Saturday, April 04, 2009

The Gardner Collection, Disneyland 1955: Pt. 1



Dick Gardner was stationed in San Diego with the Navy back in 1955; fortunately, he took a lot of BEE-YOU-TEE-FULL color photos of Disneyland while he was in Southern California. He has graciously allowed me to post his images for all of you to drool over. Today, I present 7 gorgeous interior shots of The Golden Horseshoe. Grab a Pepsi and let’s get going!

Here’s a cool one of Wally Boag doing his balloon act. Sitting in the box next to the stage is none other than Ward Kimball, wearing his Firehouse 5 getup.





Those Can-Can girls sure had a leg up on the competition (oh, that hurts it’s so bad!)





Judy Marsh out front, and Ward Kimball can be seen again in the alcove:



Donald Novis, Irish Tenor, is at the microphone:



Wally looks like he means business in this photo...MONKEY business that is; Judy Marsh is center and Donald Novis on the far right:



See more Disneyland Golden Horseshoe photos at my website.

5 comments:

TokyoMagic! said...

Truly amazing photos! Thank you Dick and Dave!

It makes me kind of ill to go into the Golden Horseshoe now. I went in there a couple months ago and it was just trashed. The tables and chairs were scattered every which way and they were all dirty.

Thufer said...

this looks to be another fine series by dave...just awesome.

Vintage Disneyland Tickets said...

These are insane rare historic gems! I want Wally's Suit in the balloon act photo, that is too cool! Thank you Dave and Dick Gardner. Mr. Gardner must have some some serious flash bulbs to get these amazing photos!

p.s. TM, its always like that in Horseshoe now. Look at the people in that first photo, people dressed like that cared about their surrounding. Today, not so much.

CoxPilot said...

It's the one show I never got to see. We couldn't just walk in like we did on all the other rides and shows, and the timing was never right. Later, when my family and I would go to the Park, it was always full and to late to get in. I'm sorry I missed it.

Major Pepperidge said...

Amazing photos, Dick Gardner obviously had some photography skills that so many other people lacked.

Does anybody know why Judy Marsh was replaced after just one year?

And those 1950's Can-Can girls are adorable!