Redmond travels East with the Florida Project

Image: D.K. Peterson, Flickr (license)

Redmond’s influence is strewn all over Disneyland, but her most obvious contribution to the parks can be spotted some 2,500 miles away in Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. Following Walt’s death in 1966, Redmond worked on the development of Walt Disney World and painted scenes depicting various architectural styles for Epcot’s World Showcase and Magic Kingdom’s Main Street, U.S.A., Adventureland, and Fantasyland.

The latter was of particular interest to Redmond, who left her mark on the iconic Cinderella Castle with five ornate mosaic murals that unfolded the story of the rags-to-riches princess in the castle entryway. Truer in style to the original fairy tale than Disney’s 1950 adaptation, the first mural depicts Lady Tremaine surveying the royal invitation to the Prince’s ball, with Drizella and Anastasia close behind her and Cinderella sweeping the hearth behind them. In the second mural, the Fairy Godmother gazes upon Cinderella, now transformed from her lowly station as the family servant into a regal, silver-gowned princess. The third and fourth murals take us from one classic “shoe scene” to the next—first, as Cinderella flees the ball and drops her glass slipper, then, when it is returned to her and she is identified as Prince Charming’s true love. In the final mural, Cinderella and her prince ride happily away together.

Mosaicist Hanns-Joachim Schariff led a select team of craftsmen in bringing Redmond’s original paintings to life. Each of the five murals were carefully constructed within a Gothic archway and assembled from over a million pieces of Smalti tiles, Venetian glass, silver, and 14-carat gold. When the 18-month installation process was finally complete, the murals stood fifteen feet high by ten feet wide and featured over 500 different colors—each beautiful and brilliant under the cool shade of the castle’s main passageway. The installations were later replicated in 1983, when Tokyo Disneyland debuted their own, slightly smaller version of Cinderella Castle.

A legend retires

Image: The Walt Disney Company, Wikimedia Commons

In the summer of 1974, ten years after Redmond got her start with Disney Imagineering, she retired. Her expansive body of work encompassed theme parks, lands, attractions, restaurants, shops, resort buildings, and private quarters within Walt’s Disneyland and Walt Disney World. There was scarcely an area of the parks that she did not affect with her precise and evocative designs.

After another 34 years passed, in October 2008, Redmond received top honors from Disney. She was inducted into the twenty-first class of Disney Legends alongside former vice chairman Roy E. Disney, Imagineers Neil Gallagher and Bob Booth, animators Walt Peregoy and Burny Mattinson, voice actor and actress Wayne Allwine and Russi Taylor, Oriental Land Company CEO Toshio Kagami, musician Oliver Wallace, and powerhouse television personalities Barbara Walters and Frank Gifford. With Taylor and Walters, she was the counted among the 32nd-34th women (of 225 recipients to date) to receive the award.

“Collectively, this group has enchanted millions, young and old around the world,” said Disney president Bob Iger, “and it is a privilege to pay tribute to them today.”

It was the last formal honor Redmond would receive before her untimely death the following winter. She was 98 years old.

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Today, Redmond’s legacy lives on at the Disney Parks. You may savor a character buffet at the Plaza Inn, dine like a queen at 21 Royal, explore the hidden rooms of Club 33, or simply catch a moment’s rest in Cinderella Castle, and at each turn witness the manifestations of her scenic designs and suggestive, colorful illustrations. From Disneyland to Walt Disney World, Tokyo Disneyland, and beyond, it is both a pleasure and an honor to be able to walk through the parks and still see traces of her enduring presence.