Today would have been Marc Davis’ 99th birthday.
Who’s he? Oh, just the greatest artist in the history of human civilization. I said that and I mean it. Sure Leonardo (not DiCaprio, but that other one) gave us the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, Van Gogh his Starry Night and Picasso cranked out a few amusing doodles here and there….but it was Davis who gave the world this:
The only child of Harry and Mildred Davis, Marc was born on March 30, 1913, in Bakersfield, Calif., where his father was engaged in oil field developments not unlike Daniel Day-Lewis’ character in “There Will Be Blood”…. minus the whole homicidal episode in a bowling alley at the end. Or least I hope so. At any rate wherever a new oil boom developed, the family moved and as a result, Marc attended more than 20 different schools across the country while growing up.
After high school, he enrolled in the Kansas City Art Institute, followed by the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco and Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. While studying, Marc spent hours at the zoo drawing animals, which became one of his specialties. His story drawings for “Bambi” are still considered some of the finest studies of animal characters ever created at Disney Studios. Considered by who? People who know this kind of stuff, that’s who. So back off.
Marc joined Disney in 1935 as an apprentice animator on “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and later did character design on “Bambi” and “Victory Through Air Power.”
Take that Thumper!
Can we just pause for a moment and let the yin and yang of that last sentence sink in? The same year (1943) he’s doing work on “Bambi”, the story of a baby deer romping in the forest with his adorable woodland friends…..he’s also animating “Victory Through Air Power”, a war-time propaganda film advocating the carpet bombing of European cities. Now that’s artisic range!
Another odd sidebar about “Victory….” It was based on a book of the same name written by Alexander de Seversky, a Russian-American inventor and military aviation pioneer who believed that only a massive, sustained and merciless use of air power could bring World War II to an end. Walt Disney was so inspired by that argument that he secured the rights to the book and commissioned a film adaption as a way to essentially lobby the U.S. government to adopt Seversky’s tactics.
According to some sources Disney Studios sent a print of the film to the Quebec Conference, a secret military meeting between the U.S., British and Canadian governments. Reportedly, the film had a profound effect on the participants, so much so that soon afterward, the Allies made a renewed commitment to long-range bombing. That story is probably apocryphal (look that word up if you have to), because how would Disney have known about a secret allied war meeting? Still it’s the kind of thing that’s just wacky enough to be true.
But….back to Mr. Davis.
In company lore he’s considered one of “Disney’s Nine Old Men”, a core group of creative types responsible for some of the studio’s most famous works. Over the years, he animated on such classic features as “Song of the South,” “Cinderella” and “Alice in Wonderland,” as well as shorts, including “African Diary,” “Duck Pimples” and “Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom.”
Impressive credits to be sure, but the place where his genius most directly intersects with your childhood came a bit latter.
In the early 1950’s, as work began on Disneyland, Davis transferred to Disney’s design and development organization, today
The Marc Davis gallery! Creeping kids out since 1954!
known as Walt Disney Imagineering. As one of Disney’s original Imagineers, Marc contributed whimsical story and character concepts for such Disneyland attractions as the Enchanted Tiki Room, It’s a Small World and The Jungle Cruise.
But it’s his work on two rides: The Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion that best showcase his considerable talents. Not only did he contribute during the early design phase of these attractions…but he’s personally responsible for creating nearly all the art work that hangs inside them.
“Your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding, almost as though you sense a disquieting metamorphosis. Is this haunted room actually stretching? Or is it your imagination, hmm…?”
The “stretch paintings” in the lobby of the Haunted Mansion? That’s him. The “Hall Of Portraits” that transform before your eyes? His handy work as well.
I can remember as a small child being carried through the Haunted Mansion by my father, because I was too scared to walk. But it was a good kind of scared….if that makes any sense. Or maybe I’m just romanticizing a moment pants pooping terror. Take your pick.
Twenty-years later I’d carry my own son through those gloomy corridors, thus continuing the generational cycle of fun….or emotional abuse. Take your pick.
My favorite example of Davis’ work (dare I say his masterpiece) hangs inside that other classic Disney ride, The Pirates Of The Caribbean. It’s the painting of a one-eyed, female buccaneer titled: “A Portrait Of Things To Come”.
Oh, it's that Proft kid again.
If the art in the Haunted Mansion fueled some of my first nightmares, then this picture is certainly responsible for early emotional stirrings of another kind all together. I’d argue that it’s (red) head and shoulders above anything dribbled out by Jackson Pollock or some wrinkled old Dutch face slapped on canvas by Rembrandt. Given the fact that people float through The Pirates Of The Caribbean at a rate of 3,400 guest/hour and have been doing so near ceaselessly seven days a week since the attraction opened in 1967, I’d wager more people have physically seen Davis’ painting than anything in the Louvre or New York’s Guggenheim…and none of those so called “museums” drop you down two waterfalls into a dark cavern filled with animatronic pirates.
And where’s the fun in that?
Davis and Walt Disney, circa 1966
Epic Parenting 