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.This made thingsmore and more difficult, as time went on, because there s really only so muchyou can do with cartoons at least, as Jackson wrote later, along the linesthat appealed to him. 95 The lines that appealed to him were, of course,1 90 a queer, qui ck, deli ghtful gi nk those evident in early features like Snow White and Bambi full-length sto-ries, told through painstaking productions whose cost was now beyond thestudio s reach. I think it was just after the war when nothing seemed to stimulate him, Disney s daughter Diane said in 1956. I could sort of sense it.I could tell hewasn t pleased with anything he was doing. Disney was, from all evidence, always a loving and attentive father, whosestruggles and reverses rarely impinged on his daughters lives unless they no-ticed that faint melancholy cast.In an August 1938 letter, Roy Disney men-tioned to his mother, Flora, that he and Edna and their only child, Roy Ed-ward, had met Walt and Lillian and the two girls at the merry-go-round inGriffith Park on a Sunday morning.96 Such visits to the park were a regularthing in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Diane recalled in 1956: Daddy tookus to Sunday school and afterward around to.Griffith Park, usually, tothe zoo or to amusement parks or something, and he would sit and watchus.Every Sunday we used to go with him.Wherever we wanted to gohe d take us.And then he d take us over to the studio.And we d wanderaround with him from room to room, or while he was in the studio we droller skate around the lot.And as we grew older we d.drive around thelot.We learned to drive that way and we had several little disasters. The girls went to a Christian Science Sunday school for a while.In thefourth grade, Diane attended a Catholic school, and perhaps, from her fa-ther s point of view, liked it a little too much: I wanted to become a nun.I went around at my lunch hour saying prayers in front of statues and every-thing. Disney sent her to a public school the next two years.Her father be-lieved in God, Diane said, but never went to church. Not that I rememberever.I think he had had it and he felt that he wanted us to sample and tomake our own choice. 97 Walt and Lillian did not have either daughter bap-tized. Dad thought we ought to have our own church.He didn t want any-thing in our early life to influence us. The Disney girls remembered no playmates when they were children.OnWoking Way, they lived on the very top of a hill, Sharon said, and therewere no playmates around us. They had friends in school, but not in theirown neighborhood, and so their father filled in as what Diane called just abig playmate.I remember he could do anything.He could throw usaround by our heels, you know.I don t know how he did it. Sharon re-membered her father as a great rough-houser when we were little tossingus up in the air and throwing us around.We loved it.Just loved it.Very pa-tient in things like that. 98on a treadmi ll, 1 941 1 947 1 91 But not in everything.The temper he could show at work could flare athome, too. He had quite a temper, Sharon said. If he was upset aboutsomething, Diane or Mother or I could make some comment at the dinnertable and set him oª and he d get mad at us.He d blow up.He would justblow up.And he d go on about the women in the house and he usually woulddigress quite a bit.I can t quote him.But I just remember thinking, Oh,oh, he s in a bad mood tonight.Watch out. 99 Diane also remembered burstsof temper when my sister and I would monopolize the conversation or fightor something and then he would get furious. 100Another source of strain was the presence of Lillian s older sister, GracePapineau, after she was widowed.(Another sister, Hazel Sewell, and herdaughter had lived with the Disneys in the early 1930s after Hazel s marriageto Glen Sewell ended.) Grace lived with us for ages, Diane Miller toldRichard Hubler in 1968. And a lot of the tension in our home had to dowith the fact that there was an outsider at the dinner table every night whocouldn t help but pass judgment in family arguments. 101In the middle 1940s, around the time World War II ended, Disney in-stalled a projection room in his home. I used to bring the dailies home fromhis earliest live-action productions, he said in 1956 referring to the rushes,or film shot the previous day but he stopped because my family wouldcome in and they d get so critical after seeing several versions of a scene.Diane, who was eleven then, remembered that her father was so excited.And I would sit there.and say, Oh, that s corny.I don t like that. I thinkI was embarrassed by the sentimentality of the scene.And it infuriated himand upset him. 102Disney described his daughters in a wry tone as very severe critics on a radio show in 1946. They have a favorite expression they use.They say, That s corny, Dad
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