Threadbare in Hollywood, Walt married his secretary and tried to sell his big idea. “It’s no use,” exhibitors told him. “Nobody ever heard of Mickev Mouse.”’
When I was born, my Daddy had already fathered the Mouse, the Duck and the Three Little Pigs. When my sister Sharon was born he was working on Snow White. I was three then, and one of the very first things I remember is when Sharon arrived at our home. There had been a lot of talk that a wonderful thing called a baby was coming to live with us. But when this wonderful thing came I couldn't even see her because she was parked in a high bassinet. All I could do was stand and look at the ruffles. I couldn’t even touch her. She couldn’t talk. I couldn’t hear her move — she must have been asleep. Right then I decided that a baby was a lot of fuss over nothing.
Then, after a while I began to realize that the creature in the bassinet was real. Before long she was old enough to toddle around after me and annoy me. A three-year gap between two little girls can mean a lot of difference. I expected everything from her I was capable of doing. This was unfair, of course. She was too young to play with me, so as far as I was concerned she was just an irritant.
I remember putting a sign on my door: EVERYONE CAN COME IN HERE EXCEPT SHARON DISNEY.
Sharon would stand at my door and look at me and I’d say, ‘Go ’way; I hate you.” I’m ashamed of that now, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that it happened.
Dad was a famous man long before I climbed out of my playpen. But he was Mister Nobody from Kansas City when he first landed in Hollywood, in July, 1923.
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