Skip to main content

Walt Disney's FBI File: Part 1

About six years ago I read Hollywood's Dark Prince, the most ridiculous of all Walt Disney biographies.  It's actually worth reading just for the outrageous claims Marc Eliot makes.  Just to give you an idea, the book says Flora was not Walt's mother, he was the illegitimate child of Elias and a mexican woman. Walt hid this whole life by hiring her as his house keeper.  One of the biggest "revelations" though is that Walt secretly worked for the FBI giving them names of communists in Hollywood.  The book has a few photos from pages of Walt's FBI file to back up the claim.  Well, after reading the book I decided to get a copy of his FBI file myself.

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) getting a copy of a persons FBI file is pretty easy.  I made the request with FOIA and explained why I wanted to see the file.  About 3 months later they replied saying that my request was approved; all I needed to do was pay them $15.  Another 3 months went by, they confirmed that I had paid and about a month later I received a CD-R in the mail.  Inside a blank card board sleeve where someone had written Disney,Walt were 2 PDF files containing the 495 pages of Walt's FBI file.

The first PDF mainly discusses The Mickey Mouse Club wanting to tape a news reel segment in DC. The quality is pretty bad.  Most of the pages look like they were scanned, then photocopied and scanned again.  There are also a good number of pages that are completely blacked out, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Here's one of the pages on the Mickey Mouse Club.


One film the FBI was very interested in was Moon Pilot.  There are dozens of pages of correspondence about this film and cut outs from multiple news paper reviews.

I wonder what was said here that they needed to black out.  Funny how after it mentions UFO's and J. Edgar Hoover we are not allowed to read anything else.

Here's one of the reviews:

One of the "proofs" of Walt's involvement with the FBI in Hollywood's Dark Prince was this newspaper article:


Since we are on the topic of film, I found this entry a bit odd:


The above entry details a conversation Walt had with an agent where Walt volunteers to make educational films about avoiding strangers and things of that nature.  The way the agent describes it in the beginning though makes it sound like Walt had a real interest in a recent child murder.

There are also a few FBI memos discussing if the Bureau should accept Walt's invitation to the opening of Disneyland.


I do find it interesting that the FBI lists Walt as an SAC contact.  SAC standing for "Special Agent in Charge."   Did Hollywood's Dark Prince get something right?  Was Walt really an FBI informant?  In Part 2 we will look at Walt's correspondence with J. Edgar Hoover!  





Labels:

Comments

  1. JosephDecember 17, 2019 at 11:05 AM

    Did you even read the book? It said nothing about a Mexican woman..he was born to Spanish parents. I think you need to read this book and get some more insight before commenting on things and not even getting the information correct from the book. I understdood that it may have upset you, but really. If you study enough or know enought about facial characteristics, he looks very European latin..like italian or Spanish or French. When they asked him this in the 40s and 50s he did not deny it. He was also very good friends with Salvador Dali( spanish painter) and they asked him even back then, The book never says he was born to a Mexican woman..it was to Spanish parents. And Mexico and Spain are not the same and are on two different continents. Sorry I am not trying to discredit your comments, but its annoying to read when someone clearly has not read the book or only skimmed thru then attacks the writer..unreal.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Blank Check House

After the success of Home Alone movie studios did not waste anytime copying the formula (kid outsmarts bad guys).  While the worst offender was probably Three Ninjas, Disney was also guilty with Blank Check.  They even used it as a selling point! I saw Blank Check in the theater, I remember because it was the only time in my movie going life that the theater manager came out and talked to us about how the movie was filmed in Texas (which is where I live).  So, on a recent trip to Austin, I stopped by the Blank Check house. Here is how it appeared in the film: And today: As you can see, they've done quite a bit of remodeling. Not to mention the heavy plant growth which makes it almost unrecognizable. The old garage door is now a window The original entry way has been completely removed. This is the front door now: I drove around to the side and found the back gate open.  In the film, the back yard had a pool, go cart t
34 comments
Read more

Jumanji Film Locations

While I was in New Hampshire last week, I stopped in Keene to take some Jumanji comparison shots. Let's start at the beginning of the film. In the opening scene Alan Parrish rides his bike past a statue of his ancestor, Angus Parrish.  I had been to Keene once before and knew there was a statue in this square, so I assumed they just attached a fake plaque to it, I was wrong. They  built the prop statue on top of this rock fountain.  Why not just use the existing one? Here's another statue screen shot. It almost looks like they tried to brush out the actual statue in the opening shot from the film. . This Parrish shoes ad can be seen briefly in the film and appears in the back ground of the second statue picture I posted.  Here it is today. Moving onto the stampede scenes. Turns out Frank's Barber Shop is still there too. So is this old coke mural Run Kirsten! Stampede!
26 comments
Read more

Back to the Twilight Zone: Part 2

After the clock tower, the most important set in Hill Valley is probably the cafe.  In the Twilight Zone, the area we know as being the cafe is a police station. In 1985 Hill Valley, it's Lou's Aerobic Fitness Center. The building has not changed that much since the Twilight Zone, all they really did was relocate the door and build that facade.  Funny how Lou went from owning a restaurant to a fitness center 30 years later. Mike Ferris also takes in a movie at The Savoy. The Marquee (and movie selection) was changed when this area became Hill Valley A close up shows, that those busts have been there for quite a while. One scene that really threw me off, was when Mike walked past a drug store. It looks like the clock tower is behind him, and the reflection in the window looks like the post office building, but something about the geometry just didn't make sense to me.  I looked for more pictures of the set fr
42 comments
Read more