Just saw Saving Mr. Banks. It’s a terrific movie and I highly recommend it! Melanie Paxton, who portrays Disney’s Secretary, Dolly, is a Pi Beta Phi who was initiated into the chapter at the University of Missouri. Needless to say, I think she did an outstanding job! Eagle eye viewers can also spot Leigh Anne Touhy and her daughter Collins, Kappa Deltas, as extras in the scene where Disney takes P.L. Travers to Disneyland. The Practically Perfect Mary Poppins would approve of the movie, in my opinion.
However, the movie excursion reminds me of rumor that is still circulating on the internet, even though it has been debunked by Kappa Alpha Theta. Some say that the song “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” was written to honor Sharon Disney Lund and Diane Disney Miller, Walt Disney’s daughters who were Kappa Alpha Thetas. Lund was initiated into the Beta Delta Chapter at the University of Arizona and Miller was a member of the Omicron Chapter at the University of Southern California. That rumor is not based in fact according to Jane Shepherd Dick in an article, “Kappa Alpha Theta Myths,” from the organization’s Summer 2011 magazine. Walt Disney’s daughters were initiated in the early 1950s and both are deceased. The song from Mary Poppins, a movie based on an earlier novel by P.L. Travers, was written by the songwriting team of brothers Richard and Robert Sherman. The inspiration for the song seems to have been their father. He was a “fantastic kite maker,” according to his sons.
Another movie opening on Christmas Day is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It was written by James Thurber, Phi Kappa Psi. Thurber attended The Ohio State University from 1913-18, but he did not graduate because of an eye injury; the resulting blindness in one eye prevented him from completing a mandatory ROTC course. However, the university awarded him a posthumous degree in 1995.
Thurber was a humorist who drew cartoons and wrote short stories which were published in magazines, most notably in The New Yorker. That’s where the short story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” first appeared on March 18, 1939. It was made into a 1947 movie starring Danny Kaye.
Perennial holiday favorite It’s a Wonderful Life has among its actors Phi Gamma Delta’s Samuel Hinds. He played George Bailey’s father, Peter. Hinds, an 1897 initiate of the chapter at New York University, also graduated from Harvard Law School. In 1933, he appeared in his second film, The Road Is Open Again, playing President Woodrow Wilson, a Phi Kappa Psi.
©Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All Rights Reserved.
