Movie Musings: Disney and More

Pamela Lyndon “P.L.” Travers: The Writer Behind the Nanny  

Helen Lyndon Goff (known to you as P.L. Travers) was born and raised in rural Australia by her aristocratic mother and her severely alcoholic father. His premature death had a huge impact on her, as did her Aunt Ellie, who came to help look after the family in their distress. 

At 18 years of age, young “Lyndon,” as her family called her went off to boarding school, and began publishing poems for Australian magazines, including The Bulletin and Triad. She also briefly became an actress where she adopted the stage name Pamela Lyndon Travers. She toured with Alan Wilkie’s Shakespearean Company from Australian to New Zealand, and ultimately to England. And when the company reached Sussex, she and a friend rented a thatched cottage together, and it was at that cottage in the winter of 1933, where Mrs. Pamela Travers created the magical nanny known as Mary Poppins (patterned to a large extent after her Aunt Ellie, whom Pamela felt “could do anything”). She published the very first book, Mary Poppins, in 1934, and it was an instant success, leading to the publishing of a sequel, Mary Poppins Come Back the very next year in ’35. (In a 1977 radio interview, Travers explained that the name Mary Poppins came from childhood stories that she made up for her sisters and that she also had a book as a child with that name inscribed in the book.) 

Walt Disney overhead his daughters giggling together one night and he asked them what so funny, together they replied “Why Dad, Mary Poppins.” Once he read the books, he knew they were special, and immediately sought the film rights from Mrs. Travers. She unfortunately declined his offer, fearing that a film adaptation of her heroine could easily dilute the stories. She continued to write more books I Go By Sea, I Go By Land in 1941 and her third “Poppins,” novel Mary Poppins Opens the Door in 1943. The next year Walt sent his brother, Roy Disney with another offer for a film adaptation of “Poppins,” but again, Travers declined.

Finally, in 1959, on the verge of losing her house, and due to a decline in the book’s sales, Mrs. Travers accepted another offer from the Disney Studios. (Prior to this, she had also written the book Mary Poppins in the Park in 1952 and she also wrote Mary Poppins from A to Z in 1963). Producing the film, however, proved to be an exasperating process for Mrs. Travers, Walt Disney, and many all involved. She disapproved of screenwriter Don DaGradi’s excluding the more serious/darker elements of her books, despised every nearly every note of music written by Richard M. Sherman and his Robert B. Sherman, and hated Disney’s use of cartoons. As a result, Mrs. Travers wasn’t even invited to the film’s premier, but humiliated a Disney executive into extending her one. Though the final cut of the film made her weep throughout its entirety and afterwards she met Walt and said “We have a long way to go, Disney.” He replied “Pamela, the ship has sailed,” and walked away.

Despite the film being a major blockbuster, Mrs. Travers refused any further film adaptations of her books, but she continued to write more sequels about her magical nanny, including: Mary Poppins in the Kitchen in 1975, Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane in 1982 and Mary Poppins in the House Next Door in 1988. When asked about the film in another 1977 interview and she replied “I’ve seen it once or twice, and I’ve learned to live with it. It’s glamorous and it’s a good film on its own level, but I don’t think it is very like my books.”

When theater producer Cameron Mackintosh asked her about adapting her nanny for the stage, she agreed only on the conditions that the show would be produced only by English citizens, and that no Americans whatsoever, including those that were involved with the film, would be involved with it. She did however agree to allowing certain aspects of the film, including songs in the play. 

Mrs. Travers passed away on April 23rd, 1996 at the age of 96 in London, England. With the character of Mary Poppins, she created an extraordinary legacy in children’s literature. And her character’ stories became a true gem of a Disney movie, which will hopefully continue with Disney’s upcoming Mary Poppins Returns. But Disney never would have been able to make their magical movie, had it not been for her wonderful books.