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.
continue reading…
