did called "Learning from Walt," and what that really means is learning from all of the people that I was with. I only had a high school education and all of the sudden I was put into rooms with guys that were graduates of Art Center, from Chouinard, from all different art schools and colleges. And here Rolly is, you know?

So I begin to work with all of these people and what happened was one of the fellas that I was ... like I said, I was the last in-betweener hired on Peter Pan, so that was slipping right in at the last second ... uh, it was a fellow that was named, uh, Wathel Rogers. And Wathel had a little pushpin on his light, on his desk and there was this little propeller turning on it. And every time I would go to have my scene checked, I would look at this little propeller. And I was really intrigued with kinetic sculpture and I asked him, I said, "How'd you do that?" And he said, "Well, it's a secret."

Well, what it was was a little clip that holds the eraser to the pencil. And, uh, what he did was he'd take it down and he bent it and he'd put it on the end of this thing that was spinning. And I said, "C'mon Wathel." "TOP Secret!" So I went back and I kept trying to make these damn things and I ruined tons of them trying to make these little propellers. Finally, after about six weeks, he said, "I'll tell you what ... I'll sell it to you." So he sold it to me for a penny and then he showed me the way you do it is you take a ball point pen and make a dent in it so that it rides in the little bump. OK.

So one of the fellas from the art department came over and said, "Gosh, Rolly, that's a great little propeller. I had it on top of a little cardboard helicopter that I made and it was hanging off the air conditioning. He said, "How'd you do that?" I said, "I'll tell you. I'm not going to charge you, I'll just tell you."

So then he made one but put paddles on it ... little cardboard paddles. And I went and saw his and his was bigger than mine. So I went back but I started making propellers. And I had my frekin' room filled with propellers. I mean after about six months I was making propellers all day long and once in a while, I'd do an in-between. But anyways, what happened was Ward Kimball, uh, one of the Nine Old Men, saw my propellers and was really intrigued by it and he told Walt, "You gotta see this guy's propellers." You know, so obviously, and I didn't realize this, Walt came down one evening and saw my propellers and, uh, said, "You know, we outta get that kid to come work with us on the Disneyland project."

This was when WED was first developed. WED was his initials - Walter Elias Disney - and that was the company that designed Disneyland. And so in 1959, they asked me if I'd be interested and I said, "Yeah, sure, great." I didn't have a clue what I was going to do but I couldn't do propellers for the rest of my life. So, uh, anyway ... we, uh, Walt ... the nice thing about Walt was that he really believed in you.

So, uh, it was kinda cute because the first day I met Walt, he shook my hand and said, "Roland ... it's nice to have you with us." And I said, "Mr. Disney ... it's nice to be with you." And he said, "No, Roland. It's not Mr. Disney. It's Walt. And don't you forget it." So I said, "Okay, fine." Well, we went a few days where I was Roland and then after a while he started calling me Owen. There was a writer named Owen Crump. He was writing for motion pictures. So, oh, for five or six months, I was Owen. So I went along with that. And then I became Orland. Walt started calling me Orland. And I said, "Fine." You know. I don't care. At least he knows who I am. But the real coup de grace was one day we were in a meeting and he turned to Yale Gracey and he said, "Yale, you and, uh, what's his name here ... I want you to work on the Mansion."

So anyway, that's how I got started.

Continued ...

Practical jokes, Haunted Mansion
and a "BIG, powerful woman"

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