We know a lot about the Imagineering legends who were instrumental in creating Disneyland, including Marc and Alice Davis, Rolly Crump, Bob Gurr, Mary Blair, and many more, but there’s one Imagineer who managed to fly under the radar even though she’s responsible for designing many of the park’s most iconic elements. It’s my pleasure to introduce you to the charming Tania McKnight Norris.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Tania at none other than Walt Disney’s historic 1930s estate. I believe you’ll enjoy the lessons learned from our enlightening conversation in this auspicious location.
From London to Anaheim
To appreciate Tania’s contributions to Disneyland, you first have to understand how she – a 20-something interior designer from the U.K. – landed a plum job at WED (the precursor to Walt Disney Imagineering), which by the way, she didn’t even want.
“I did my training in London as an interior designer,” Tania told me. “When I came here [in 1963], I brought some antique lamps and planned to start a company. I’d always been interested in antiques, so I made friends with antique dealers. One day, one of the dealers called and said she heard of a job. I said, ‘forget it,’ but she said, ‘this is with Disney and they have a project themed to the late 1800s in New Orleans,’ so I made an interview – I wasn’t really interested, but I was curious.”
That weekend, Tania told me, she and her husband went to Disneyland.
“We walked down Main Street, I think we had a hot dog in Fantasyland, and we walked back down,” she said. “On Wednesday, when I had my interview, they said, ‘have you been to Disneyland?’ – ‘Oh, yes.’”
Tania said she had an interview on Wednesday, a second interview on Thursday, and on Friday, Disney called to say she got the job (which I remind you, she didn’t even want), but if you’ve been to New Orleans Square in Disneyland, you’re probably just as happy as I am she took it anyway.
While Tania’s design work can be found nearly everywhere in New Orleans Square, her “claim to fame” is inside the haunted mansion itself.
“The” Wallpaper
How many times have you passed through the Haunted Mansion attraction and felt eyes staring at you from everywhere? Well, we have Tania (among a few others) to thank for that.
“When I started at WED, there were only 40 employees…so if something needed to be designed, there was only a small group of us, and we’d discuss it and put it on paper, and then Walt could see it and approve it, so anyone could say ‘I designed so and so’ because it was a group effort,”
Tania explained during a recent event held at Walt Disney’s historic 1930’s mansion in the Hollywood Hills to benefit the Garner Holt Foundation…
“With wallpaper, I’d go to decorator stores and find something appropriate, and then we’d change the colors, or we’d tweak the design; we very seldom actually designed anything completely from scratch in those days – but I couldn’t find a spooky wallpaper. So I made one!”
Although other Imagineers are often credited with designing the mansion’s wallpaper, that Disneyland myth was debunked in this Disney Parks video commemorating the mansion’s 51st anniversary in 2020 (and featuring the late great Disney Legend Rolly Crump).
“I think there’s some influence from Rolly Crump or Claude Coats in the design, but I can remember sitting at my desk, kind of doodling the eyes and things, and then when it had been hung on the wall before the mansion opened, I remember standing there and thinking, ‘Hmmm… I designed that!’ It really was something extremely unusual to be able to say you did something by yourself.”
The most surprising part about this entire story is that Tania didn’t even realize how popular her iconic purple wallpaper had become until about three years ago.
“I was on a podcast, and I happened to mention that I designed the purple wallpaper in the Haunted Mansion, and the whole thing came to a stop,” she recalls. “He said, ‘You know it’s gone viral?’ and I said, ‘What does that mean?'”
Tania says she found out exactly what viral means when a waiter at Walt Disney World (which she casually mentioned she hadn’t visited since 1965 on a design visit with Walt) rolled up his sleeve to show her his Haunted Mansion wallpaper tattoo.
💜 Tania McKnight Norris, former Disney Imagineer who contributed to the beloved Haunted Mansion attraction with the iconic “Purple Wallpaper,” has a spooktacular story to share from her recent trip to @WaltDisneyWorld! #HalfwaytoHalloween pic.twitter.com/bPecRT6hBY
— Disney Parks (@DisneyParks) April 18, 2023
Club 33
Along with the viral Haunted Mansion wallpaper, Tania also worked on the design for the original Club 33, an exclusive members-only club above the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction (and topping the bucket list of countless Disneyland fans).
The club has undergone at least two re-imaginations since Tania first designed it, but anyone who’s visited the original ladies’ room will appreciate her most boast-worthy contribution: She convinced Walt Disney to enlarge the space.
“In one particular meeting with Walt for Club 33…I talked to my boss Bob Brown (who was married to Walt’s daughter Sharon) and John Hench and said, ‘The ladies’ room is very small, so maybe we can ask Walt if we can change the plans.’ ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes,’ they said. But nothing happened. They’re discussing everything else, and I’m waiting for this question, and nothing happens. Finally, I looked around, and there was nobody left but Walt and myself, so I said, ‘Mr. Disney, the ladies’ room is quite small, and if we get more than two people in there, we’re going to have a problem.'”
Tania said Walt looked at the plans for the club and asked if it was the office next door to the ladies’ room, which she told him it was.
“Just half the office,” Walt told her.
“And that’s how I got my larger ladies’ room,” Tania said with a smile.
Fun Fact: On May 21, 2022, the original oval glue-chipped glass Club 33 sign sold at auction for $108,000 (more than 21 times its pre-auction estimate of $5,000). According to Heritage Auctions, there have only been three Club 33 signs throughout the club’s history, and this is the first.
Tania Had a Hand in an Iconic Attraction
One of Walt Disney World’s most beloved attractions is the Carousel of Progress, but did you know it was initially conceived as part of an area at Disneyland called Edison Square? When that idea didn’t pan out in Anaheim, it was re-imagined as “Progressland” for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair – including the classic song “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” by Richard and Robert Sherman. After its success at the fair, the show found its way back to Disneyland Park as “The Carousel of Progress,” In 1975, it moved again. This time to Magic Kingdom Park in Orlando, where it remains to this day.
So where does interior decorating Imagineer Tania McKnight Norris come in? The attraction’s designers made molds of her hands for the animatronic ladies in the show.
“I got fifty dollars,” she recalls. “They put goopy stuff on my hands and they blew if off with an air gun; I was black and blue for weeks. But now you see my hands on most of the women in the show that goes around and around.”
But wait, there’s more! Not only were Tania’s hands used for figures in Carousel of Progress, but she believes some of the pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean also have her hands.
“One of the secretaries – Mitzi Chandler I believe – they used her legs,” Tania said. “She got a hundred dollars, but I thought that was okay; they were longer than my hands.”
Favorite Child
Most parents are reluctant to name a favorite child, but that didn’t stop me from asking Tania to name her favorite design project at Disneyland – and to the surprise of no one, it’s the original Club 33.
“[Walt] wanted it to be a very special place, and I think the fact that so many of the legends, people that are so renowned now, were part of that – that was really satisfying,” she told me.
But as elegant as it was (and still is despite two updates), Club 33 was just one part of a larger project in the park.
“[All of] New Orleans Square was very satisfying because we were doing something totally different. It was one of the only parts of Disneyland that wasn’t mostly fantasy; it was based on something real, and we all went to New Orleans to do the research. We actually bought furniture there, we bought pieces of metal that could be replicated for the balconies. I did all of the colors for the exteriors, lamps, everything out there, so even though I wouldn’t be nearly as well-known [without the purple wallpaper], to me the greatest satisfaction would be my work on New Orleans Square, even though they’ve changed parts of it over the decades.”
Garner Holt Foundation Gala
I met the gracious Tania McKnight Norris at a Walt Disney’s Storybook Mansion house tour hosted by the Garner Holt Foundation and our own Dusty Sage. Garner Holt Productions has created more theme park animatronic figures than any other company, and Holt attributes his success to educators who encouraged him to “embrace his curiosity, explore his interests, and pursue his passions.” To pay it forward, the mission of the Garner Holt Foundation is to “increase hope, ignite imagination, and inspire creativity” through hands-on experiences for underserved youth in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math).
Haunted Mansion fans can dress in their purple wallpaper-patterned best on Oct. 28, 2023, for a gala to benefit the Garner Holt Foundation.
Details for the Haunted Mansion-themed gala are still being finalized; but you’ll get a chance to meet Tania Norris and many other themed entertainment big-wigs, as well as enjoy some haunting entertainment. Click HERE for more information about the foundation.
To add your name to the list to be notified as soon as the tickets to the haunted gala are available, please add your email below:
Let’s Hear From You!
We’ll leave you with one final fun fact. Tania’s very first public event about all things Disney was with MiceChat in 2018. Since that time, Tania has been working with Dusty Sage on the Walt Disney Storybook Mansion project, volunteering at Walt’s Barn, and attending Disney events everywhere.
Have you had a chance the meet the amazing Tania McKnight Norris and hear her stories? Let us know in the comments below!
