‏Hal Adelquist‏

Born in Utah in 1914, Hal Adelquist moved to Los Angeles with his family when he was approximately six years old. In 1933, in the depths of the Depression, he went to work for Walt Disney Studios in a variety of positions, from the Personnel office to the Story Department to the Production Department. He worked on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) as an assistant director, although uncredited, and eventually became head of the Story Department. In 1955, when Walt Disney was developing The Mickey Mouse Club (1955), he assigned Adelquist to be the liaison between series producer Bill Walsh and the show's other department heads (casting, guest stars, story development, etc.), basically functioning as the show's production supervisor. He left the show after the first season and was assigned to produce the live shows for the Mickey Mouse Club Circus at Disneyland. Unfortunately the Circus was not a hit with Disneyland patrons. Aparently the pressures from putting on a large and complicated live show every day for the Circus, only to see it fail, and his subsequent falling out of favor with Walt Disney were more than Adelquist could handle, and according to Disney employees Adelquist began to develop a drinking problem. He subsequently resigned from the Disney organization, but when he asked to be re-instated some time later, Walt Disney refused to re-hire him. There's no record of his ever having worked in the entertainment industry after that. He died in Long Beach, California, on March 26, 1981.