In the early 1940s, Walt Disney made his daughter Diane a promise: he would adapt her favorite 1934 children’s book, British author P.L. Travers’ ‘Mary Poppins’, into a big-screen masterpiece.
What the famed animator didn’t know at the time, however, is that it would take much longer to make the film than it took audiences to learn how to spell “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
By the time Julie Andrews’ titular heaven-sent nanny quite literally descended from the clouds into the Banks family’s Cherry Tree Lane home - and into theaters across America - in August 1964, about 20 years had passed since Disney made that promise to his young daughter. The holdup: notoriously prickly Travers was staunchly against selling the screen rights, particularly to a studio she feared would overly sentimentalize her work. What ensued was nearly two decades of Disney himself personally appealing to Travers before she finally relented in 1961.
Her eventual change of heart, it turned out, was motivated less by Disney’s apparent charm, but more so by money. The royalties from her ‘Mary Poppins’ series had begun to dwindle by the ‘60s, and Disney reportedly offered to pay her $100,000 (more than $800,000 by today’s standards), plus five perfect of the movie’s multi-million-dollar gross earnings. Disney also agreed to allow Travers (or “Mrs. Travers,” as she demanded that she be called) to act as a consultant on the film. She spent several weeks at Disney’s Burbank, California studio, where she became notorious for the “No No No” mantra she constantly barked at Disney’s creative team. (This particular catchphrase was immortalized due in large part to the fact Travers also insisted that all of their meetings be recorded.)
Despite the films’ critical acclaim, many accolades, and commercial success, Travers was not among the movie’s many fans worldwide. Disney granted her final script approval, but she was not given any film editing rights whatsoever. After screening the film, she reportedly asked Disney, “When do we start cutting it?” The filmmaker, however, refused to change anything, and Travers was furious, vowing never to work with him again.
Travers allegedly wept at the movie’s premiere.
“I said, ‘Oh God, what have they done?’” she later revealed. Among her dislikes were: the animated sequences, the Banks’ family home, the shift in the time period from her original story, Poppins’ attractive appearance, Van Dyke’s casting, and the songs penned by brothers Richard and Robert Sherman. In an interview with the New York Times, Richard, who was partly behind such songs as “Spoonful of Sugar” and “Feed the Birds,” admitted that Travers “didn’t care about our feelings, how she chopped us apart.”
Despite Travers’ lifelong objections, Mary Poppins will soon be given new life, hitting theaters once again in the December 2018 sequel, ‘Mary Poppins Returns’. Biography
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