As far back as he can remember, Don Williams has always loved Disney. His grandmother began calling him “Ducky” after her favorite Disney character, Donald Duck. The nickname stuck, which has never bothered Williams since Donald is his favorite character as well. Williams took a liking to art as a youngster and delighted in drawing Disney characters. His favorite character to draw has of course always been Donald Duck.

At the young age of 10, Williams wrote a letter to Walt Disney asking if he could be an illustrator for the company. To his surprise, Walt Disney wrote him back. Williams recalls, “He basically said he had no openings for a 10-year-old artist but was very encouraging to keep on drawing. It was very exciting to receive.”

After serving several years in the Navy, Williams returned home to Springfield, Massachusetts, and got a job as a bank teller before quickly being promoted to bank manager. During his 10 years as bank manager, Williams continued drawing and painting Disney characters for his own amusement. At the branch that he managed, Williams would often let local amateur artists display their art for an entire month. He would reserve the month of December for his own artwork, which was typically all inspired by Disney. “One day,” Williams says, “an anchorman with the local news station, who was a regular customer of mine, came in and saw all my Disney art hanging up. Unbeknownst to me, he was a huge Disney art collector and asked where I had gotten all this expensive art that he said looked like it was worth a fortune.” After Williams told him it was his own artwork, the man said he would like to do a news story on him. The feature was so well received that it ran a second time on the local station.

Seeing how talented Williams was and knowing of his desire to work for Disney, a security guard at the bank where Williams worked got a copy of the tape from the news station and mailed it to the Disney offices in California suggesting that they contact and hire Williams. “Two weeks later I received a letter from the Disney art department, with the video tape, saying they were very impressed with my work but unfortunately they had no openings in California. The letter said if I was serious about pursuing a career with Disney that I should contact the director of Imagineering East, Ralph Kent, in Florida.”

Excited by the prospect of getting one step closer to his dream, Williams did just that, but this time weeks passed with no response. After about three months, Williams decided to take matters into his own hands and started calling around to find a direct number for Kent. He eventually got a hold of his secretary, who noted that Kent had received his package but it was still sitting on his desk, unopened. Williams recalls, “I told his secretary that I would be in Florida in the near future and asked if it might be possible for me to meet with him while I was in town. She asked what day I would be in the area and I said, ‘Whenever I can see him,’ because I had no intention of actually going to Florida but I thought by saying that it would help get me an appointment to see him, and it did.”

Shortly thereafter, Williams boarded a flight for Orlando with a portfolio of about 50 pieces of his Disney artwork. Williams remembers the meeting with Kent to be incredibly nerve-wracking. “I knew this was my big chance. This was it, if he doesn’t like me, I’m done.” Kent brought Ducky into a large conference room along with two other Disney artists. The men intently examined Williams’ work for over an hour without saying a word. Finally, Kent told Williams to return the next day, which Williams took as a good sign. At that next meeting, Williams, who has never had any formal art training, was told that his art was good but could use a bit of improvement in regards to specifications of the characters. “I was given model sheets which are basically how-to-draw sheets, that show how each character is drawn from every angle, so that all illustrators draw the characters the same way.” Williams was told he would be assigned to a Disney artist, Russell Schroeder, and while back at home in Massachusetts, he would continue to draw at his leisure and send weekly drawings to Schroeder who would critique them and mark up the drawings then send them back to Williams. “It was presented to me as a back-and-forth instruction through the mail with no promise of a job, but I was fine with that because I was working with a real Disney artist and real Disney model sheets, which was thrilling to me.”

Back home, Williams would work at the bank during the day then spend his evenings drawing. Williams was so excited that he drew 100 drawings that first week, and then the same the following week. “Each week I did a different character and to do 100 drawings every week was a tough pace to maintain but I didn’t want to cut back because I was afraid if I did, they would think I was losing interest so I kept up that pace and mailed in 100 drawings every single week for almost two years.”

After two years of not receiving a job offer, most people would have given up, but Williams was determined and decided to devise a new plan of action. “Finally, I figured they were not going to hire me as long as I was in Massachusetts; I needed to be in Florida. So, I quit the bank after 10 years, even though I was up for VP, and moved down to Florida figuring I would get a job, any job, at the Magic Kingdom and just continue my weekly drawings there.” However, this was the late ’70s and at that time the Magic Kingdom was the only Disney theme Park in Orlando with just two Disney hotels—Contemporary and Polynesian. “Unfortunately, when I arrived in September, I found out it was one of their slow periods and not only were they not hiring but they were actually cutting cast members’ hours.”

Williams spent months trying to get a job at the company, to no avail. Eventually, after much persistence, Williams landed a job as a portrait artist in the Magic Kingdom, drawing profiles of guests for a dollar per portrait. “I was happy as could be because now my boss was in the same art department that I was trying to get into which meant I could hand deliver my artwork to Russell.” After a few more months, Schroeder informed Williams that the art department was looking to increase their staff and that he had put in a good word for Williams with the powers that be.

After reviewing some of the nearly 10,000 drawings that he had submitted over the years, Williams was offered a 30-day trial to work in the art department. If he did well during that time, he would be offered a more permanent position. Williams recalls, “The first week they had me doing nothing but drawing Mickey Mouse in every angle, pose, position and expression that you can possibly think of. The second week was Donald Duck. The third week they gave me a real project to work on which I thought was a good sign. I was no longer practicing; I was doing a real job and it was quite an involved job that consisted of three major paintings. There was no way I could complete the project in the week and a half that I had left so I figured they were either going to keep me or would soon reassign the work to someone else.”

On the 30th day, Williams went to work as usual. “Before I knew it, it was 5:30 and everybody was gone. No one had said anything to me about the job so I figured I’d just keep coming back until I was told not to. That was 37 years ago and no one ever told me if I was hired or not.” Instead, Williams says a few weeks later he received a blue slip, which signifies a change in status within the company, that listed his position with the company as character artist. After five years, Williams was promoted to senior character artist.

During his time with the company, Williams was tasked with some prominent projects. The one that he is most proud of is at Tony’s Town Square Restaurant, on Main Street U.S.A in the Magic Kingdom. “All of the paintings inside the restaurant are my work. They are all original paintings; they are not prints or reproductions. In addition to the paintings, I did the artwork for all the original China, signage and menus.” Along with Schroeder, Williams helped design the original Toontown in Magic Kingdom. “That area was originally to be called Mickey’s Birthdayland, for Mickey’s 60^th Birthday. Russell and I designed Mickey, Minnie, and Donald Duck’s houses. We drew up the houses, furniture and all the elements of Toontown.”

Williams has also done a lot of merchandise art as well as advertising for the company. “When I first started as an artist with Disney, there were about 18 artists and for the last 20 years of my career I was the only artist in the whole department, doing mostly advertising. I also did about 90% of the art for Disney Cruise Line as well as Disney Vacation Club.” In addition, Williams has been on over 100 Disney cruises as a guest speaker.

Though Williams officially retired three years ago, he continues to create artwork for Art of Disney as well as Club 33. “I typically paint Disney artwork 24/7. That’s what I enjoy doing most. To me, it’s all about the characters. So many people like the theme parks and I like the theme parks too, but I love the characters and the classic films. That’s Disney to me.”