The Streets of Bakersfield - Take 3

It's all who you know. Or who you know who knows someone. And while I like to think that my connections liken to the whole six degrees of Kevin Bacon phenomenon, I really don't know anyone who knows anyone who knows Kevin Bacon. BUT I do know people who know other people who I think are just as interesting as Kevin Bacon. Where am I going with this, you ask? To wrap up my three-part series on Bakersfield, I would like to briefly feature two more people who stepped into Disney's world, and consequently two people who know people I know. Let's begin.

It happened two months ago while I was at home playing my Disney Treasures Disneyland USA DVD for my family. We were watching Disneyland's Opening Day dedication ceremony, when a gentleman stepped forward to recite the opening day prayer. "WAIT!," my mom announced, "rewind that!" It would have been an easy part to look over, as it directly followed Walt's well-known "To all who come to this happy place, welcome" speech and because the fuzzy grain of the black and white broadcast made it difficult to see the faces clearly.




The gentleman giving the dedication prayer, it happens, was Reverend Glenn D. Puder who served Bakersfield's First Presbyterian Church (see photo below) as senior pastor for nearly four decades or so. As it turned out, Reverend Puder was connected to the Disney family by way of his marriage to Walt's niece Dorothy (Daughter of Herbert Disney). An article on Disney's faith and Glenn Puder's role is available here. I think it's fascinating that he played a part in Disneyland's opening day and is well-known in the Bakersfield Community. The photos above are stills from the DVD. The first shows Reverend Peuder standing to Walt's immediate right and the second, of course, is of Reverend Puder giving the speech. You can also view the opening day dedication in its entirety, which includes Reverend Peuder's prayer, on YouTube here.


My second connection features a man who, while never knowing Walt personally, has made a big name for himself in the Disney industry. Mr. Richard "Dick" Cook, who has served as Chairman of the Walt Disney Studios since 2002, was born and raised in Bakersfield. The connection comes from my aunt, Shannon Clarke, who had a childhood friendship and took dance lessons for years with Dick's sister.

Dick's story is indeed remarkable. Begining his career with Disney in 1970 as a humble Monorail ride operator, Dick climbed from the bottom up to become the manager of Disney Studio's pay television and non-theatrical release department in Burbank by 1977. Over ten years later, Dick was promoted to President of the Buena Vista Pictures Distribution where he oversaw, as the Disney website puts it, "Disney's animation renaissance" when such films as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King were released. Mr. Cook has sometimes been referred to as the "nicest guy in the Disney jungle" thanks to his "down to earth" personality. As one of the few non-controversial figures in the Eisner downfall, Cook has garnered support from most everyone he works with.

But Dick hasn't forgotten his Bakersfield roots. During the opening of Hollywood's restored El Capitan Theater and neighboring Disney's Soda Fountain and Studio Store, Cook had a helping hand in the entire project down to the details, including what type of ice cream should be served at the Soda Fountain. According to an article on LaCanadaValleySun.com, the inspiration for an old-fasioned soda fountain came from Richard Cook. In order to find the perfect ice cream, "he and a team traveled all over California sampling ice cream until they reached Dewar's Family Ice Cream Parlor in Bakersfield. With all homemade ice creams and toppings, this was voted the best." And so, Dewars' ice cream is trucked down to Hollywood every week in order to make all varieties of old fashioned sundaes including, according to the menu, "DC's favorite", the Black and White.

So maybe it all does come back around to Dewars' ice cream (see paragraph two of The Streets of Bakersfield - Take 1). At the very least, as we wrap up this series on my little hometown of Bakersfield, California, we can say Walt was onto something when he pitched that well-known proverb for his famous ride, "It's a small world afterall!"

The Streets of Bakersfield - Take 2

Of all the great contributions to the world of art and animation, we can say Bakersfield has produced at least one outstanding legend. While bumbling around on the Internet a week back I stumbled on a little blip - "Marc Davis, born in Bakersfield, California, was the son of Harry and Mildred Davis." Aye Ca rumba! Could it be? More poking around uncovered this amazing truth. Yes, Marc Davis was in fact born in Bakersfield, California where he lived a brief, nay, fleeting, portion of his life. It wasn't much. But it was something.

More digging on the Internet produced nothing of value. I had but three facts: Marc was born in Bakersfield, his parent's names were Harry and Mildred, and his birthday, March 30, 1913, indicated at least one year in which the Davis Family lived in Bakersfield. Ultimately I wanted to find out how long the Davis' lived there, their reason for moving to Bakersfield, and where exactly they lived so maybe a photo could be generated for this post.

Referring to my book, Nine Old Men (which by the way is a must have for anyone interested in animation and Disney's legendary animators), shed some light on the first two questions. Author John Canemaker says this about Marc's father, Harry:

"(He) had... permanently itchy feet; the hope of making a fortune in oil fueled (so to speak) his wanderlust. It led him (and subsequently Marc and his mother) to constant travel throughout the United States to mining towns and oil fields. Wherever Harry went he supported himself as a jeweler, watchmaker, and, occasionally, a mind-reading magician."

According to Canemaker, Marc was "born in Bakersfield, California (another oil boomtown) and named after Marcus Lichtenstein, the owner of a jewelry shop where Harry was working," It seems, however, that by 1915 the Davis family had moved on to San Francisco or somewhere near the Bay Area to do some sort of act in the World's Fair. Not surprisingly, Marc referred to his father later as a "rainbow chaser" whose constant flitting from one town to the next left Marc with a very unsettled childhood.

Finding answers to the third part of my search has proved to be far more difficult. Inquiries at numerous sources, including the Kern County Records Department and online U.S. Census Statistics, finally led me to contact the Kern County Library. The Local History section of the library has something like city directories, or phonebooks, dating back to 1900. With a little help (Thanks Pop!), I discovered that the only listing for a Harry Davis in Bakersfield was from the year 1913, and gives only the title "watchmaker" for Wikersham Jewelers as an occupational reference and cites a location (residency?) on D Street.

The best I can contribute are some photos (above) of Bakersfield's Standard Oil and Union Oil facilities dating back to 1910. These panoramic shots are courtesy of the HelloBakersfield.com website's history section. In 1910 Bakersfield's population was "booming" at 13,000 people and many of these people were miners or in the oil business coming in on the Santa Fe Railroad. It's hard to believe that the Davis family was in Bakersfield so long ago, 20 years before the "dust bowl" even brought thousands of settlers from Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Marc, of course, is a Disney Legend. Being primarily self-taught, Marc spent hours a day at the local zoos sketching animals and observing people. He took some drawing classes at Otis Art Institute, and after high school worked in a sign-painting shop while going to school at the California School of Fine Arts. Davis also grew up with knowledge of the theater. His father occasionally performed magic shows and Marc himself loved to entertain. This proved to be invaluable in later years when Walt Disney snatched up Marc from the Animation Department to provide leadership on WED Imagineering projects when Disneyland went into production. Marc was the only one of the Nine Old Men whose talents, Walt decided, deserved to be moved to 3-D media.

Marc is primarily known for his work on many of Disney's leading ladies such as Sleeping Beauty, Tinkerbell, Cruella DeVil, and Maleficent. His drawings express a thorough understanding of human anatomy and, more importantly, the individual nuances and personalities of unique characters. There is no question that Marc's talent for storytelling and attention to detail were crucial to the development Disney's best films and later to Disneyland and EPCOT. Who would have thought that such a great artist had humble roots in Colonel Baker's little field?

Aside: For those of you who haven't seen it, there is a fantastic three-part Walt Disney Family series on Marc Davis available for viewing on YouTube. The links are available by clicking appropriately on Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3.

The Streets of Bakersfield - Take 1

Now while this post doesn't directly deal with animation, illustration, or art per se, it does discuss two other things near and dear to my heart: the cinema and Bakersfield. Ah, Bakersfield - that beacon of artistic and cultural life. For those of you unfamiliar with this veritable gem of a city nestled in the southern basin of California's San Joaquin Valley, Bakersfield is more commonly known as an en-route pit-stop to vacationers driving to Las Vegas, made famous by the likes of movies such as Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Running Man and the Kurt Russell and Robin Williams' film The Best of Times. Yes friends, this is the place I call my hometown.

But for all the snickers that the mention of Bakersfield elicits, believe it or not, this city does produce a few diamonds in the rough (anyone who's had Dewars' Peppermint Ice Milk can attest to this.) But I digress. This post represents the first of a short three-part series on Bakersfield's contributions to the world of illustration, art, and all my usual areas of interest.

I begin (I know you're thinking this should be almost over by now) by introducing to you one of the most impressive landmarks the city has to offer - Bakersfield's Majestic Fox Theater.

And it truly is majestic. The Fox, as we shall heretofore call it, was one of many Fox Theater chains to open between the 1920's and 1930's so-named for its creator bearing the same surname. The Bakersfield Fox opened in 1930 and was in operation until 1977 before it lost popularity and was forced to close its doors. It was not until over 25 years later that the city decided this landmark had to be preserved and formed the Save the Fox campaign, earning enough money to restore the theater to its original splendor.

Looking at the architecture pictured above, it's easy to see why The Fox continues to be such an icon. According to the Bakersfield Historic Preservation Commission's website (photo courtesy of their website as well), the California "Mission style" theater fused with the popular Art Deco style of the period was considered a "crowned jewel" of the entertainment world. Afterall, moving pictures were still quite new, and this elaborate theater provided one of the few sources of entertainment and community meeting places for residents of Bakersfield at that time.


The website notes that when the theater opened on Christmas Day, 1930, the first movie was opened with a Mickey Mouse Cartoon - only two years after Mickey's "birth". The cartoon was wildly popular. And with the first admission prices to The Fox being only 15 cents for children, it's easy to see why, especially during the depression, the iconic mouse became so famous. I'm willing to bet that The Fox in Bakersfield was also the home of one of some 800 Mickey Mouse Clubs that sprouted up across the country in the 1930's as well. I doubt that the staff at The Fox could shed much light on this inquiry, as I called earlier to see if the particular Mickey Mouse cartoon short that was played on opening night could be named without receiving much help. The best I can do is guess the cartoon was one of four Mickey Mouse cartoons from 1930 such as "The Gorilla Mystery" pictured above.