Martin’s Garden Grove High School senior portrait (Public domain) Garden Grove High School Martin’s own use of prop comedy helped him stand apart.
He ravenously studied and memorized Boag’s lines but also delivery and timing, fantasizing about being an understudy for Boag.
Boag “plied a hilarious trade of gags and offbeat skills such as gun twirling and balloon animals,” Martin explained in his auto-biography. It’s within Frontierland where Martin first informally studied under Disneyland legend Wally Boag, a star and co-writer of the 28 year running show at the Golden Horseshoe Revue and great inspiration to Martin. From the more well-known job at the Disneyland Magic Shop where he learned the magic and prop skills he’d later incorporate into his live comedy routines (arrow-through-the-head, anyone?) to the earlier and lesser-known jobs in the storage room at the early Tiki Tropical Traders shop in Adventureland to rope trickster on the streets of Frontierland.
He donned several costume and role changes while he was employed at the park. (It’s said he even picked up the exaggerated catch phrase, “Excuuuuussseeeee mmmeeeeee” from a co-worker at Disneyland.) He started his career telling folks about Disneyland as a 10 year-old passing out guide books and it’s a role he’s maintained for several years he plays host to a short documentary Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years, which was shown dozens of times a day at the Opera House on Main Street.ĭisneyland would serve as a playground and set the stage, as it were, for the young actor and comedian-to-be. The Park in Anaheim opened in 1955 and that same year marked one of the first times Martin donned a costume in public for pay he wore a gay nineties style costume and passed out souvenir books at when he was 10 years old. Steve Martin and Disneyland go way back as in almost back to day one, for both of them. Here are the first five places we’d look. We’re not entirely sure where within this fair county is that magic doorway he found was, but if we were to venture a guess, it wouldn’t be too far from one of his old “hometown” haunts. It was his family’s move from Waco to Garden Grove (by way of Inglewood), that Martin says in his autobiography “enabled me to place my small hand on Opportunity’s doorknob.” The A-list actor, author, comedian, magician, and musician was born a Texan, but Orange County is willing to look past that and claims him an honorary native son. As Orange County grew, so too did the theme park and Martin’s career. And the transitioning county–then shifting from rural agrarian farm country to the idyllic travel poster for suburban sprawl–has never been the same.
Steve Martin and Disneyland both arrived in Orange County in the same year: 1955.
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