This interview originally aired on the
MouseTunes Disney podcast, February 13th, 2006

Lou: What do we mean by the original Tinker Bell? Well, in Sir James M. Barrie´s original play, Tinker Bell was originally staged as a flying point of light beamed from off-stage. When Disney was going to do the Tinker Bell movie, animator Marc Davis´ personification of her was as a winged pixie with a very womanly figure. Now that was originally criticized as being too sexually suggestive by Barrie purists, especially after it was rumored that she was modeled after Marilyn Monroe, and that´s a rumor that persists to this day. Well, Tinker Bell was actually modeled after our guest, Margaret Kerry. She is the actress who performed the live-action reference. Now there are actually Disney Studios photographs of Margaret Kerry posing with props from Tinker Bell´s scenes that the animators actually used as reference points. There´s a scene with Tinker Bell looking through a keyhole, all different kinds of things like that. She has an autobiography out, called Tinker Bell Talks, it´s full of fascinating trivia and history from her pixie-dust life in Hollywood. She also has a great website called TinkerBellTalks.com. We had a chance to meet her at MouseFest, and she is as beautiful today as she was when the film first came out. And Nathan, you actually had a chance to spend some time with her alone and get a great interview with her.

Nathan: Yes, she was nice enough to give us a quick interview for the show, and that´s what you´re going to hear right now.

Lou: Alright, Let´s go ahead and play the interview, and remember her web site is www.tinkerbelltalks.com. Make sure you go over and tell Margaret that we say hi.

Nathan: And without further ado, here she is, the Original Tinker Bell.

Nathan: I´m here with Margaret Kerry, the first original Tinker Bell.

Margaret: The only original Tinker Bell. (laughs)

Nathan: That´s true, I apologize! The only original Tinker Bell. And I just want to ask you a few quick questions for our listeners.

Margaret: Okay.

Nathan: How did you first get started, or get picked, to be Tinker Bell?

Margaret: Well, I started in show business when I was four years old. I started in Our Gang comedies, and worked my way all along, and ended up at this particular time I was an assistant dance director over at Twentieth Century Fox on a movie. I got a call, I don´t remember from whom, I would assume my agent at the time, who said they are auditioning for this reference model work, and would I be interested? And I said sure. So I´m thinking, so how do you interview for a three-and-a-half inch tall fairy who doesn´t talk? I mean, that´s a real problem! So I went home that night and, ah, you remember the 45 records, the ones with the big holes in the middle?

Nathan: Yes.

Margaret: Well, I had a little player and a record, and I had an instrumental, and so I choreographed a pantomime of making breakfast. Of going into the refrigerator, closing the refrigerator door with my foot, you know, balancing eggs. One drops and I slip on the floor, and I wash my... all to music. So, next morning, over I go to Disney Studios with my little player, and I walk in and there´s Marc Davis. Of course I really didn´t know who he was at the time. But one of the Nine Old Men, one of the dearest men I´ve ever met, Gerry [Clyde] Geronimi the director was there, in this little tiny office, and I did this dance for them, this pantomime, and they were impressed I could tell. So we chatted and I gave them some answers and they said, "Would you - We want her to land on a looking glass on Wendy´s dresser. Could you show us that? And then, you know, preen yourself, see your hips." And I said "Certainly." So I did it, and they said, "Very, very, very nice", and they called me later and said, "Would it be convenient for you to come to work next Tuesday?"

Nathan: (chuckles)

Margaret: Well, nobody had ever asked me to come to, would it be convenient (laughs). So I said, "Well....all right..."

Nathan: Twist your arm...

Margaret: So I thought, you know, they´re putting me on. So they said, "What time would you like to come?" and I thought, well I´ve got to find out, so I said, "Well, how about ten o´clock?" and they said, "Fine." And I thought, they´re for real. And I went over, it looks in some of the pictures, I have a website, you know, it´s called TinkerBellTalks.com. It just went really on line last week, and you´ll see pictures of me in my bathing suit and it looks like I only have one bathing suit to my name that I did this in.

Nathan: (laughs)

Margaret: And they would do my hair up and then I would go on the soundstage. Marc Davis would show me the storyboard, and Gerry [Clyde] Geronimi was usually there. Mr. Disney came by several times. Wilfred Jackson, who was also another director on the film was by. They would tell me what they wanted her to do, and they had a film crew there, a 35-mm film crew with all the lights, and then we would talk over and I would put some of my ideas in with it and they would film that. So, suddenly, Tinker Bell was coming to light, and it was little ol´ moi.

Nathan: (laughs) That´s amazing. That´s really wonderful. And then, were you brought back in later on? To do some touch-ups?

Margaret: Well, it went on over six to eight months, because I was working a lot of other things at the time. They would call me when my schedule would work and their schedule would work. And then I got to go in and see what they call "pencil tests." That´s where they have an outlined rough and they´d animate that. And we were in the little, what they called the sweat box, the little projection room, and Mr. Disney walked in late. That´s when I got to know a little bit about him. Because I back up and tell you that when I was at Fox, I swear to you, when the head of Fox came walking in I think they had trumpeters, you know, that marched in. Everything stopped, and you almost wanted to bow. You got that feeling. It wasn´t that bad, but you got that feeling. So, we were sitting there, and it´s crowded. Everybody thinks that maybe Tinker Bell isn´t going to work, because they´ve been telling Marc Davis she´s too curvy and she´s all this. So, I´m sitting there and a man behind us turned around evidentially and said, "Walt, hey, you don´t have a seat. You take mine." Mr. Disney called back and said, "No, you were here on time. I´m fine." And I´m thinking (gasp) The head of the studio...

Nathan: Is going to stand up.

Margaret: They didn´t save a seat for him or anything. The whole thing worked. Every body was very pleased. So it was over about eight months that I worked for them, and then I was called back to do a mermaid. I´m the red-headed mermaid in it too.

Nathan: Really?

Margaret: June Foray, remember her, voice of Rocky and Bullwinkle, well, Junie and Connie Hilton, and we were the reference models and I did her voice. And (in mermaid voice) "Oh, Peter! We´re so happy to see you!"

Nathan: (laughs) I mean, that´s amazing! I was not aware of that.

Margaret: Sure! She´s Ariel´s grandmother. (laughs) I´ve decided.

Nathan: (laughs) You´re convinced of that. You know what, I agree.

Margaret: They´re both redheads. Gotta be.

Nathan: And you know what, Walt was alive when Ariel´s grandmother was first done.

Margaret: Absolutely. That´s the way I feel about it!

Nathan: Did you have much interaction with Walt Disney, or is it just that one time?

Margaret: No, he came over and saw that everything was fine, and came by and checked. Actually, it was interesting, because he was, not very far away, they had a grid, made out of wood, I think, that were twelve inches square grid. Buddy Epsen came over one day and he was working on it, and people were talking about it, and then other people would come in, and Mr. Disney would come. I assumed that it was for registration, for live people and then how they were going to register to get their animated characters the right size and so on. Years later I asked Marc Davis about it and he said that´s exactly what it was. And of course they were starting... You would think Peter Pan is my favorite movie, wouldn´t you?

Nathan: Right

Margaret: It´s not. Mary Poppins is my favorite.

Nathan: Really?

Margaret: I just think that is the most incredible movie I have ever seen. And where they mix the animated characters with the fabulous talented people who did that.

Nathan: It´s amazing. I love Mary Poppins also.

Margaret: I think it´s just great. I love the story too. And then, I hope people have rented or have bought Return to Neverland. It´s where Tinker Bell and Jane save the day, and that doesn´t break my heart at all. They go and fight the pirates and they win! It´s a great movie. And now they´re making a new movie that will be out... I´ve waited 72 years for my own movie, and it´s called Tinker Bell, and it will be out in 2007.

Nathan: Oh, wow. I was not aware of that.

Margaret: I´ve been over there talking to the directors and so on. And then of course the new books coming out. It´s pinned on Tinker Bell being sort of the nutty one of the fairies, kind of thing. They´re making the second book right now, they´re designing it right now, where Tinker Bell is the lead character in it. So, I´ve been over chatting with them.

Nathan: Well, that is just fantastic. For instance, what do you think about how, my stepdaughter, Tinker Bell is her favorite character...

Margaret: Why not??? Why not??

Nathan: I mean everything in her room is Tinker Bell. She has Tinker Bell shirts, Tinker Bell pins. How do you feel about how, I mean, it´s just amazing how you walk around and see so much Tinker Bell, and it all started basically with having you as the person who was the model, the sketch, everything, just, started this whole phenomenon?

Margaret: And of course, you know, she wasn´t going to be really much of anything until, the story I´ve been told by people in the know, that they asked Uncle Walt not to use their licensed characters for Disneyland because a great many people over at his studios said it was going to be the biggest flop you´ve ever had and we´re going to go down with that. And the only way that we´re going to make the money back is if we can license out characters. So don´t use Mickey, Minnie and all of those around there because they will be known as the characters with a project that flopped. So Walt Disney thought about it, and they sent his brother, Roy, who we forget, by the way. If Roy hadn´t been there, we wouldn´t have Disneyland. We wouldn´t have Walt Disney World. We wouldn´t have anything. Roy was so much a part of it. But anyway, so he told Uncle Walt and Walt said in a couple of days I´ll tell you. So he said, "Roy, tell them I´m going to use Jiminy Cricket and Tinker Bell. Will that satisfy them?" and Roy said, "yes." And that´s why when it opened you saw so much of Tinker Bell and Jiminy Cricket. I´m told by somebody supposedly who knows that even Walt Disney´s wife Lillian wasn´t for the project. I mean, it´s amazing, the odds against Disneyland being there, they´re a thousand to one. It´s a gift. It´s a gift to people that it´s there. Because he, he should have quit!

Nathan: I mean, he really should have. Every time someone knocked him down and said there shouldn´t be something done...

Margaret: Yeah. He should have. And Roy says, "You want me to get thirteen million dollars? For something that´s never been done? In a place called Anaheim? Are you crazy?" and yet he went and he did it.

Nathan: He did it, for his brother, and got everything done.

Margaret: It just... I stand there and I think, "Thank you." That´s a gift.

Nathan: They really were a team. I mean, Walt had all the ideas, and Roy was able to make those ideas happen.

Margaret: And wasn´t it wonderful that Roy said Walt Disney World, not Disney World, Walt Disney World. So we would remember him. We forget all those things. We have them. I grew up without Disneyland. Not without Walt Disney, but without Disneyland. I´ll never forget when I was a little kid and I went to see Snow White. I paid eleven cents to get in to the movie, and I knew that there was a world like that. I knew there was, I just, I knew it was someplace but I couldn´t find it. And there it was up on the screen. I was bewitched. Absolutely. So when a things, a situation like Disneyland came along, I knew it was going to be... it was going to work.

Nathan: And sure enough it did. Well, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to talk and have our listeners hear your story and how Tinker Bell came to fruition.

Margaret: And may I ask again, if they want to know some more stories I wrote forty-seven stories for my website, and they can just go on at TinkerBellTalks.com. They can go on and read a whole bunch of different stories and have fun and thank you so much for asking me!