It’s always hard when an integral aspect of Disney history passed on. It’s with a heavy heart that we learned of Disney Legend Rolly Crump’s passing. We are honoring his legacy and contribution to the magic of Disney. Disneyland wouldn’t be the same without Rolly’s touch. We will miss you, Rolly.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

Rolly Crump was hired at Disney – despite having “the worst portfolio we’ve ever received”; he was an animator working on Peter Pan and other projects like 101 Dalmatians and Lady and the Tramp before moving to WED – now Walt Disney Imagineering. Rolly said he guessed Walt hired him because he showed a great deal of imagination. His first job was with Claude Coats on a Wizard of Oz attraction that was never built, designing a series of spinning flowers for the entrance.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump
Yale Gracey and Friend

Next, he and Yale Gracey soaked themselves in everything they could think of having to do with ghosts for a year, building models, working on everything but story. Walt would drop by every once in a while, ask how it was going, and they’d show him, including a full-scale room at the studio utilizing the biggest sheet of glass ever manufactured at that time. Walt had magicians and tour guides come in; Rolly said that even the magicians were fooled by the Pepper’s Ghost illusion. Rolly dressed in black holding an electric candle and walked around. Yale got the idea from a 1913 book from The Boy Mechanic series.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

They eventually came up with a story of a sea captain, lost at sea who had buried his wife alive in the fireplace, and had him in a pan of water with a shower over him. He had seaweed on him, and then the skeletal remains of his wife would wake up, scream, stretch out her arms and disappear. Ops feared that vandals would ruin a walkthrough. First, they thought of boats like in Pirates of the Caribbean and say that the Mansion was flooded. They originally planned for 100 people at a time, three minutes per room, with Ghost Host narration to tell the story.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

Walt saw a presentation on the Mansion with Dick Irvine, then head of WED, and noticed a bunch of stuff in the corner. “Oh, that’s Rolly’s stuff.” they said, and Rolly himself couldn’t explain what most of the stuff was for, just that it was weird. Walt got up and walked out. The next day when Rolly came into work, Walt was sitting at Crump’s desk, wearing the same exact clothing as he had worn the day before. “I was up all night, thinking about those things…here’s what we’re going to do: we’re going to put these all together into a Museum of the Weird.” Walt went on to describe how the Museum would be at the end of the Mansion to entertain guests who had gone through the attraction.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

After Walt’s death the Museum was deemed too weird and went to Neverland.

Tom Morris, 35-year retired Imagineer, explains how Disneyland was a showcase for Disney artists back in Rolly’s day:

“The thing that should be noted is Walt allowed all of these people to show their own style,” says Morris. “It wasn’t a big corporate guidebook or style guide. Walt allowed there to be a Marc Davis style, a Claude Coats style, a Mary Blair style and Rolly — Rolly is definitely one of the Disneyland styles.

“There were just these different styles that co-existed and that makes it more fun,” Morris continued. “It’s an interpretation. It was not like, ‘Here is the corporate stylebook and here is how it has to look because this is how it looked in the movie.’ Disneyland really had a handcrafted quality.”

Rolly shared the story of how his iconic Enchanted Tiki Garden statues were created:

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump
John Hench and Walt

John Hench, whom Crump cites as a mentor, suggested that there be stuffed birds throughout.

“Then Walt said, ‘Johnny, Disney does not stuff birds.’ Then someone else said, ‘They’re little mechanical birds.’ These are words in a little meeting, and this all of a sudden became the Tiki Room.”

Walt then gave Rolly his most well-known assignment: “Walt said, ‘If we’re going to have people waiting to go into this restaurant, I don’t want people standing in line. Design some tikis that talk to people while they stand in line.’ That was my assignment.”

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

Rolly got hold of a book by anthropologist Katharine Luomala, Whispers on the Wind, which led him to re-imagine the tiki gods and goddesses as more Disneyfied versions.  “I showed them to Walt and he said, ‘These are great. Let’s go with them.’”

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

Despite the order coming straight from Walt, sculptor Blaine Gibson said that he was too busy to sculpt the figures. Rolly: “I said, ‘Well, then who will sculpt these?’ Blaine said, ‘You will.’

“You just did what it took to do it. I used a plastic fork from the commissary to sculpt the clay on the tikis that ended up in Disneyland. That’s beautiful.”

Rolly taught himself to sculpt in the WED parking lot, which was hot enough to keep the plastiline media soft enough to sculpt. He also did the drummers, the base of the fountain, about 80% of the sculpts were Rolly’s.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

A great story from Chris Nichols’ Walt Disney’s Disneyland:

When Hench showed Crump’s drawings to Walt, he “looked at the one without a name and asked, “What does this one do?” Hench responded quickly: “‘It’s the god of tapa cloth beating.’ Walt (didn’t hear him correctly and) just kind of looked at it and said ‘Clock?’ Not missing a beat, John [Hench] shook his head [in agreement] and said, ‘It’s the guy that tells the time.’” Walt approved it, and the Māori trickster god Maui suddenly became the keeper of “Tropic Standard Time.”

Rolly became an art director and was tasked with retheming Adventureland Bazaar,  worked on the Ford Pavilion for the New York World’s Fair (including working with Bob Gurr on the Autoparts Harmonic for the queue), it’s a small world with Marc and Alice Davis and Mary Blair.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

His most famous work for the World’s Fair was The Tower of the Four Winds.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

It stood in front of it’s a small world.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

Walt gave him the nickname “Rolly”. First, he called him Roland, like everyone else did. Over the next year Walt called him Orland, Owen, then whatsisname then after that, it was always “Rolly”. Rolly, as he became known, next designed the famous facade of it’s a small world at Disneyland, including the clock with dolls representing the children of different countries parading every fifteen minutes.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

Rolly left to form his own studio in Newport Beach, but returned to Disney now and then, and even helped develop Walt Disney’s World’s EPCOT Center (now Epcot), including a design for it that never came to be: “Eptot,” an area of Epcot that would be dedicated for young children. He also worked on the original The Land pavilion, which he said was the “most Epcot” because of the hydroponics and fish farming, things that are actually consumed there after being grown futuristically.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump
D23

He also worked on the original Life and Health pavilion, which was never built. Instead, Wonders of Life took its place. He had a ride-through of the human body, a roller-coaster ride. “Your car would light up and tell you what organ you were in.” he said. Also a carousel built around Eight Healthy Habits.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

Rolly then founded Mariposa Design Group and worked on everything from Ernie Ball Guitar String packaging…

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

To the beloved genius of Knott’s Bear-y Tales at Knott’s Berry Farm

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly CrumpRolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

To Cousteau Ocean Center Park in Norfolk, Virginia, Barnum and Bailey’s Circus World,  and the Golden Nugget Casino.

Rolly crump, Remembering Disney Legend Rolly Crump

Crump retired for good in 1996, becoming a Disney Legend on September 17, 2004, along with Imagineers Alice Davis, Bob Gurr and Ralph Kent.

In 2012, Crump released an autobiography, It’s Kind of a Cute Story, which was so popular it garnered a sequel the following year, More Cute Stories. He died yesterday morning, peacefully, at the age of 93. 

Rolly Crump

February 27, 1930 – March 12, 2023

 

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Shelly Valladolid
Shelly Valladolid, aka Fab, has been writing about Disney and theme parks for about two decades. She has written for various fan and pop culture sites, Disney Magazine and OCRegister.com and participated in several books, including Passporter's Disneyland and Southern California and Disney World Dreams. She was co-founder and president of the Orlando, Florida chapter of the NFFC (now Disneyana Fan Club). She taught a class on theme park history at a Southern California University. She is creator and co-owner of Jim Hill Media, one of the creators of MousePlanet and was a consultant on MSNBC, The Motley Fool and others about Disney and various media matters. She was a Heel wrestling manager on TV and a voice artist on the radio in Honolulu, HI, where she grew up. She has a blog and a podcast with her daughter, Mission:Breakout Obsessive Alice Hill. She and her husband, MiceChat columnist Noe Valladolid, live in Southern California with Alice.