On August 18th, the day prior to the start of the D23 Expo, a tribute was held to two Disney Legends, Wally Boag and Betty Taylor. Both long-standing stars of the Golden Horseshoe Revue passed away this year, within a day of each other.
Press, Expo members on the Sorcerer’s package, various Disney Legends, and past Golden Horseshoe performers were invited to the Big Thunder Ranch, where the stage was set up to replicate the old saloon venue.
The show was divided up into five acts, introduced by virtual Vaudevillian title cards up on the monitors.
It began, as the original show did, with an abundance of Can-Can dancers, performing to “Hello Everybody.”
After the opening number, Tom Staggs came out and said a few words about the night’s events, and recounted that he held his rehearsal dinner at the Golden Horseshoe (yes, he said he was able to have alcohol.)
He then introduced, from the audience, many of the legends important to the Golden Horseshoe, such as Miriam Nelson, the original choreographer.
Our host for the evening was then introduced: Dick Hardwick, who was Wally Boag’s understudy, and who later took over the role of Pecos Bill when Boag retired in 1982.
At this point, the second act began, which was essentially a clip show of photos and video of the original show.
The energy and high activity level of the stars were related, as they were shown performing outside the parks on USO tours and on one occasion, in a command performance for President Nixon.
The third act celebrated Betty Taylor’s long years with the show–over 30 years and nearly 45,000 performances.
Moving on to Wally Boag, there was a video clip of Diane and Ron Miller talking about how much Walt enjoyed the Golden Horseshoe Revue, and the many famous visitors he took there. Afterwards, Dick Hardwick gave the audience a taste of the show by performing Boag’s famous “teeth spitting” number.
After expectorating out a truly prodigious amount of dentition, Hardwick then introduced a video tribute by Steve Martin, longtime fan of Boag since his early days working in the Magic Shop on Main Street. He related how he used to watch every show and picked up many performance tips from Boag that he worked into his comedy acts later in life. He said he had memorized all the lines and all the timing of the act, in hopes that one day Boag wouldn’t be able to go on, and the stage manager would come out onto the stage and ask if there was an eleven-year-old boy in the audience that could take his place “and I would be that boy!”
The fifth and last act of the evening showed the enduring memorials created by Disney for the two performers. Disneyland Resort President George A. Kalogridis presented Ralph Opacic, Executive Director of the Orange County High School of the Arts, with a $10,000 donation in Wally Boag and Betty Taylor’s names, in the hopes that it would help enable young performers to achieve the same longevity as the Disney legends.
Framed copies of a playbill, showing Boag, Taylor, and their co-star in the show, Fulton Burley, were given to the families of the stars, with the assurance that a copy would be mounted in the Golden Horseshoe to acknowledge their part in the Revue’s Guinness-World-Record run of live performances.
The show ended as it began, with a loadful of Can-Can girls who did one raucous dance, and then encouraged all the past performers to come up on stage and join them in singing a closing number.
It was a great tribute to a pair of unforgettable performers. While I myself never got a chance to see the original show in person, the World of Color TV special celebrating the 10,000th show has been made available on the Walt Disney Treasures DVD set, “Disneyland-Secrets, Stories, & Magic.” Clips, of course, are readily searchable on YouTube as well.
It’s hard to know, after all, if this charming, lighthearted, innocent show would be successful in today’s hard-edged, sophisticated, impatient society. I like to think so–I like to think that the longest running stage production in show business history continues to play somewhere, whether or not the curtain’s closed here.
Was this ceremony filmed anywhere? I would LOVE to watch it!
Jeanine: Unfortunately, Disney had requested no video recording at the event, so I don’t know of anyone who has it. There are a number of other Golden Horseshoe tributes that different groups have held throughout the years and put out on video, such as Ape Pen Publishing, but I haven’t personally watched them..yet.