Verdugo Views: Donald Duck mystery appears in the archives

One day, while researching in the Special Collections Room at the Glendale Central Library on Harvard Street, I came across a scrapbook from a local women’s organization.

There are several of these in the collection. They’ve ended up there for a variety of reasons. Often a member doesn’t know what else to do with them. No one wants them, but no one wants to throw them out, either. Eventually, some make their way to Special Collections. It’s a good thing, as they are a treasure trove of information about the “Glendale that was.”

I don’t recall what I was looking for that day, but when I saw a reference to Donald Duck, I read more closely.

It seems that, back in the 1950s, Donald Duck appeared at an Oakmont Easter party as the guest of Ruth Kelley.

Donald Duck, of course, had close ties to this city; he was drawn by Al Taliaferro and voiced by Clarence Nash, both local residents. Now, we don’t know who showed up at this party. Was it Nash? Was it Taliaferro? Was it someone wearing a Donald Duck suit?

But, here’s a clue. The scrapbook included two drawings: one of Donald and his three nephews admiring a stash of Easter eggs, another of a chick wearing an Easter bonnet. Both have a similar style.

The article was about Taliaferro’s recent surgery.

Here’s the story:

“Operation Donald Duck, or who had who in stitches: what actually took place in the operating room.”

‘’By now you all know that Al Taliaferro is well on the road to recovery, for which we are all very thankful. But what you may not know is what actually took place that day.

The seven doctors assisting Dr. Mikkelson will long remember that day. Due to the serious nature of the operation and the uncertainty of the outcome, the doctors were open-mouthed when they removed the surgical sheet covering good-humored Al, (by this time under heavy anesthetic).

They found clutched in his hands a cartoon he had drawn especially for the day, depicting the operating room with anxious faced doctors and nurses hovering over the limp form of a patient. From a large incision, many duck feathers came flying.

In the corner of the cartoon was a sketch of Donald Duck saying with a shrug, “Well, what did you expect? He’s been ‘drawin’ me for 19 years.”

Taliaferro drew and inked Donald Duck’s first daily comic strip and created his nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louis, according to the Glendale News-Press, August 7, 2004.

Taliaferro was known for incorporating his family into the strip. His wife was said to be the muse for Daisy Duck and his mother-in-law the inspiration for Grandma Duck.

“He would put in the name of his dentist, or the TV shop owner and he once put in his phone number. He got quite a lot of quacks on the phone after that, so he had to stop that game,” as noted in the News-Press article.

Taliaferro died in 1969 at age 63. When he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in August 2004, his widow, Lucy (by then married to Burnell Yarick), told the News-Press that she and Taliaferro met in 1935 when they both worked as artists at Disney studios. They were married some six months later.

Taliaferro began drawing the strip in 1938, according to Wikipedia, and continued doing so until the year he passed away.

--

Readers Write:

The two articles on Billy’s Deli on Orange Street (July 16 and Sept. 10) brought lots of responses.

Recently, I spoke with Nancy Fox and Karin Nicholson. Fox said that when she was growing up, she went to Ruth Sanborn dance studio in an old wood-frame house on Orange. Next to it was a parking lot, then Billy’s. Sometimes they would go there afterward. “I loved the corned beef,” Fox said.

Nicholson said that when she and her friend from John Muir Elementary, Connie Lawson, started baby-sitting, they often spent Saturdays together. Nicholson lived on Cypress Street on Adams Hill at the time and the two friends walked from there, often going to a movie at the Alex.

One day, Lawson asked, “Have you ever had a cheese blintz?” They went to Billy’s, and Nicholson fell in love with cheese blintzes. They also went to Woolworths to look around for something to buy with their baby-sitting money. Later, her family went to the Friday night fish dinners at Billy’s.

“They reminded us of our Norwegian boiled dinners,” she said.

Nicholson, who worked at the Alex for a while, also recalls a Chinese restaurant in an old house in Glendale in the 1950s.

“We’d call in and order, then drive over. I would go in to get it. The food was delicious, our introduction to Chinese food,” she said.

--

KATHERINE YAMADA can be reached at katherineyamada@gmail.com or by mail at Verdugo Views, c/o News-Press, 202 W. First St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Please include your name, address and phone number.