Happy Birthday Wally Boag!
Wally Boag was a
true Disneyland hero. I remember seeing him perform in the Golden Horseshoe
Review as a child as many of my era did. He maintained the classic vaudevillian
style while keeping it “Disney Clean Family Entertainment”.
While at Disneyland
performing a Guinness World Record near 40,000 performances of the Golden
Horseshoe Review Wally took time to mentor other performers. One notable
performer that learned much from Wally is Steve Martin. Steve Martin started
working at Disneyland as a young boy selling papers on Main Street and then
working in the Magic Shop where he learned many of his magic tricks he that are
still part of his act today. He would go watch Wally perform and picked up much
of his comic timing from him. Steve learned to play the banjo and performed in
the Golden Horseshoe Review with Wally Boag learning even more about stagecraft
and comedy.
Here is what
WikiPedia has to say about Wally Boag.
Wally
Boag
September 13th, 1920 – June 3rd,
2011
Wallace Vincent
"Wally" Boag (September 13, 1920 – June 3, 2011)[1][2] was an American performer known for his starring role in Disney's long-running
stage show the Golden Horseshoe
Revue.
Biography
Boag was born in Portland, Oregon,
in 1920 to Wallace B. and Evelyn G. Boag. He joined a professional dance team
at age nine, later established his own dance school, and by the age of 19 had
turned to comedy. He toured the world's stages in hotels, theaters and
nightclubs. While appearing at the London
Hippodrome in Starlight Roof, he
brought a young 12-year-old girl on stage to help with his balloon act.
The girl, a youngJulie Andrews, astonished the audience with her
voice and was kept in the show. In 1945, Boag signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and appeared in films
such as Without Love and Thrill of a Romance, in uncredited roles.[citation needed]
In the early 1950s, while appearing in
revues in Australia, he met tenor Donald Novis.
It was Novis who got Walt Disney to audition Boag for theGolden Horseshoe
Revue, a 45-minute stage show which was written by its first pianist
Charles LaVere and lyricist Tom Adair. Novis was the show's first tenor and was
replaced by Fulton Burley when he retired in 1962.
Both Boag and The Golden Horseshoe Revue were cited in The Guinness Book of World Records for
having the greatest number of performances of any theatrical presentation. The
show was often incorrectly introduced before a performance as the record holder
of the longest running revue in the history of show business. The 10,000th
performance of the Golden Horseshoe Revue was featured on NBC's The Wonderful World of Disney.[citation needed]
Boag's Pecos Bill/Traveling Salesman
character was a fast-paced comedy routine featuring slapstick humor,
squirt guns, a seemingly endless supply of broken teeth which he would spit out
throughout the routine, and his signature balloon animals (Boagaloons).
In 1963, Julie Andrews once again
performed with Boag on the Golden Horseshoe stage along with the Dapper Dans,
at a special press-only event to promote the following year's release ofMary Poppins. Together, Andrews and Boag
recreated their act of long ago and sang "By the Light of the Silvery
Moon."
While Walt Disney was alive, he did
everything he could to further Boag's career. Boag voiced Jose in "Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room"
and also wrote much of the script for the attraction, participating also in the
development of "Haunted Mansion" in Disneyland.
Disney had small roles written for Boag
in The Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber.
It was Disney's intention to use Boag as the voice of Tigger in Winnie the Pooh.
While at a story meeting for Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, Disney
felt that Boag would be perfect for the role of Tigger.[3] However,
while watching out for him, Disney died from lung cancer in December 1966. When
Boag auditioned for Tigger, he was told that his interpretation of the character
was "too zany" for a children's movie.[3] The
role ultimately went to Paul Winchell.
Except for a cameo appearance in The Love Bug,
Boag did not appear in any more Disney films.
In 1971, Boag took his Pecos Bill
character to the newly opened Walt Disney
World and re-crafted the saloon show into a faster, funnier Diamond
Horseshoe Revue. Three years later he returned to Disneyland and finished
his career there, entertaining adoring crowds at the Golden Horseshoe, retiring
in 1982. (He had in the meantime performed his act as the human guest on the
fifth season ofThe Muppet Show.) The Golden
Horseshoe Revue closed in 1986. In 1995, Boag was inducted into the
ranks of the Disney Legends and has his own window on Main
Street in Disneyland above the Carnation Company. The
inscription reads "Theatrical Agency - Golden Vaudeville Routines - Wally
Boag, Prop."
Boag's performances have influenced
many later performers and comedians, most notable of whom is Steve Martin,
who studied Boag's humor and timing while working at Disneyland as a teenager.
Boag's performance appears on Week One of the Mickey Mouse
Club DVD collection, and the soundtrack of the Golden
Horseshoe Revue has been released on CD.
Boag lived in California with
his wife, Ellen Morgan Boag. His autobiography, entitled "Wally Boag,
Clown Prince of Disneyland," was published in August 2009 and is available
for purchase at wallyboag.com.[4] On
June 3, 2011, it was announced by Steve Martin on Twitter "My
hero, the first comedian I ever saw live, my influence, a man to whom I
aspired, has passed on. Wally Boag."[5][6]The
following day, June 4, 2011, Boag's longtime partner at the Golden Horseshoe
Revue, Betty Taylor, also died.[7]
Filmography
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