One Little Spark!

Marty Sklar joined the Disneyland public relations staff a month before the park’s 1955 opening, as editor of The Disneyland News, a tabloid newspaper sold on Main Street for ten cents. Starting as a publicity writer, he wrote personal material for Walt Disney for ten years. In 1961 he moved to Imagineering to work on the four Disney shows for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. Eventually he became Imagineering’s president and, in his role as chief creative executive, led the planning and creative development of nine Disney parks around the world: Epcot, Tokyo Disneyland, the Disney-MGM Studios (known now as Disney’s Hollywood Studios), Disneyland Paris, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Disney California Adventure Park, Tokyo DisneySea, the Walt Disney Studios Park (Paris), and Hong Kong Disneyland. In 2001, Marty was recognized as a Disney Legend, and he has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Themed Entertainment Association and been inducted into the Hall of Fame of IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions). On his retirement in 2009, Sklar was honored with a window on Main Street in Disneyland. His memoir, Dream It! Do It! My Half-Century Creating Disney’s Magic Kingdoms, is a tantalizing insider’s view of the author’s fifty-plus years as a leading Disney creative force.