267. How to Write About an Iconic Historical Figure with Phil Gramlich

Podcaster, travel agent, and author Phil Gramlich discusses his book Walt & His Park, and tips on how he wrote about the famed figure.
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Visit Phil's website:
https://eartotheretravel.com/our-team/phil-gramlich/

Get a copy of Walt & His Park:
https://www.philgramlich.com/

Follow Phil on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/EarToTherePhil/

Don't forget to listen to the instructions at the end of the episode to learn how you can win a free copy of Walt & His Park! To enter, email Jennia at jenniaedits@gmail.com or message her on Facebook or Instagram.

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the podcast that takes a whole person approach to everything that's related to both writing and editing. Writing about well-known historical figures can mean the author needs to go beyond the basics about that person in order to add to the discourse, instead of just rehashing the same stories and the same stats that are already found in other sources. One of these well-known figures who continues to be written and read about today, and who is a personal favorite of mine, is Walt Disney. Podcaster, travel agent, and author Phil Gramlich is known for his wealth of Disney knowledge, which he shared through various mediums, including his new book, Walt & His Park. This is "How to Write About an Iconic Historical Figure."

Jennia: It's a pleasure to have you here, and I can't wait to chat with you about something that's also one of my key interests!

Phil: Jennia, thank you so much for having me! I was just saying before you hit record—first of all, when you say author, that doesn't register in my brain yet, so I don't—(Jennia laughs). But when you say podcaster, I've done maybe 450 episodes where I have to be the person in charge, and I'm so happy to not be in charge. So thank you for having me. I'm thrilled. Let's talk about Walt.

Jennia: Yeah, of course! First, why Walt? Was there something that drew you to him in particular? Is he someone you've always been interested in?

Phil: When I was 13, my sister, who was five, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. And my uncle, he said, "Listen, once you go through these surgeries, once you recover, I'm taking your family to Disney World." And we never been. And she recovered, and she had to learn to walk again. This is the ei—not the eighties, I'm sorry. This is the nineties. So they literally had to open up the back of your head back then. It was insane for—

Jennia: Oh jeez.

Phil: —she was five years old. So she made it, she learned to walk again, learn to talk again. We got to Disney World, and we got to Walt Disney World, and I remember being on Main Street and saying to my family, "I don't know how this works, but I need to figure it out, and I want to work here." And seven years later, I was a cast member in Disney's Animal Kingdom when it—a few months after opening team. I started working there in June 1998. Once I learned how it worked, and once I started doing some research about Walt Disney, you know what he went through to get the park, get a Disneyland built up—not Walt Disney World, of course—I was hooked. I was fascinated. And I was like, "I want to know everything I can about this guy." That was almost 30 years ago, so it's been like a 28 year journey for me with Walt Disney, and books, and research, and all of that stuff.

Jennia: That is such a great story. And I think that's one thing that a lot of people, when they first hear the Disney name, they don't really think about him as a business innovator and that he changed so much in media and how we view it, and even how it's targeted towards children and not just the adult audience. He really opened up so much. And even how to market to your audience and make them feel like they're valued. I mean, a lot of that really all goes back to him.

Phil: He famously said, like, "I'm not aiming to the critics. I'm not aiming to little kids. I'm not aiming to adults." I mean, "I'm aiming at the family." Everybody.

Jennia: Mhm!

Phil: Everybody's included. That's who we're talking about with these movies, with the parks—everyone is included. And that's—there's so many, like, specialized entertainment industries it's very, very different to the, "Hey, I want to just make sure everybody has fun here." His focus was not just kids. It was the whole family.

Jennia: Yeah, completely agree. Not to go off on a tangent on the parks versus the person himself, but I think too, it's important when people are, again, when they hear that name, don't judge it based off what you're seeing now. We need to look back at the original man, the guy who started it all, and why that foundation was even laid.

Phil: Funny that you say that, because that's what the book is. I found when I first started doing this, when I first started my travel business, that people don't know Walt is a real person. They thought he was a figurehead like Aunt Jemima, but he's not a mascot. He's not Bob's Big Boy. He was a real person.

Jennia: Yes!

Phil: And I think that gets lost on... not just young people. You'd be surprised. Like, people my age, in their forties, were like, "Wait, Walt was real?" Like, holy cow, where have you been? So that's another reason why I wrote it. So many of the stories that are in the book aren't ones that you'll find when you go to the parks or go to the hotels and you see the nods to Walt everywhere. This stuff isn't in there. So that's what I tried to do, is tell stories that aren't the main kind of ones that you'll hear, that the Disney company spins all the time.

Jennia: Yeah. That actually leads into something I want to talk about, because not just in this book, but you post a lot on Facebook and share stories, and you're always really honest about who he was as a person. You're not touching on just the positives of his character and all the good he did. But even when you're honest, you might touch on something like his temper, you're writing with kindness and understanding of what maybe led to that or what would provoke it, or even how he'd go back and maybe try and buffer out some of those rougher moments. And I just wanted to touch on too, like, why is it important to cover the whole person and not just aspects of that person?

Phil: I'm really passionate about that one. So thanks for asking that question, because it's very important for people to understand, like, the person he was. And, yeah, he had a temper. He wasn't easy to work for. He could be a bit of a jerk sometimes. He could. The reason I think I write it like that, and I kind of write it from a little bit from my perspective. Like, I run a business.

Jennia: Ah yeah.

Phil: I have days that I don't feel like being nice to people. Sometimes I'm not, and I regret it. The difference with me is I apologize. I like to think I apologize. He apparently did not. That wasn't something he did. He wasn't an apologizer, which is—he was the kind of guy that after he hurt your feelings and embarrassed you in front of a room full of people, he would come back in later and punch you in the arm, be like, "Ah, we're buddies now, right?" So I think he would be incredibly difficult to work for in certain ways, but it is important to tell the whole story. Like, yeah, he was a hard person to work for, but he also—like, I've talked to Bob Gurr, and Julie Andrews, and Rolly Crump, and every na—like, these names, you go, "Holy cow, I can't believe, like, I've been in the rooms with them. I've talked to them."

Jennia: Right.

Phil: To a man or to a woman, they all tell me, "Oh, yeah, it was a pain. He was difficult, and I get mad sometimes thinking about stories of him, of when we clashed, we butted heads." But none of them have ever said they regretted working for him. They all literally tear up on top of that.

Jennia: Oh my gosh.

Phil: Literally! I went—I was in Bob Gurr's, and I'm not—I'm sorry. I know that's, like, humble brag. I'm gonna be honest with you—

Jennia: No, no, please. Humble brag.

Phil: —this is straight up bragging. I'm not humbly—I'm not humble (Jennia laughs). I went and had dinner at Bob Gurr's house, and we were sitting in the backyard, and we were talking about Walt. And that afternoon, I had visited Walt's grave. I told Bob, I said, "Ah, we went to Walt's grave today." And I said, "I, you know, I'm sure you've been there." And he started tearing up, and he said, "I've never been there. I didn't even go to the funeral. I couldn't." So to me, that's like, wow, that kind of impact. The guy died 50 plus years ago, and people are still having that. That's why the book's important. Like, stories like that, I think, they're not in other books, so I want to tell them.

Jennia: Right, yeah! That was something else that I thought to ask about, because you do have all these resources and not just secondhand information, but that you went out and conducted all these interviews yourself. So how did you arrange doing that? And was it hard, even, to get an in with some of these people?

Phil: So, yeah, like, I have to be honest. I started my podcast early. There were some famous Disney podcasters out there, but there weren't a million of us like there are now.

Jennia: Right.

Phil: But back then, there was, I don't know, 30, 40. So I got lucky on a couple. I think Bob Gurr, I found out he had a manager, and I just found his manager, and I shot him an email, and I was like, listen, "Bob's a dream guest of mine, and I would love to have him on. And I'd promote whatever he wants to do if he will come on." And he, like, the next day was like, "Bob would love to do it." And he did one show, and I thought that would be it. And then a couple days later, and I was like, "Hey, if I keep promoting your bus tour that you do in Los Angeles, will you come on every once in a while, [and] answer listener questions?" He said yes. And that became—that was seven or eight years ago. And, you know, I text him.

Jennia: Oh my gosh!

Phil: Trust me, I understand how insane that sounds. And I know I don't take it for granted. I'm very lucky. And like other ones, like Julie Andrews, I had a podcast that people were listening to at the time, and she just so happened to have a show that was coming out on Netflix. So I just shot Netflix an email, and I was like, "Hey, I would love to talk to Julie Andrews." And I forgot about it because I was like, "That's not—

Jennia: (laughs) Oh my gosh.

Phil: It was like seven, six, seven years ago. I remember I was taking a shower. I had my phone in the bathroom—I always have my phone there. It rang and I looked out through the glass and it said, New York, New York. And I was like, "Eh." You know how your phone rings, you're like, "I'm not answering that." And I forgot about it. And like an hour later, I was having to catch up my son on the front lawn, and I was like, "Oh, shoot. What is that voicemail?" And I checked and it was like, "Hi, this is so and so from Netflix. We would love for you to interview Julie Andrews." I was like—

Jennia: Oh wow.

Phil: Yeah. So that was the most—that was surreal. Like, that was insane.

Jennia: Yeah. I can't even imagine, especially just thinking it's some spam phone call, you know, trying to sell you your car insurance or whatever.

Phil: The worst part about it was, it was—I didn't get the message until after 5PM on a Friday. So Netflix was closed. They were done. No one's taking any calls. So I frantically called the number that she left in the email and I couldn't get back to her until Monday. So I had to go the whole weekend freaked out. Like, I blew my only chance to interview Julie Andrews.

Jennia: Oh, my gosh. That would have been so crushing.

Phil: The thing was, they invited me up to New York City to interview it in person, and I couldn't because I have a child—one of my kids go to school from home. But we had to do it on the phone. And when you hear Julie Andrews say your name (Jennia laughs), nothing cooler. Like, Mary Poppins is like—

Jennia: Did you record it?

Phil: I have, not even kidding, I put it on a T Shirt. I put one of her quotes on a T Shirt and wore it to the D23 Expo just to try to get more attention, because I was—

Jennia: Yeah, just make that your ringtone (both laugh).

Phil: Yeah, yeah. It was so—I mean, it was cool as heck.

Jennia: Leave it as your voicemail message. I would (laughs).

Phil: Trust me, I've talked to some Disney voice actors, and I've been so tempted to ask them to leave me my outgoing voice message on my—as, like, Scar, Winnie the Pooh.

Jennia: Oh, that'd be perfect.

Phil: Anyway, sorry, I'll just keep talking.

Jennia: Yeah, please do! No, I think that this really does show that just being persistent and being willing to put yourself out there can lead to so many of these opportunities. Because I think so often we feel like, "Oh, that person's, you know, so high above my level" or, "My show doesn't rate their attention" or something of the sort. And so we might not even try.

Phil: The worst they're gonna say is no.

Jennia: Exactly. And that doesn't mean no forever either.

Phil: Most of the time, they don't respond to you at all. I would write to very famous actors and never hear from them and be like, "All right, well, I took a shot, didn't hear from them." But once in a while, you hear back, like Julie Andrews or, you know, you go, "Holy—Or Rolly Crump. And you're like, "Rolly Crump?!" Like, that was episode eleven of my podcast. I was nowhere near ready or prepared to talk to Rolly Crump. I wasn't, but I did it. It was great, and I loved it. And it's one of my favorite memories. And I got to talk to him for, like, 2 hours. And, like, listening to Rolly Crump tell you stories about Walt? Sadly, we lost Rolly last year, and it was so sad. And he was just a nicest guy. Him and his wife spent 2 hours with me on the phone. He literally—and I can say this now, I didn't put this in a podcast, but he was hard of hearing. He couldn't hear—he could barely hear. And she translated every single thing I said.

Jennia: Oh my goodness.

Phil: And he would respond to her, not me. And I tried to edit that out of the podcast, but just to be that nice to somebody—I wasn't anybody. I was literally—I had eleven podcast episodes. And for this Disney legend to sit for two hours with me on a weekday, and he's just like, "I want these stories to live on." That's the book too, right? Like, you—kids have to read. They have to know these stories. And I'm not saying buy my book. I'd appreciate it if you did. But buy a Walt book. Like, buy the Bob Thomas Walt biography and have that and read it, because that's where you really get a sense of—if you want a biography of Walt, that's the one that you go to.

Jennia: Right, yeah. That also talks about how your book is different, because it really is more a collection of stories. And I think it's in the introduction where you say that you don't use chapters because you're encouraging readers to just pick up whichever story catches their fancy at that moment and dive in and read it. They don't have to necessarily read them in order. So maybe if they're not as interested in Walt's childhood, they can skip ahead to something dealing with animation.

Phil: Yeah. I gotta be honest with you, that's mostly because, like, some of the stories, I was like, I don't know what year this took place (both laugh). So it does go linear, like, the chapters are linear, but not really. Like, one story may have happened two years before the next story in a book. And I don't put a whole lot of dates in the book, if it's definite, I do. But mostly the book is stories that have been told to me, or I've read and then heard from somebody else, or I've heard at a convention, or we've been in line at something and somebody's like, "Oh, did you hear about what Floyd Norman said?" And I'm like, "No." And then you remember it, and that's, you know, those are the stories, and that's what goes into the book. And, I don't know, It's just—it's fun. It's different. It's not, like I said, like you said, it's not a straight biography. It's different.

Jennia: And do you think that's what is going to help your book stand apart from all the other books that are already available? That it has, yeah, that storytelling quality, and it does have that very buddy-buddy feel to it, because, again, you're not glossing over any of the negatives or any of the flaws. It's, "Here they are."

Phil: Yeah. He's the man that he was. Like, there's some stuff that I've read that's in the biographies. It's not hidden.

Jennia: Mhm.

Phil: Like, he smacked his daughter Diane once across the face because she disobeyed him. And I'm like, "Oh, man. Like I, ooh." Listen, I'm never going to smack my children, ever. I never have, never will. But I understand a guy who was abused as a child—he literally was beaten by his father.

Jennia: Yeah.

Phil: —having a moment, I get it. I understand it. I don't like it, but—and I don't have to include in a book, but that's a part of it too. Like, it's in his history. It's there, and it's—I think it's not fair to hide it, but, yeah, I mean, listen, he's a guy that lost his cool sometimes, and, you know, listen, I lose my cool. I've said stuff to my kids, and I'm walking the dog afterwards, and I'm like, "Oh, man, that's going to be therapy in a couple of years, I think." (Jennia laughs). But, like, you know, we all do. You lose your cool and then, you know, he was just a guy. And that's what the book is. It's Walt, it's why it's not the Walt Disney book. It's not the company. I wanted to tell the Disneyland story as much as I could, but I also wanted to tell his story kind of in parallel with the building of Disneyland.

Jennia: It's like filtering it through his story, not so much putting the emphasis on Disneyland itself, which is covered so often, anyway.

Phil: I have a hundred of those books, like, literally on the other side of this office. Like, I have bookcases of that book of, like, how Disneyland was made and what Walt thought about this ride and what Walt thought about this show. And I think it's more important to tell, like, all right, well, he ate beans and chili, and he made fun of his friends sometimes, and he, you know—it's important. You know, I see myself, and I see my friends, and I see my kids in him. I just think there's something in there for everybody. I hope! I hope.

Jennia: Yeah. I think too, that one of those things that helps with seeing all these nuances and then seeing things like the cold hot dogs and stuff when he comes home is that it does strip away some of that saintly persona that we tend to just automatically apply to people who've reached a certain esteemed status in our society. And so it becomes harder to see them as a person, and they do become, like you said, that figurehead. And I've had that same experience even walking in Disney World, where we're walking out of One Man's Dream, or something like that, and some couple turned to each other and said, "Wow, I never knew he was a real guy." (laughs)

Phil: Yeah, right? It's crazy!

Jennia: But even then, they're just getting this bare view of who he was as a person. You know, it's those iconic photos that are used in every single advertisement or whatever. But that's one thing I want to talk about too, is that you don't use just text to tell a story. You have pictures in there too. And then what that adds to it or why you decided to include them?

Phil: So I'm a visual learner, right? I learn by seeing stuff. My publisher was so annoyed by me because I tried to put 100 more pictures in the book, right? And he's like, "So you don't need a picture for every chapter." (Jennia laughs) And I'm like, I literally went to Disneyland six months ago with my iPhone only—

Jennia: Mhm.

Phil: —to take pictures. Like, I went to Walt Disney Family Museum. I was like, "Okay, this is—I have the story about this. I have to get a picture of this. I have a story about this. I have to get a picture of that," and it drove him nuts. So I had a lot that I've taken, and then I just think it adds so much. Like, you're like, "Okay, I'm telling the story about Tom Sawyer Island. I'm telling you a story about Sleeping Beauty castle, why not have a picture you can see what the heck we're talking about and visualize it? I just think you need visual cues. You need to see what the heck we're talking about. And I got lucky that a lot of people who went places that I haven't been, sent me their photos, and I was able to include them—

Jennia: Oh nice!

Phil: Well, yeah, like, the picture of—I don't know if you got that far. There's a picture of Walt's plane with Chuck Malone, who was Walt's private pilot, and the seven dwarfs and Snow White. That picture was sent to me by Mark Malone, Chuck's son.

Jennia: Oh, wow.

Phil: Mark was also a private pilot for Disney for a number of years, and that's his picture. So I was able to put that in. And so I got a lot of great pictures that way too.

Jennia: Yeah. I think also the pictures go back to your in-person interviews and then using those as research or material, because you do get a lot more from it. Even just when you were talking about that they would tear up. Well, you don't really see that and get the same feel if you're reading an interview that was written by somebody else. You miss so much of that subtext that you couldn't have included otherwise. And I think that's one thing that gives you a leg up as far as this story, because you do have those experiences to draw on and include, and that you also do apply your own interpretation or your opinion. You know, you're not shy, usually, about adding that in as well, or saying, "I can't believe that this happened," or, "I can't imagine what so and so must have thought when—" (laughs).

Phil: It's not a show—I'm really an this aw-shucks guy when it comes to Disney. Like, I am really wide eyed. I'm thrilled, you know, when I hear a story and I can't believe the reaction that the imagineer had (Jennia laughs) that Walt did—said something absolutely ridiculous, and I'm just like, "Holy—" I can feel like—I can feel their embarrassment and their excitement. Like, I love that. I wanna—that's what the stories are about. And I never thought I was a writer. I tried to write when I was young, and I never—I have kids, I have a career, I can't. I haven't had time. And then a year ago, literally almost a year ago, I was like, "What if I write a story a day and see if it works? I want to do one email." And then my wife and my father-in-law were listening to me and they were like, "That's obnoxious." (Jennia laughs) And I was like, "Why not? I can email every day!" They were like, "That's obnoxious. People are going to get mad about that." They were like, "Put it on Facebook." My wife and my father-in-law said, "Put it on Facebook."

Jennia: Mhm!

Phil: I had a of followers there at the time. I had 12,000. And, in a year, I went from 12[000] to over 50,000 in a year.

Jennia: Congratulations! That is amazing growth!

Phil: It's the story! It literally is the Walt Disney st—it's the only thing that I've done differently.

Jennia: And one of the last questions I had is the importance of looking up different sources and even finding out, well, was this actually what happened? Or is this something that's contradicting other information? And what did you do when you found that and how did you sort through it and decide what to include and not to include in those cases?

Phil: Good question. Lots of times I just get fact corrected by people who actually know. Like, because that's happened to me a bunch. And those people all get thanked in the book. If you look at the acknowledgments, you'll see some famous Disney names in there. Because those people have reached out to me when I've told a story that isn't right and they're like, "Yo, get your freaking facts right and fix it." And I have. So like it's super important to go—to be like, "Listen, I don't know. I wasn't there." I was born twelve years after Walt passed away, right?

Jennia: Right.

Phil: I don't know. But these are stories that are told to me, but I can't put it online or put it in a book before I double check, and triple check, and ask. And sometimes nobody can confirm it, but you're just like, "Eh, I'm gonna run with it anyway because that sounds right." That story that Bob Gurr'll tell me, I look it up or I try to find another source for it, and I dont have it, and then I go, "Well, Bob's 93. Like nobody else knows the truth." So like if he's telling me that's my source, that I have to believe it. So that happened a lot too in the book—

Jennia: Mm.

Phil: —where like I don't have a book, its just, like, I have the person that told me and they're sitting next to me and that's all I have, you know? But it's important to do your best. But I say it in the beginning of the book too, this isn't an encyclopedia. It's not a history book. It's not a biography. It's short stories that I am 99.9 percent sure that are true. There could be exaggerations in there. Sure there could be. That's important that I make sure that, you know, it's not a biography, it's not a history book. It is a story. It is a storybook. And I believe that 99.9 percent of the stuff in there is actually accurate.

Jennia: I think that says a lot about you just as a person, though too, that you did not just your due diligence, but you went beyond that to make sure that you weren't misquoting someone or you weren't sharing a story that was erroneously told in some way for whatever reason. Because we do see that happen a lot, and they tend to just get shared and shared and shared without anyone looking into them.

Phil: It's true. true. It's wild. At the end of the book, I have a little bit about Walt—who he wasn't. When I talked to Floyd Norman about it, he went into this whole thing and he said he, you know, if you've ever heard Floyd Norman talk, it's very, like—it's an event when Floyd talks, he's like "Walt Disney ... is not .. a racist." And then he waits. "Disney ... was not .. misogynist." And he waits, and it was like, "Okay!" But, like, it's so important I put it in the book.

Jennia: Well, as a closing note, do you have a favorite Walt Disney quote that you'd like to share?

Phil: Oh, man, that's a—that's a hard one, Jennia (Jennia laughs). I gotta think. Like, the famous ones. Like, how about this? I'm not going to tell you a famous one. I'm going to dispel the most infamous one. "If you can dream it. You can do it," right?

Jennia: Mhm.

Phil: It's attributed to Walt all the time, and it—he never said it. It is not a Walt quote. It was from Tom Fitzgerald, who was an imagineer. Head of, I think, the head of the WDI now? And he wrote it for "Horizons" in the eighties. So that is not a Walt quote, although it's always, always, always attributed to him—

Jennia: Yeah, it is! Yeah, it's even on Walt Disney World merch.

Phil: It is. I ran a marathon—I ran a Disney World marathon years ago, and there was a sign owned by Disney on the course, "If you can dream it, you can do it." I took a picture of it, and I angrily texted my wife (Jennia laughs). I was like, *makes cell phone noise*

Jennia: Don't these people don't know anything?

Phil: [She was] like, "Don't you know you're running a marathon, you idiot? Well, stop focusing on that and get some water, you dummy. But anyway, yeah. So there. So I kind of flipped it on its head, but there you go.

Jennia: Yeah! Thanks for helping us have that interesting twist right at the end.

Phil: Absolutely. Thank you for having me! This was a lot of fun! It really was.

Jennia: I agree! Thanks so much.

Jennia: Thank you for listening! And make sure to check out the show notes for more information. Phil will also be giving away one copy of his book, which has already hit the number two spot in one of its categories on Amazon. To enter for a chance to win a copy, please message me, send me a DM on Instagram. You can even message me on Facebook, wherever you'd like, and just put in the word "Disney."

Jennia: And then please join me next week as Tonya Todd tells us about writing with inclusion. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd greatly appreciate it if you took the time to leave a rating or a review wherever you download or listen. Thanks again!