Margaret Kerry was the original alter-ego, actor and reference model for Tinker Bell, from Walt Disney’s “Peter Pan.”

The cute, curvy character of Tinker Bell was a creation of Marc Davis who was already famous for creating young Bambi, Thumper, and animating Cinderella and Cruella de Vil among others. He also developed many of the beloved Disneyland attractions including Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, and It’s a Small World. Davis is a Disney Legend and one of Disney’s Nine Old Men. Using the footage of Margaret’s live-action work as a reference, Davis and his team of animators brought the little sprite to life and into the hearts of people everywhere.

Recently we were very fortunate to have the opportunity to talk with Margaret about her life and experiences with Disney.

MK – How did you become aware of the Tinker Bell audition, & did you know at the time that you were the succesful applicant?

Margaret – I started to work when I was four years old, in movies, so I’d been in many things, in about 36 motion pictures and radio. I got a call from the agent saying they were interviewing for the casting of a character, for a 3 1/2 inch sprite, a little fairy who didn’t talk. As you know, I can talk, and here I am trying out for that! I choreographed a pantomime to some music I had on an old 45 record, and I took my record player over to Disney Studios the next day, and I plugged it in and did my little pantomime for Marc Davis. I think he was taken aback because you don’t usually do that, you sit and chat with someone. Then he asked me to do the famous scene where I land on the mirror on Wendy’s dresser, and I look at myself and ah, there I am and I think I’m looking pretty good! Except the size of my hips, and I’m not happy and so I stamped out of there. But the room was so small, I almost stamped out to the hallway! I came back and they asked if it would be convenient to come to work next Tuesday? Would it be convenient?! Even to this day, I step onto the Disney Lot and it’s really like going to Disneyland, it’s that marvellous! So that’s how I got the job.

MK – Do you get to visit the Disney Lot much these days?

Margaret – Yes I do as a matter of fact. I get invited to the screenings, I have lunch over there. I see friends that I know, and I meet new people who are doing voices over there. I met the voices of The Princess and the Frog, Michael-Leon Wooley and Jen Cody who did Charlotte and we had lunch the other day together. It’s just a big family. It’s just what you would think it’s like, it is such fun. Anytime that I’m going over there, they say “go on through,” and I think I’ve died and gone to heaven, oh no I’ve gone to Disney Lot!

MK – Tinker Bell wasn’t a speaking part, but was it true you did the voice of one of the mermaids in Peter Pan?

Margaret – Yes I did. They called me in and said we would like for you to do a voiceover. I’ve done many voiceovers, about 600 cartoons for television, The Three Stooges and all these different ones, so I was used to doing that and radio. I went in and they said “oh by the way, we’d like you to be the reference model for the red-headed mermaid.” I had decided and I talked to the lady who did the voice of Ariel and said “I am the great-great-grandmother of Ariel!” And she said “I think you are too!”

Margaret – Do you know where the name Wendy comes from?

MK – No I don’t.

Margaret – There was no girl’s name of Wendy before James M Barrie wrote the play. He had a friend, Lord Henry who had a daughter named Margaret. And when he saw James M Barrie coming, “Hello friendly Barrie.” But Margaret couldn’t say her Rs or her Ls, so she would say “fwendy Barrie, fwendy Barrie!” Unfortunately Margaret died when she was 12 years old, and we think that’s the reason that James M Barrie gave the license [for Peter Pan] to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. For them to make money the rest of the time Peter Pan was playing. Anyway, he took the word “fwendy” and took the F off it and it became Wendy. Isn’t that a lovely story?!

I think Peter Pan was one of the finest things ever done for film, that we’ve ever done in Hollywood.

My favorite film of all time is Mary Poppins. It’s amazing to me! The animation, along with everything else. I was working on a soundstage, that’s where they put you with a film crew. They would tell me what they wanted Tinker Bell to do, so that I would act it out and if they liked it that’s what went in the movie. They would give my film to the animators who would then draw Tinker Bell doing exactly what I did. And one day we’re working, and I look over and hear a group of men come walking in. The light was behind me so I couldn’t see exactly who it was, but there was this tall, gangly fellow, and it was Buddy Emerson the actor. Then there was this, little bit shorter, but a tall fellow, and it was Walt Disney. I’m standing there and I go haha, what’s going on?! On the wall opposite, on the soundstage we were working on, was a grid, a great big huge grid of white paper, with, I guess, 12 x 12 squares. And I’m watching them, and they’re working on something. In my book I have a picture of them working on it. I’m thinking, they’re working on a thing called registration, and how do you figure out how tall the human is, and where you’re going to put the little animated character. And that was the start of doing that kind of work, and the beginning of what they were going to do for Mary Poppins. And I tell you to do this day, when I think of that, I’m standing there watching them at the very beginning of doing this kind of work. You don’t think I get excited? I do!

MK – Have you ever met Julie Andrews?

Margaret – I have met her, but it was a “how do you do?” kind of thing, she is so beautiful!

I have a book that’s coming out later this year. It’s called Tinker Bell Talks. Tales of a Pixie Dusted Life. I’m doing the chapter right now of all the celebrities that I’ve worked with. Sometimes it was just two days working with them or meeting them on the soundstage. All the way from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to Walt Disney. So when I say Tales of a Pixie Dusted Life, really, I believe that!

MK – Have you ever met Walt Disney himself, and what were your impressions of him?

Margaret – He was just a dear! He came over to see what Marc Davis and Gerry Geronimi who were two directors who were directing me, and I had a problem because I was in a one-piece bathing suit. They didn’t give me a costume, it didn’t make sense. This bathing suit did everything they needed to see my body movements and so on. So I’m standing there, and you’ve got to remember I was doing this back in 1951 and ’52, and you just didn’t walk around in a one-piece bathing suit! You had a cover-up, like a big shirt over it, or something like that. Well, I was on one side of the camera and Walt Disney walked over, and Marc Davis called me over to meet him. And I’m thinking, I can’t walk over in a one-piece bathing suit! So I’m doing something I guess really stupid, like “oh hello, I’ll be right there!” So I eased my way over in front of the camera and they snatched my cover-up. And so I meet him, and I wish I could say that I said something brilliant but I didn’t! It was “Oh, nice to meet you,” or something like that!

He came over several times, but one of the loveliest times that happened for me as Tinker Bell…let me explain. Marc Davis, who drew Tinker Bell designed her as a two-dimensional character, this adorable two-dimensional character. They needed a third dimension of being human. And so when I walked out the first time in front of the camera, I said to Marc, “what do you want?” “You want her to be ditsy, or do you want her to be terribly blasé?” He looked at me and he said “we want her to be YOU Margaret!” So when you talk to me, literally, you’re talking to Tinker Bell. They took every personality, move that I had, everything that I did, every smile, and they gave it to Tinker Bell.

So, they called me in and they said they’ll be showing pencil tests, that’s where they do the sketches and actually shoot it on camera to see that it’s going to work. Just a pencil test, nothing is painted in. I am so excited! I’m over in the projection room and it’s jammed, everybody was there. Behind me I hear a door open, and people are leaning against the wall, that’s how crowded it was to see the first pencil test of Tinker Bell. I hear this voice behind me say “here Walt, take my seat.” And I heard Mr Disney say “no, you stay, I’m fine!” And I thought, this is the head of the studio who’s saying he’s going to lean against the wall, I’ve never seen that before! Always the heads of studios were walking around like “we’re the big cheese!”

The room goes dark and up on the screen for the first time I saw Tinker Bell come to life. They played it over and over again and I thought “oh, she is the most dear, darling, wonderful thing that I have ever seen! And anybody who complained that they thought Tinker Bell was too curvy, I could walk out and say “you just don’t know what you’re talking about!” But that was a lovely moment, to see who Walt Disney was. That he could work with people and did work with people, and didn’t think he was anything special, except his creative genius.

MK – You mention Marc Davis, who was part of Disney’s Nine Old Men. What was your relationship with him like?

Margaret – It went on for years, it was just so lovely. He did so many other things, and of course moved over into Imagineering and did the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, with his lovely wife Alice, who was just as much a genius . Alice is still with us, she’s just as much a genius and artist as he is, and she designed all of the costumes for it’s a small world, and Pirates of the Caribbean. I would see him off and on during the years, and as the years went on we got to see more of each other. One time we were at Club 33, the special place over at Disneyland, having lunch together, and he leaned over and said to me “Margaret, you’re still Tinker Bell.” And that’s one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me.

There was only one real pre-production photograph that was ever taken of Marc Davis. He was very shy. All of the other nine old men, the rest of them had their pictures taken.

He was the easiest man in the world to get along with, and of course I think of him very kindly, because of all the people, he chose me to be Tinker Bell.

MK – It was thought at one time that Tinker Bell was modeled on Marilyn Monroe. How did you react when you heard that?

Margaret – Well, I didn’t think much about it, I was doing lots of other things. But my kids got very upset. They had a board game they were playing and they turned the card over for the question “who was the model for Tinker Bell,” and there was Marilyn Monroe’s name. So they phoned up Disney Studios, and spoke to Dave Smith, the archivist there, and told him the problem. Dave said “I’ll take care of it.” So my name is in the Disney Encyclopaedia and it’s in all the books.

But I worked with Marilyn and I thought she was absolutely the dearest thing that you could mention. She was just a sweetheart and so gorgeous. She walked into the room and she took your breath away. And she was just the dearest, kindest, gentlest soul that you could imagine. But the problem with Marilyn being the model, you needed to be a dancer, and I was a dancer since I was four years old, an assistant dance director, so I was way up there with dancing. Marilyn knew how to make dance movements later on in her career, but she really couldn’t have done Tinker Bell the way they would have wanted it. She could have done anything else.

Speaking of that, Roland Dupree, who was the assistant dance director working with me when I was working at Fox on that movie I’ll Get By. Marc Davis called me up when I was working on Peter Pan, and he said “Bobby Driscoll won’t be able to do the reference work for Peter.” Bobby was not a dancer, he was an actor. He was my brother in another movie that we had just gotten through. He [Marc] said “do you know anyone who could be the reference model for Peter Pan?”

I said “do I ever?!” “You’ve got to talk to Roland Dupree”

Roland went up to see them and he got the part. Roland was just one of the greatest dance teachers that I have ever met, but I lost track of him. 50 years later I found him over in Mexico, he was retired. He came out to the studio and they opened up their arms to him, it was almost Roland Dupree day over at Disney Studios. He is Peter Pan. When you see him he is Peter Pan.

Then also they called me because Hans Conried had a mix-up in schedules and couldn’t come do the reference for Captain Hook. They said to me “do you know somebody,” and I said “yes I do, his name is Henry Brandon.” I had worked with him in a movie called Canyon City. Henry came over and got the part. So when Hans wasn’t there Henry played the part.

Years later I was over at the archivist picking out pictures for the personal archives that I have, and there was a picture of Henry Brandon dressed as Captain Hook. Ed Squire, head of archives over there said to me, “we don’t know who this man is.” And I said, “well, if you give me a cup of coffee I will tell you his name.” I filled in all the names of the records. Paul Collins was John Darling, Tommy Luske was Michael. And I’m sort of an archive myself aren’t I?!

MK - What was your fondest memory from acting the Tinker Bell role?

Margaret – I think sitting there watching the pencil test. I really, really do, because you really had no idea, it was all in Marc Davis’ head, of how it was going to come out. And you know, there were people on the lot, the reason it was so jammed with people in the projection room, there were many people on the lot who thought she was too curvy. We’re talking 1951 and ’52, and the role model for those days was Wendy. Everybody was, all the nice mothers on television were in the kitchen feeding their kids, tucking them in at night. And the propaganda was mothers stay in the kitchen, let the men go to work. We have to get going after World War 2.

Tinker Bell was a little sidekick, and there were many people who thought she was just too curvy, although he writes in the book “she’s very curvy and she has a low cut dress.” There were people there who were sure she wasn’t going to work. And when I sat there and watched and saw what she was going to do, I just knew. That was a highlight, it really was.

Do you know, all these great people, the nine old men were there, all those people and I’m sitting in the midst of it. I’ve got to say that was the high point.

MK – Tinker Bell has come back into focus again lately, starting with the 50th anniversary release of Peter Pan, and now she’s branched out into her own movies. Have you enjoyed seeing the character’s transformation from support role to lead role?

Margaret – I’ve been over there and done talks for the animators. They’ve had a terrible time, because she’s such an icon. Do you know she’s recognised in Outer Mongolia, is that not amazing?! There are three blonde icons, Princess Diana, Marilyn Monroe and Tinker Bell. And Tinker Bell, as you know, has two more movies coming out. And you realise the problem. First of all, a lot of people that see the new Tinker Bell movies don’t quite understand that it’s a prequel. This is before she meets Peter Pan. So she’s still much younger and she doesn’t have the curves that she has when she’s a little bit older. I think that that was a mistake that they really didn’t show that up. Their problem was that originally she was a sidekick, and when people say Tinker Bell was in love with Peter Pan. Tinker Bell was never in love with Peter Pan, she was sort of a groupie. Peter would go on his adventures and she would get to go with him, and what she was really worried about with Wendy was that maybe he wouldn’t take her on the adventures anymore, he would take that ugly old girl! So that’s what she was jealous of.

When they did these scenes they did them in the back of 1951, she’s the sidekick. In the new movies she’s the star. You can’t have the star going through the whole thing not talking. At first I was very leary. You know in animation they record the voice track first before they do anything, and then the animation and everything ties to the voicetrack. So they have recorded the movie, the first one, and listened to it, and I was not happy. Have you heard of Brittany Murphy? She died not very long ago, a young woman. They had her doing the voice of Tinker Bell. She sounded like a 22 year old today’s woman. It didn’t work at all. And do they changed the storyline, and re-recorded the whole movie and brought in Mae Whitman, and she’s wonderful, she’s just wonderful.

By the way, did you know that Peter Pan was the last movie that the nine old men, all of them worked on the same movie? After that they went their separate ways working on other movies.

I love the second movie, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, I hope everybody sees it, it’s adorable! They’ve done a great job and she looks so cute in there.

There was a time when you were never going to see Tinker Bell again. Walt Disney never believed in doing sequels. He always wanted to do something new. He’s like John Lasseter, who’s sort of stuck with sequels. John Lasseter’s this creative man, he wants to do something new. He’s worked two years or three years on the same thing. That was going to be the end of Tinker Bell. When Walt Disney got in his mind that he was going to do a thing called a theme park, most of the people including his wife thought that he was going to lose everything on it. They had no faith in it whatsoever. First of all they were building it separate from the studio. The studio people didn’t really know, and they were terrified. The story is they went to Roy, Walt Disney’s brother, who made things happen there. Without Roy, Walt Disney couldn’t have been anything as far as I’m concerned. They went to him and said “please don’t use any of our characters that we license for money, on cereal boxes and watches, all kinds of things.” Like Mickey Mouse, Clarabelle Cow, and so on. “Because we might be able to keep on licensing them and bringing money in.” So Roy went in and told him, “you’re liable to lose your shirt on this, what do you think?” Two days later Walt said, you know what, you can tell her that I’m going to bring back Tinker Bell and Jiminy Cricket. And they’re the two that are going to be featured at Disneyland.” And that’s how Tinker Bell was resurrected.

And he used Tinker Bell to fly into his office every Sunday on television to take you on an adventure. That’s why people fell in love with her, because remember, once a movie was shown in a theater in 1953/54, you never saw it again. You didn’t have tape, or disc or any of those things. So, why would people fall in love with Tinker Bell, it was her being on television with Uncle Walt.

MK - You’ve mentioned your autobiography that you’re in the process of writing, Tinker Bell Talks. How’s that coming along?

Margaret – I think it’s coming along swimmingly, I have a 100 chapters in it, most of them are done, they’re very short chapters, so that you can pick it up and they’re fun.  There’s only about seven poignant chapters, and the rest are just fun. One of the stories is, for my vacation, my first husband who was an animation producer and a film producer was taking me over to Catalina Island, we’re going to Emerald Bay. He said “that’s your vacation honey, ” and I said “wait a minute.” And we get over there and they’re shooting and underwater film, and I thought “some vacation, right?!” They have all these men in white suits and they’re going down into the water, right off the shore, shooting all of this. We’re trying to have a sort of good time. The one other female that was with us was a stunt girl, who was always sleeping. I call her Jane Doe, I never did find out her name. There came a time where she was supposed to swim through the scenes, she wasn’t feeling well, so guess who got pressed into service swimming through the scenes on my vacation? You know, fun stories like that.

I have about 180 pictures in it. The middle part is about Tinker Bell, but it’s about starting in comedies, being in The Three Stooges, things that I’ve done afterwards, my 80th birthday that Linda Swisher put on for me. It runs the span of about 76-77 years. It’s called Tinker Bell Talks: Tales of a Pixie Dusted Life.

MK – If I was to hand you a bag of pixie dust, where in the world would you want to fly to?

Margaret – Oh, there’s no question in my mind. The UK. I would be there in a moment. Anytime there’s a story about travel, about Scotland or Ireland. I’ve been in the Midlands in England, to Warwick, and it was wonderful. And they took us over, Kathryn Beaumont and I, they flew us over when they re-released Peter Pan 50th anniversary. I got to fly over in the helicopter, London Tower, Big Ben, the Observatory, I got to fly all over that, that was wonderful.

MK – And finally, do you believe in fairies?

Margaret – I look in the mirror at one every morning! Yes I do! It’s fairies, that little sound in your ear that says go here, not there, and you look around and you know somebody’s been there telling you. You hear footsteps go this way and not that way, and you see something flitting around the corner. It wasn’t a cat, it was a little fairy friend of yours! And what would the world be without Tinker Bell?

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Listen to the audio version of the interview (MP3 file – 19.8MB – 43:20 minutes)

A big thank you to Margaret for taking time out of her busy schedule to talk to us, and thanks also to her good friend Linda Swisher.

Linda will be representing Margaret at “Barrie 2010: The 150th Anniversary of J. M. Barrie’s birth” at Kirriemuir. The festival begins on May 7th and runs through May 23rd. She will be presenting a show on May 10, 11 and 13 called “Tinker Bell Talks,” on James M. Barrie’s Peter Pan from a Disney perspective. Learn fascinating facts about the making of Disney’s l953 film, Peter Pan, and the actors used to create the animated characters. She will take a light-hearted look at the child inside us all, and the joys of never really having to grow up. You will learn a lot about how Tinker Bell grew from a spot of light in Barrie’s original play to the pixie she is today. Through stories rarely heard before, video excerpts, and a famous song rewritten for fun in dedication to Barrie’s Peter Pan and sung by Linda, she will make you all feel young at heart. Learn more about the festival here.

Visit Margaret’s official website www.tinkerbelltalks.com.

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