Fred Van Buren - Walt Disney

Walt Disney

This was followed by a season in Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on ice at the Empire Pool, Wembley, then a tour of the show. Walt Disney asked Van Buren to perform a trick with fire and for this he devised a superb illusion which he called The Creation. In this a bowl of fire is transformed into a bouquet of flowers. The flowers are placed on a pedestal and after pulling a curtain around them they transform into his lovely assistant Greta.

Thanks to his career in the circus ring and his apprenticeship as a cabinet maker, Van Buren soon began developing illusions that could be performed completely surrounded often in the London cabaret banquet scene and even in an open arena if need be.