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DVDF Interviews Tinkerbell!

The eve of the launch for Disney's "Peter Pan: Two-Disc Platinum Edition" draws nigh, and to whet your excitement we've managed to land an interview with none other than Margaret Kerry, the original model for Tinkerbell (no, it wasn't Marilyn Monroe, as some believed) for Disney's 1953 version of the J.M. Barrie classic. Ms. Kerry takes us on a journey behind-the-scenes at Walt Disney Studios, discussing her experiences with animator Marc Davis (one of the legendary "Nine Old Men" at Disney), as well as the influence the role has had in her life. With her exquisitely charming voice, it was no stretch of the imagination to picture that we were, indeed, speaking directly to Tinkerbell herself.

DVDF: If you could, give our readers some background on how you came to get the Tinkerbell gig at Disney.

Kerry: Trust me, I'm not going to give you my life story, but I started in show business when I was 4 in "Midsummer Night's Dream" as a little fairy. Do you think there's a theme running here? And then into art and comedies, and all the way along on television, etc., and I was trained as a dancer, an actor, and a mime.

Just before I got the gig for Tinkerbell, I was working at 20th Century Fox as an assistant dance director, with a wonderful dancer who was Roland Dupree! And I got him the job as the reference model for Peter Pan. So, you know, it's a small world after all.

Anyway, I got a call from my agent who said, "They would like to interview you for the part of reference model for a little three-and-half inch sprite who doesn't talk. And I went, "Oh, OK" (laughs). They said, "Well, can you go tomorrow?" and Fox said yeah, I could get off in the morning, and I went home and I thought wait a minute, I'm savvy enough in the entertainment, how in the world am I going to interview for that? I'm five-foot-two, and I talk.

What I did was - do you remember 45 records, the ones with the big hole in the middle?

DVDF: Oh yeah...

Kerry: So I had a 45 record there, and it was instrumental, so what I did was I choreographed a pantomime of fixing my breakfast for three-and-a-half minutes. That's how long it ran, you know - coming in, stretching, waking up, scratching, and going to the refrigerator of course which wasn't there, but they had to see that refrigerator, and look and get the eggs out, and juggle the eggs, and drop one of them, and slip - you know, that kind of thing. And so, the next morning, I took my little player and my 45, and I went to see Marc Davis, and I stepped on the magical Disney Studios lot. And believe me, I have been on every lot working - if you've worked since you're 4 - none of them have the magic that Disney had. Oh, it's such fun there. Creativity hits you in the face as you walk on the lot. It's just that good.

So I go to Marc Davis' office, and I played it, and I did my pantomime, and Clyde Geronimi was there, one of the directors of the film - so they said, "What we want is -," and they showed me the picture of Tinkerbell, and they showed me the storyboard of what they wanted to do. They wanted her to land on the mirror that was on top of Wendy's dresser, and preen herself, and measure her hips, and get very upset and walk away. And I said certainly I can do that. So I envisioned the mirror there, and I jumped on, and I looked down, and I preened myself, measured my hips, and stomped away.

The upshot was they called and said, "Would it be convenient for you to come to work next week, next Tuesday?" And I thought, "Nobody has ever asked me in my entire career would it be convenient for you. How about that? This is going to be fun." So then I thought well maybe they made a mistake. And then they said, "What time would you like to come?" I thought well I'm going to test them, so I said, "Well, ahem, 10 o'clock? 10 AM?" And they said fine. And I thought oh, am I going to have a wonderful time.

And I did. They called me in every time - I think I worked there, off and on, 6 - 9 months, because they would be doing the next scene. And in the meantime I was on television, with ABC television, a family sitcom. I was doing my own television show on Channel 13. I was doing voice-overs at the same time, and I was raising a little boy. I have 3 children, but at that time the other ones hadn't come along yet (laughs).

So that's how I got it, but, you know, later on, many years later, Marc said to me that one of the things that they liked about me was, first of all, when I got on the mirror I was looking down through the mirror and back up, so it wasn't just looking at the floor or anything. And that makes a big difference to an animator because it's acting. And then they said, "And you did something a little extra." And I said, "Well, Marc, when I saw her, and you talked to me about her, I made up my mind - I did when I was going there because everyone sort of knew what a Tinkerbell was - that she's about 13 years old, and she's ready for life. She's about as naive as they come. She wants an adventure. She wants to experience life. She is a buddy of Peter Pan. She doesn't love him. He is her hero. And they go out and fight Captain Hook and the pirates and all the rest, and she just has the best time. And then along comes this big, ugly girl. And suddenly Peter is paying attention to her. Tinkerbell is jealous, but she doesn't really know what that means. She just wants the attention back again. So let's get rid of Wendy.

So a 13-year-old would think that way. And the idea that a 13-year-old is in love with someone, particularly a 12-year-old boy, who - you've been a 12-year-old boy, you know what they do, "Girls, yuck!" So, if we had her brand new today, we would call her his groupie. You know, she was always there loyal, would do anything for him. So everything she saw, like the mirror - she'd never seen a mirror before, as far as I was concerned. So she does a take - "What's that?" And then she never has seen herself before. So then she measures her hips, and she's never seen that before. So everything that she does is brand new and child-like.

DVDF: I don't know if you've seen the way films are made with a lot of special effects today where the actors have to work in front of a blue screen - I imagine it was a lot like that...

Kerry: A lot like that. And the idea that they could take my footage and Marc Davis could do the main cells, and the other animators could fill it in - they caught every nuance of what I did.

DVDF: I noticed that with the gallery of pictures on your website, how when it showed you posing there, and then it showed Tinkerbell, the similarities were pretty amazing. You mentioned Marc Davis - how was it working with him?

Kerry: Well, you know when you work with a director, the first thing that you have to do is to have faith in them, because I knew he would tell me, and I said, "You can't hurt my feelings. Tell me if you want me to do it differently. Please." I knew he knew what he wanted. I didn't realize it at the time, but I found out he was a genius. Just an absolute genius.

He told me one time he wanted me to be very upset and walk away. And I said, "Marc, how upset?" Because you can go all the way from this kind of a face, with your eyebrows up, or to your eyes bugging out of your head. And he took a piece of paper and a pencil, and within 30 seconds - I don't think it was much more than that - drew Tinkerbell's head and just how he wanted the facial expression. And I stood there - of course he thought nothing of it - and I thought, "This man, good golly, he's a genius!" And so I did what he wanted to.

He was very protective of me. Very. You see, at that time, we're talking 1951-52, I'm walking around in a bathing suit. Now I had a cover-up - we all did in 51 and 52 - nobody walked around in their bathing suit, until they were going into the pool. But here I am on a sound stage and there were nothing but men on the crew. That was a time when no women were around at all. And that was the most polite and "gentlemenly" set I have ever been on. And that was because of Marc. I mean, he just wouldn't put up with anything. And he protected me.

One time we had somebody across the way walk in, they were working with a grid on a wall. Not too far away. You could hear them. And there was a man there - I have no idea who he was - and there were a couple of four-letter words, not terrible, but four-letter words while we were talking. Marc turned around and said, "Hey!" just like that, and that stopped. And that didn't mean that Marc didn't have plenty of words, but I never heard them.

DVDF: Well he became a legend at Disney, so I can see him acting like that.

Kerry: One of the "Nine Old Men." I mean, he went on to do "The Haunted Mansion," "Pirates of the Caribbean -" of course his wife, you know, did the costumes for "Pirates of the Caribbean."

DVDF: Oh, really?

Kerry: Do you know that story about her, by the way? She did these costumes that were very difficult because they had to be able to take them off and clean them, you know. You don't flip them over their head. She's brilliant. She's a great artist in her own right. She also designed - on a train - the costumes for "It's a Small World" when they went back to the World's Fair.

But anyway, they tell Alice, when she did the costumes for "Pirates of the Caribbean," they told her the budget only calls for one set of costumes. She said, "Don't be silly. You have to have two." They said no no no, that's all we do. So they had a fire, and they came to her and they said, "Can you make these up quickly," and she said, "I made a second set." She knew. She's really a remarkable person.

DVDF: When did the whole rumor that Marilyn Monroe was the model for Tinkerbell - when did that surface?

Kerry: I'm not quite sure. We're thinking it's in the late 60's. What happened was - I didn't know anything about it. I was working, I was doing cartoon voices, I was about my business doing other things, and my children, who were in their teens I think, were playing Trivial Pursuit - Parker Bros. had brought it out - and one of the cards said Who was the model for Tinkerbell? And the answer was Marilyn Monroe. And they said no it's not. So they called me up, and I said, "Oh don't worry about it." They said, "No! We're worried about it." So they called up Parker Bros. and told them.

DVDF: That's amazing that it was in Trivial Pursuit...

Kerry: Yeah! Well, it was in the book, too. I still have the book that has it in it. And so I think it was Parker Bros. and my kids who called Dave Smith over at the archives, and Dave said, "I'll take care of it." But what sort of is the thought that how that happened was somebody was interviewing someone from Disney on the radio, and they were talking about the different characters. And we think that he said something like, "Well [Tinkerbell] has curves like Marilyn Monroe." And somebody picked it up and put it in print.

Marilyn, when we did this, she was unknown. I worked with Marilyn. And I thought that she was just an absolute doll. We all did. She was just marvelous. But, she was not a dancer. So they would not have chosen Marilyn to do this. As a matter of fact, it was very hard for her to be an actress. She was so unsure - I heard this from other people, it's sort of well known from people that have worked with her. It was hard for her to get in front of the camera.

But my kids are the ones who caught it.

DVDF: It's unbelievable to me that someone wouldn't fact-check that.

Kerry: Well what is so interesting is that Tinkerbell was not that important a character. I didn't even have screen credit. She was not going to be important.

DVDF: But she became important...

Kerry: Because of Disneyland, when they started to use her, instead of using the licensed characters that they made money off of. And then Mr. Disney did the most brilliant move of his career and had me open up his television show! (laughs)

But I really think, speaking of that, that's what so many people grew up with. They didn't get to see the movie. And the little kids who dress like Tinkerbell, they don't know where she comes from. And so this DVD is terribly important Perrin, and it sounds like a commercial but it's not. Because I'm Tinkerbell I can say this - but I want everybody that can, get a DVD and see it, and watch the movie, and say, "Ooh! There's Tinkerbell!" so they know where I come from. They haven't a clue!

DVDF: You're speaking of girls dressing up as Tinkerbell and my daughter did when she was little. We have a version, several versions back, of Peter Pan. In this new version, are you in any of the documentaries?

Kerry: Oh yes. I have several interviews, and you will find out things about the making of this movie, three-quarters of them I didn't know! I had no idea. And I'm sitting there watching it going, "I didn't know that, I didn't know that, ooh that's interesting, ooh stop it there," you know, that type of thing. And then I'm thinking - you know you get that feeling of I'm an insider, I know something that somebody else doesn't know. You do as you watch it. It's so beautifully put together. The Disney team has just done a fabulous job.

DVDF: It's 2 discs so it should be a treat to watch.

Kerry: You know, if you've got any little nieces and nephews - and the little boys of course just adore Peter. So it's a hit for everyone. I'm going to ask you this question, because I ask it of hundreds of people, and it's very difficult to answer. Can you put into words why you really like Tinkerbell?

DVDF: You know, now that you ask that, I really can't.

Kerry: I know! Isn't it something?

DVDF: Yeah, that's pretty amazing!

Kerry: I mean over and over and over again. I think it's an emotional tie because we have all gone through what she's going through as this 13-year-old, of adventure, of having somebody pay attention to us. And, the other lovely thing is, that she does something wrong. She gets into trouble, but she takes responsibility for it, and she makes it right. It's the gamut of life, it really is.

I came up with a word - it took me two years - but I call her beguiling.

DVDF: Yeah, and I'd use charming as well...

Kerry: Well, you know you can be beguiled either with a good person, or a person who is naughty, you know. Isn't that an interesting - you ask people, and they will stammer, and stutter - it's wonderful, because she is a very complicated little character, but she's touched our hearts in so many ways.

DVDF: Well, before we go, would you like to say something about your autobiography?

Kerry: Oh, yes, well I'm writing a book and if Disney would just leave me alone so I can finish it everything would be fine (laughs). No, I'm not complaining (laughs).

It's called "Tinkerbell Talks: Tales of a Pixie-Dusted Life," and oh it's fun. It's little short-stories of things that have happened to me through my life, and there are cartoons in it, and pictures in it. From my lips to God's ears it will be published this year (laughs).

"Peter Pan: The 2-Disc Platinum Edition" hits DVD shelves on March 6th! Look for our extensive DVD coverage coming soon!

Margaret Kerry's Official Site