When they offered me an interview with the model for Tinker Bell, I was intrigued. I know they model CGI characters but back in the hand drawn animation day, didn't they just draw what they felt like? Turns out Peter Pan's sidekick was a real human being, and with the film now out in a new 2 disc special edition DVD, that model, Margaret Kerry, came out to tell her story.
These days they do computer scans. Back then, were you just posing for artists?
“No, they filmed all of my acting and my pantomime because she didn't talk. And they would take that film, movie film, and Mark Davis would do key cells. And then the animators would draw Tinker Bell doing what I did. Think about it for a minute. You have a fellow like Mark Davis who has been designing Tinker Bell for who knows how long? He must have been on the project at least four or five years and he would change her, one day like this, another like that. But when it came right down and Mark had decided what he wanted to do for Tinker Bell, he's a guy. And he's not a dancer and he's not a little petite thing, so it makes sense to get somebody who is a dancer, an actor and a mime and put her before the camera. So how does the shoulder move? How does the hand fly up? How did she walk on tippy toes? How does she get out of the keyhole? He could have sat there and really worked and sweated and figured it out, but having a reference model gives them a much broader enhancement of what the character can do. So they use reference models and they can trace one frame and then go from there to do what they have to do. They did that with horses, all kinds of animals. That's why the Disney stuff is so great.”
Somewhere is there live action footage of all the Tinker Bell scenes?
“Oh, we wish, we wish. It's lost. All they have now are the stills. It was told to me one time that they thought that Ward Kimball had it in his huge collection. Now why the animator Ward Kimball would have it, I have no idea but since he has passed away and his collection was auctioned off. So it may just have deteriorated. You know that Tinker Bell was not that important to start with. I don't even have screen credit. She was just going to be a fun secondary character that Disney was going to have in one movie. Then all the things changed when Disneyland started.
I'm told that so many of the people at the studio thought that it was Walt's Folly, Disneyland was going to lose money or even go bankrupt. So they went to Roy and said, 'Roy, would you tell him that we're asking him not to use our big characters that we can license and make money off of, so then all the money that he'll lose, we can get the money back?' So Roy evidently did, and I'm sure told it much nicer than I just did, but he understood and got back to Roy and said, 'Tell 'em I'm going to use Jiminy Cricket and Tinker Bell.' That's why when Disneyland opened, you saw Jiminy Cricket and Tinker Bell everyplace. But you didn't see a lot of the licensed characters. Then of course it became a hit and then Mr. Disney made the most delightful decision of his creative life and invited me to open up his television show. So she came in to everybody's household once a week and took them on a magical trip to someplace and a magical storytelling and Tinker Bell was off and running.”
You continued to model her for several years?
“No. I did do some work, just going over and talking to the people I know. I'm on the board of ASIFA, the Animation Society International for the Arts. We just put on the Annies so we've got about 3,000 members in the animation business. I know a lot of animators and I work with a lot of committees, so I know a lot of people at Disney. I was invited to come over and see what they were doing with the new Tinker Bell movie. They drew some pictures of me just for the fun of it while I was there and they're still using my reference work. And of course the books that are out there, the fairy books, they're using my reference work all the time.”
How does it feel to continue to see yourself as Tink 50 years later?
“Oh, I will tell you, it is wonderful. One of the delightful things that happened, I was over at the third floor at the Wells building where they were going over story ideas for the new Tinker Bell movie. And I had a very nice little dress on and somebody said, 'You know, your legs look just like Tinker Bell's.' I said, 'Wait a minute, they are Tinker Bell's,' and I lifted my skirt just gently just above the knee. And they said, 'At 78 you still have legs like Tinker Bell's?' And I said, 'Why not? She and I are ageless.'”
Do people outside of animation know it's you?
“Well, so many people that I'm with and of course I live in the entertainment capital of the world here in Glendale and Burbank, we're surrounded by animators and people in the business. So I'm with them and they will introduce me to their friends to say, 'This is Tinker Bell.' And I explain quickly so they don't think little men in white coats are coming to take me away, and they say, 'Oh my gosh, you look like Tinker Bell.' Little by little by little, people do recognize me but my son says, 'Mom, you're famous, just nobody knows it.'”
Did you get up on wires and fly in the sessions?
“I almost did. It's an awful, ugly contraption. To me it was, rather. I was nervous about it. I really didn't want to do it but having been in show business since I'm four years old, and you always do what you're told, you don't have any recourse to say no thank you. At least, that's the way I was brought up. I tried it, got into it once and oh, really, I was so nervous about it. But I didn't show it. I'm a good actress. So we broke for lunch and after lunch, Mark said, 'Margaret, we're not going to have you fly.' He dismissed some of the prop men that were supposed to be there. I said, 'Why not?' I thought maybe they had figured out that I didn't want to and he said, 'Well, you know, at lunch, we realized that Tinker Bell works at a different rhythm than anybody else in the movie. Tinker Bell does not glide when she flies. She darts. She flips. So we couldn't use it anyway." And I said, 'Oh, pshaw. Oh well, that's a disappointment,' and went on about my business.”
