When Walt Disney's daughters were young, they loved a little book about a magical (and slightly sadistic) nanny named Mary Poppins. He promised them that he would someday make a movie out of the series.
It took Disney-Walt himself, 16 years of wheedling, convincing, and coaxing before author P.L. Travers would agree to let him make a movie. She believed that Disney would make Mary Poppins a twinkling, rosy-cheeked delight-and to an extent, she was right. Disney did give her script approval, but no doubt later regretted it, since script approval proved to be an extremely painful process. Every little word, every tiny detail, seemed to be a point of contention.
After they finally came to terms on a script and the movie was filmed, Travers screened it and then asked Walt, "When do we start cutting it?" Disney shook his head and explained that she had script approval-not film editing rights-and refused to change a thing. Travers was furious.
She cried when it was over, feeling her characters and ideas had been butchered.
She swore that as long as she was alive, Disney would never defile her beloved Mary Poppins again. And she stuck to her guns, even in death: Travers' last will and testament stated specifically that if a stage musical was to be made, the Sherman Brothers could not be involved, only English-born writers could be used-no Americans-and absolutely no one from the original film production was to be involved.
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The Oddment Emporium
Historical FictionA book based on actual events, a collection of fantastically odd short stories, a cornucopia of eclectic delights with accompanying images on every page.
