Disneyland Rarity: an Armed Robbery : Crime: A woman who was among the original Mouseketeers is accosted by gunman while leaving the park with her daughter and grandchildren. Such incidents are bane of tourism.

As a banner summer draws to a close, Orange County’s tourism industry has quietly marked another milestone: a rare armed robbery at Disneyland.

An Antelope Valley woman--who performed on television’s original “Mickey Mouse Club”--was robbed at gunpoint in the Disneyland parking lot two weeks ago as she attempted to leave with her daughter and grandchildren.

Billie Matay, 52, was accosted by a man who pointed a gun at her head as she sat in the driver’s seat of her car about 1:20 p.m. Aug. 17, police said.

Matay surrendered her purse, but refused the robber’s demands that she drive him outside of the park. The man fled when Matay was able to break free and slam the car door shut, police said.

Anaheim police said the gunman escaped with an undetermined amount of cash and credit cards, and is still at large.

“This is the first time in my memory that a patron has been robbed like this,” said Anaheim Police Lt. Ted Lebahn, a 23-year veteran.

A Disneyland spokesman would say little about security arrangements in the Magic Kingdom except to reiterate: “Our No. 1 consideration is always the safety of our guests.”

Matay was a member of the 24-member dance and entertainment troupe that performed at the opening of Disneyland in 1955 and then on “The Mickey Mouse Club.” For two years she was a member of one of two groups of Mouseketeers, the “blue group,” and performed in circus acts as part of the show, her daughter Denise Bennett confirmed.

Television viewers are more familiar with the members of the “red group,” Mouseketeers such as Jimmy, Annette, Cubby, Darlene and Lonnie, who were introduced at the start of the show.

In the incident, Matay was leaving with her daughter and the daughter’s three young children. It was their second day of a two-day visit to the theme park.

The assailant, described by police as a black male, 19 to 25 years old, wearing a white T-shirt, walked up and put a gun to Matay’s head as she sat with the car door open in the King Louie section of the parking lot.

As soon as the man fled, Matay and her daughter reported the incident.

Robberies at Disneyland have been extremely rare. In fact, the only other publicized events were two similar parking lot incidents in 1986 and 1987, as reported in David Koenig’s 1994 book “Mouse Tales: A Behind-the-Ears-Look at Disneyland.”

After all, Disneyland is Disneyland, an island of escapism where the security staff is virtually equal in size to the entire Anaheim police force.

While cars are stolen, punches thrown and wallets lifted, Disneyland has escaped the kind of big-city violent crime that has become commonplace elsewhere in the urban sprawl.

Tourism officials are all too aware of how fear of crime can impact their industry. Both Florida and Southern California saw drop-offs in their visitor counts after the highly publicized murders of tourists in both states in recent years.

The Walt Disney Co. did offer a peek into crime problems at Disneyland three years ago when it prepared environmental documents in support of a $3-billion resort it was thinking of building at the site.

At the time, the company said it had 382 security officers--only two fewer than the present number of Anaheim police officers. The most common crimes reported were thefts, vandalism, assaults, shoplifting, trespassing, drunkenness or drug possession, disturbing the peace and counterfeiting.

In 1991--the only year of disclosure--Disneyland had 5,292 “security incidents,” ranging from fights to car break-ins. The Anaheim Police Department was called on about one out of five of the calls.

So for now, the Disneyland robbery is being treated an an isolated incident.

“A street robbery at this time of day is unusual. Usually, it does not happen during broad daylight hours,” Lebahn said.