On January 31st I had the opportunity to have a 2-hour lunch with Disney Legend Marty Sklar. Marty worked at Disney for 54 years in many roles including as a writer for the first Disneyland Newspaper, writer for Walt and Roy Disney, and as the leader of Walt Disney Imagineering as president and principal creative executive. The lunch was the first of the series “Lunch With a Legend” presented by the official Disney fan club D23.

Lunch With Marty Sklar

Marty was incredibly gracious with his time and entertained us with stories from throughout his career. I was able to ask him questions about the 1964 World’s Fair, It’s A Small World, working with Buzz Price, and his working relationship with Walt Disney.

Marty’s strong writing skills helped start his Disney career and helped it flourish for over five decades. Marty came to the attention of Walt Disney while editing the Daily Bruin school newspaper at UCLA. Walt felt that Disneyland needed a newspaper of its own to truly bring the area of Main Street to life. Marty took the first big career risk of his life by leaving UCLA and the Daily Bruin to take on this new adventure at Disneyland. That decision led to writing speeches for Walt Disney and segments for the Disneyland TV series. Marty continued to take career risks and moved up the corporate ladder of Disney. Eventually he became the president and principal creative executive of Disney Imagineering.

I was most impressed with how passionate Marty is about mentoring the next generation of artists through his Ryman Arts Foundation and by attending events such as our lunch. If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading Marty’s latest book Dream It! Do It! head on over to Amazon.com and order a copy right now.