Ward Kimball anecdote...

Here is an anecdote that may be hard to verify - told to me by Børge Ring: "In 1968, when Ward Kimball had 'retired', he visited the Disney studio, walked through the halls, and imitated Walt's cough. It quickly became very quiet..." Does sound like Ward to me...

Comments

  1. Michael BarrierFebruary 17, 2007 at 10:59 AM

    One problem is that Kimball wasn't retired in 1968. He was still active in 1969, when I visited him at his office at the studio, and he was producing the "Mouse Factory" TV show a few years later. The studio's announcement of his death said he retired in 1973. I can believe the substance of the anecdote, but I'd bet that Ward imitated Walt's cough soon after Walt's death--when it really would have been spooky to hear it--and a long time before his own retirement.

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  2. Hans PerkFebruary 17, 2007 at 11:07 AM

    Good observation! Well, I can only say: I tell 'em as I hear 'em. You are probably right, too, when you suspect it wasn't too long after Walt's death...

    I have a 1971 phone directory that the animator Fred Kopietz used to keep track of his studio collegues. Kopietz retired in 1971, so he kept this in his home in Arizona to write in. Following Ward Kimball's name he writes "let go"...

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