Claude Coats: Walt Disney's Imagineer: The Making of Disneyland From Toad Hall to the Haunted Mansion and Beyond

By David A. Bossert

Claude Coats: Walt Disney's Imagineer—The Making of Disneyland: From Toad Hall to the Haunted Mansion and Beyond is the story of artist and designer Claude Coats who, for more than half a century, was one of the most prolific creative talents at The Walt Disney Company and, arguably, the most accomplished. An unpretentious man of strapping stature, Claude was the artist behind some of the stunning backgrounds produced at the Disney studio during the Golden Age of animation before becoming one of the founding members, handed-picked by Walt Disney, to start the fabled WED Enterprises—now known as Walt Disney Imagineering. Working side by side with Walt Disney, Claude Coats is considered a significant influence in creating the first theme park, Disneyland, and a new form of creativity called Imagineering. He forever changed the worlds of global entertainment, technology, architecture, and popular culture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Old Mill Press
• Release date: Nov 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735769141

Book preview

Claude Coats:

From Animation Artist to Imagineer

A young Claude Coats painting a nude figure at USC, circa 1932. Coats Family Collection.

Life can often present serendipitous moments when it comes to our career paths. One minute we are established in our profession, and the next, we might make a quick pivot down a different career path that was not anticipated. That is what happened to Claude Coats on a sunny day in 1955 at The Walt Disney Studios campus in Burbank, California.

Coats, a background artist, had just finished work on the latest animated feature film, Lady and the Tramp (1955). He had already completed his last background for the film and was now painting illustrations for the Lady and the Tramp Golden Book that would release simultaneously to stores with the movie. Also, at Walt Disney’s request, Coats was asked to create a three-dimensional model of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride for the soon to open Disneyland theme park. Since Coats had painted backgrounds on the film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) just six years earlier, he was familiar with the film. He assumed his tabletop model would be used as a guide for the set design by the company hired to paint the scenic flats for the attraction. After Walt had approved the model, Coats was under the impression he was done and would move on to the Studios’ next film project.¹

Several weeks later, while talking to his Studios colleague Ken Anderson, who had dropped by to chat, Claude’s career path would forever change. According to one account, Walt Disney came into Claude’s office, his bangs apparently falling into his face, eyes pinched with irritation. He was faced with yet another delay in park construction, and opening day was approaching.² He pointed at Coats and Anderson and said, Grosh Studios can’t do Mr. Toad, so you guys do it.³ This rather theatrical account is one of several versions of the encounter and is more dramatic than what happened, as we will see later.

R.L. Grosh & Sons Scenic Studio, now known as Grosh Scenic Studios, had been hired by Disney to create the painted scenics for the Snow White’s Adventures ride,⁴ Peter Pan (later renamed Peter Pan’s Flight), and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. All three would be dark ride attractions for the Fantasyland area at Disneyland, which was under construction. But because of time and labor constraints, Grosh came back to Walt and said they didn’t have the capacity to get the Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride finished in time. There had also been speculation that Grosh was having difficulty matching the blacklight paints to the color palette of the film.

Regardless, it was an all-hands-on-deck situation. With Walt backed into a corner by the scenic subcontractor, Claude Coats became one of the art directors and show designers for the new theme park. His career as an animation background artist and color stylist ended, and he became what was eventually coined an Imagineer.

Coats had spent his first twenty years working in the Animation Department at the fabled Walt Disney Studios before that transformative moment when Walt Disney told him he would be working on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. His architecture and art school training, along with his artistic upbringing, all coalesced to launch him into what Coats often referred to as his second Disney career. He became the resident expert on dark rides and translating the Studios’ animated films into immersive dimensional theme park attractions before taking us on a submarine trip under the Polar Ice Cap and through the Seven Seas. Coats transported us to a prehistoric time before dropping us in theater seats on a carousel of progress. And if that wasn’t enough, he transported us into a swashbuckling world of gluttony and debauchery as we watched pirates ransack a Caribbean town set ablaze. Then he shrunk us down to explore the world of inner space before helping to populate a mansion with 999 happy haunts that welcomed us foolish mortals.⁵ He became a key innovator of theme park attractions, pioneering new technologies, entertainment techniques, and immersive experiences that continue today the world over. That was just some of what Imagineer Claude Coats did during his first fifteen years helping Walt Disney build Disneyland, and it all started on that opportune sunny day in Burbank.

Claude Dixon Coats was born on January 17, 1913, in San Francisco, California, to Daisy Bannerman and Lee Beauregard Coats. The family moved to Southern California, where he grew up in the Westgate neighborhood of Los Angeles, now known as Brentwood. Their modest house at 450 Norman Way in Westgate still stands in the same place, but the street is now named Bundy Drive.⁶

Daisy with sons Lee and Claude in San Francisco, 1914.

A ten-year-old Claude poses in this early photo from 1923.

Brothers, Lee and Claude, as World War 1 soldiers, 1917.

Here is an early photo of Claude’s father, holding son Lee in San Francisco, 1912. All four photos Coats Family Collection.

According to Claude Coats’ son Alan, Daisy was an incredible woman. Born in East Texas in 1880, she came across the country in a covered wagon in 1885, settled in Riverside, and was married at 18. She was an extremely outgoing woman for her time.⁷ Daisy was not only artistic and musical, but she also wrote poetry and was an accomplished sculptor with her own kiln for firing her sculptures and ceramic work. Her creative talent rubbed off on Coats from an early age as he learned to draw and paint. Coats picked up sculpture and ceramics from his mother, and that interest in three-dimensional art would stick with him throughout his lengthy career. She tried to get Coats to play the violin once, which he hated, and he never became very musically inclined,⁸ according to Alan Coats.

Claude at his father’s ranch in Hanford, California, summer 1932.

Claude, as a lifeguard, takes a break from duties, Hermosa Beach, California, 1933.

Claude and his brother Lee as playful young men, circa the mid-1930s.

Working with fresh plaster, Claude was skilled in the art of fresco at USC. Circa 1932. All four photos Coats Family Collection.

Daisy and Lee Coats separated early in their marriage, and Claude and his older brother Lee were raised during the school year by their mother in Los Angeles. His parents never divorced and had a civil relationship. When not with his mother, Coats spent summers as a cowboy on his father’s horse ranch in Hanford, in the central San Joaquin Valley of California. ⁹ Coats’ grandparents, who were leading cotton farmers with extensive holdings throughout Southern California, had settled on the ranch in the early 1880s. Claude’s hard work herding horses on the ranch instilled in him a strong work ethic that stuck with him throughout his life.

While attending Los Angeles Polytechnic High School in downtown Los Angeles, Coats became friends with future Disney artist Lee Blair. They both graduated from Polytechnic High School in 1930, in the early days of the Great Depression. In Coats’ senior yearbook, Lee sketched a caricature of himself and wrote, Good old Coats. Here’s to a mighty fine architect and no mean artist. Lee Blair. Blair went on to attend Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, one of the most highly regarded art schools on the West Coast at that time, where he studied with Pruett Carter, Millard Sheets, Lawrence Murphy, and briefly with Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros.

Coats was an avid swimmer and loved the beach, where he was a lifeguard for a few summers when he wasn’t cowboying in Hanford. Because of his height, 6 feet 6 inches, he was a natural at track and field, his specialty was high jump.¹⁰

He received a track and field scholarship to the University of Southern California (USC), where he enrolled in the College of Architecture. Midway through his education at USC, Coats changed his major from architecture to fine arts once he realized his passion was for drawing and painting.¹¹ That passion for drawing and painting was reflected in a trip he took to Taos, New Mexico, in the summer of 1933 between his junior and senior years, to paint the adobe buildings and Indian life in the Southwest. The vibrant watercolors he painted on that trip showcase his early mastery of the medium and his use of layered washes that added depth and vibrance to his paintings. He also learned fresco techniques and completed several murals around the USC campus during his time there.¹²

Coats admired many of the Victorian-era mansions built by wealthy Easterners at the turn of the twentieth century in the West Adams neighborhood near the school. He would revisit this area years later to study the details for authenticity in his styling and background work in Lady and the Tramp (1955). He graduated from USC with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1934, at the height of the Depression, and set out on another summer adventure.

He traveled to San Francisco for an opportunity to work for his passage to Yokohama, Japan. It is unknown what prompted this trip, and we can only speculate that a friend may have passed on the information about this travel opportunity. Some might call it wanderlust, but in Coats’ own words, it was the possibility of finding … storms and moods and light, the character and personality of another place. It could also have been merely his desire to explore the world, which continued throughout his life and was a source of inspiration in his artwork.

Here are two of Claude’s watercolors painted during a trip to Taos, New Mexico, in 1933. The beauty and people of the Southwest would inspire passion for color and vibrancy in his art throughout his life. Photos Coats Family Collection.

At 6 feet, 6 inches, Claude was often referred to as a gentle giant of a man. Photo Coats Family Collection.

This is the only surviving painting from Claude’s trip to China in 1934, capturing a moment of busy street life in Shanghai. Coats Family Collection.

This photo, taken by Claude with a tiny camera, reveals how life translated to art in the artist’s eye and was used as a reference for the painting at left. Coats Family Collection.

Coats got hired as a fireman stoking the boilers aboard the SS President Cleveland. Built originally as a troop transport ship for WWI, the President Cleveland went through a conversion to a passenger and cargo vessel operated by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company during the 1930s.¹³ Coats was initially hired as a scab worker because of a longshoremen’s strike underway at the port.

According to Alan Coats, while his father was trying to board the ship, he was stopped at the gangplank by a surly mob of striking longshoremen. ‘Where do you think you’re going, buddy?’ Thinking fast on his feet, he answered, ‘The captain owes me money.’ The captain was not well-liked and probably owed others, so they let Coats pass to try to collect.¹⁴

The ship departed from San Francisco on Wednesday, June 27, 1934, then sailed to Honolulu, Hawaii. From Honolulu, Coats went to Yokohama, and from there, the boat took him to Shanghai, China.¹⁵ He spent some time, possibly a few days, in Shanghai taking photographs with a small camera he had brought with him. Upon his return, he used those photos as references for several watercolor paintings, one of which has survived. The lanky 6-foot, 6-inch, 160-pound Coats must have stood out, in both Japan and China, not just as an American abroad but also for his sheer height.

Then Coats, still working on the President Cleveland, sailed back to the United States, continuing as a fireman aboard the vessel. Once home, he got hired in the waning days of summer as an assistant to art director John Harkrider, who worked on a musical film in production at Universal.¹⁶

Harkrider is probably best remembered for his elaborate nightclub sets with the shiny black floors upon which Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers danced in Swing Time (1936). The film in early development when Coats joined Harkrider was The Great Ziegfeld (1936), which was planned as a big-budget bio-picture of the legendary Broadway producer, starring William Powell. Only one studio could produce such an extravaganza, and the project went into turnaround to MGM Studios. Coats continued on the project by joining Harkrider in Hollywood’s largest art department at MGM, headed by legendary art director and production designer Cedric Gibbons. He honed his drafting and painting skills, learned about the workings of a movie studio’s art department, and the camaraderie of working with other artists. The Great Ziegfeld would go on to win the Best Picture Oscar¹⁷ for 1936.

While at MGM, Coats met two other future Disney artists working in the art department, Herb Ryman and Ken Anderson. At the time, Ryman was an artist and illustrator at MGM until he quit to visit and tour China, possibly based on the stories of Coats’ earlier experiences. On his return from that trip in 1938, he was hired by Walt Disney himself after viewing Ryman’s exhibition of paintings of his China trip at Chouinard Art Institute.¹⁸ Anderson’s tenure at MGM, briefly overlapping with Coats, was short. He joined The Walt Disney Studios in 1934, where he started working on Silly Symphony cartoons, including The Goddess of Spring (1934) and the Academy Award-winning Three Orphan Kittens (1935).¹⁹

Meanwhile, Coats’ high school friend Lee Blair finished his art training at the Chouinard Art Institute and began working at the Ub Iwerks Studio, animating many of the Flip the Frog cartoons. While working in the animation industry, Blair continued to paint in his free time and was an accomplished watercolor artist. He was one of the key artists who helped develop what became known as the California Style watercolors. His watercolor painting approach was distinctive, and he was a prominent award-winner in many art exhibitions. He had a unique sense of wit and humor, which often came through in his artworks and usually determined the subjects he chose to paint.²⁰ In 1935, Blair became the California Water Color Society president, where his friend Coats had already been a member since 1933.

As a member of this prestigious society, Coats continued painting in watercolor while studying under noted watercolor artists Paul Sample and Dan Lutz.²¹ Before returning to New Hampshire, where he became the artist in residence at Dartmouth College, Sample painted a watercolor of Coats sitting under a tree. Lutz worked as a professional artist and received local and national recognition for his