Say Cheese, Mickey : It’s Been One Long Thrill Ride for Disneyland’s Top Photographer

Taking pictures at Disneyland was supposed to be just a summer job for Renie Bardeau--a way to earn money between semesters at college.

That was 37 summers ago.

“One year became five and five became 10, then 10 became 35,” Bardeau said. After snapping about 1 million pictures, he is preparing to retire as Disneyland’s chief photographer. “To this day, I love the work. It’s a photographer’s dream to work here.”

United States presidents, royalty and a host of foreign dignitaries have passed through the gates of the Magic Kingdom, and Bardeau had a front-row seat for it all, snapping pictures for press packets, Disney’s archives and in-house newsletters.

He has mingled with Hollywood stars, famous athletes--and, of course, Mickey Mouse, whom he has photographed more than 100,000 times. (Bardeau has seen subtle changes in the famous mouse over time: “He has a bigger tummy to make him look more like the cartoon and his ears are a little smaller.”)

And Bardeau, 62, has ridden every ride at Disneyland, many of them while sitting backward to get specific angles for photos used to publicize an attraction.

“He has probably shot every nook and cranny at Disneyland,” said Bardeau’s supervisor, Tom Brocato. “What he brings to the job is more than 35 years worth of history that you can’t get out of a book.”

But what a book he could write, from his first assignment in 1959--photographing Walt Disney and then-Vice President Richard Nixon at the opening of the Matterhorn--to Elizabeth Taylor’s star-studded 1992 birthday bash, to more mundane jobs such as shooting Sleeping Beauty’s castle over and over again to record the slightest permutations for publicity shots.

Among his fondest memories is the time actor James Garner insisted that Bardeau eat lunch with him and his family after an event years ago.

But Bardeau has found athletes to be the friendliest and most down-to-earth.

He has talked football with Joe Montana and baseball with former Dodger Orel Hershiser, when the athletes were feted with parades down Main Street after helping their teams win the Super Bowl and World Series, respectively.

Olympic athletes fresh from gold medal victories have also visited the park, including Janet Evans, Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci. Bardeau struck up a friendship with 1976 Olympian John Naber.

“We became good friends and he still drops me a line,” Bardeau said of Naber, a swimmer who won four gold medals.

Although accustomed to photographing the famous, Bardeau’s work never made him famous. His name does not appear on the thousands of his photographs that are sent to the news media. It has been the theme park’s policy from early on to credit photographs to Disneyland, and later simply to Disney.

“They did that so there would be no jealousy or animosity among the crew,” he said. “It was just easier that way. If one person shoots a great photo, we all did it.”

But one photo that Bardeau doesn’t mind taking credit for is the last one of Walt Disney at Disneyland, shortly before his death in 1966.

“He was a genius,” Bardeau said. “He was real easy to talk to. He loved the park and loved to talk to you about the park, asking you what you thought about it.”

Bardeau once complained to Disney that the trees along Main Street had grown too large and obstructed the view of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. The trees were eventually replaced with smaller ones.

Whenever the appearance of the theme park changes, even in the most subtle of ways, Bardeau has to update the photo archives.

“An editor in Des Moines called and asked for a photo of Sleeping Beauty’s castle for a story on summer travel. Everything we had had the Sky Buckets [an attraction removed last year] so the pictures had to be redone,” Bardeau said.

Bardeau first picked up a camera at the age of 12 to earn a Boy Scout merit badge in photography. He was quickly hooked. His natural talent with the camera became apparent while he was in high school, snapping photos for the campus newspaper and yearbook.

“I just always had a knack for it,” he said.

Times have changed since Bardeau landed a job as one of four staff photographers at Disneyland.

He had just finished serving five years in the Navy, where he was an aviation photographer aboard the aircraft carrier Midway at the close of the Korean War.

When he showed up for his first assignment in 1959--the photo of Disney and Nixon--he was nervously holding an old-fashioned Rollierflex twin-lens camera.

“I was a little awed but you have to get the shot,” Bardeau recalled. “It’s a pressure job and we have deadlines.”

At the time, Bardeau was a student at the University of Arizona and only landed in the photography department at Disneyland because there weren’t any internships available at the newspaper where he wanted to work, the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

“I wanted to get into advertising,” Bardeau said recently. “I loved photography as a hobby. Eventually, my hobby became a vocation.”

In 1975, he became chief photographer and now uses the services of more than a dozen freelancers to help carry the load.

The modern 35-mm cameras now used at Disneyland are also a far cry from the cumbersome cameras Bardeau once had to lug around the park.

Bardeau remembers long hours in the darkroom developing film and making black-and-white prints. Now, developing film is done by off-site contractors and pictures are scanned in by computer and then transmitted internationally.

Working at what Disney dubs “the happiest place on earth” isn’t always happy, Bardeau said. Whenever there have been accidents or deaths at the park, Bardeau has been dispatched to the scene to record the incident for the theme park’s legal files.

But mostly, he said, his job has been fun, kept him young and supported his family, which includes a daughter, now 34, and a son, now 32.

He and his wife, Marlene, have a home in Glendale, Ariz. Marlene lives there full-time and he will join her when he retires.

“This job really is an art and taxes your creative juices,” he said. “How many ways can you photograph the Matterhorn and make it interesting? There is a way. I’m always looking for a different angle.”