Hayley Mills and Lesley Ann Warren ( Jolly Holiday : A D23 Musical Celebration of Richard Sherman )

that me ladies you are stunning all day don't even start with me right can we get one more time because really it's well it's kind of overwhelming having these these women here with us uh all right Leslie tell us your first experience with Richard Sherman and and the brother B okay so I was 18 and a half when I um was asked to come out and test for to do a big screen test for the happiest millionaire and um I had to learn two songs I had to learn some choreography and a couple of scenes and even though I had come directly from Broadway where I'd been singing dancing and acting for four months I was terrified totally terrified but Richard and Robert made me feel so incredibly comfortable their warmth specifically Richard was so engaging and warm and welcoming and um I got the job then as an adult uh Richard and I were both in um well are both in it's hard to talk about that um The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and they have screamings there every week and I would go to the screenings and Richard would go as well and it was always such a joy to see him um what was interesting to me was every time I saw him I would feel back into that 18yearold girl that I had been around him the very first time he was so lovely and so fun and so warm and um yeah I adored that man you also got to starring another musical Disney musical made right after world's passing yes the one and only genuine original family band musicals were becoming something of a rarity so it was special yes you know and what of your memories of that experience um it was a fantastic experience and Kurt Russell played my younger brother and Goldie Han played my competitive dance person in the movie which is kind of interesting um but my favorite one of my favorite memories was a song called the happiest girl alive which I got to sing in this Exquisite field um with all these horses running by me and she the character she was she had just fallen in love with John Davidson and he had written her a letter and she was holding this letter to her heart after reading it and it meant so much to her and um what I what I specifically remember about their music was as an actor they fulfilled your understanding your need to understand what the character is feeling yeah um so that you felt supported not just by the beautiful Melody and and song lyrics and but you understood what the character was feeling when she wanted what what was on her mind and that was um one of the greatest Gifts of doing that music for me every song was in context yes was threaded into the movie yes it's not just sort of pled into the moves the story along Haley you made four films for Walt Disney and I will tell you she has a memoir out now and it's fantastic she's only paying me a little bit of money to tell you that but it's a beautiful Memoir because it honors your life and Walt and everyone that you worked with and your incredible parents uh I'm sorry I had to uh what do you remember about working with Richard on those films well um I I first met Richard when I came over here from London to make The Parent Trap and and um uh um I went up to Walt's office he said I want you to meet two very important people and I went into Walt's office and there in the office standing by a baby grand piano with these two extremely attractive young men I was delighted I was 14 they were absolutely charming and made me feel very very welcome and uh Robert was the quieter of the two and lovely and Richard was more a valiant and he came up to me and he said hey hey Haley uh uh hi I said hi and he said um we're going to play for you the song that you're going to sing in the movie I said good great and he said now we're going to sing it for you but of course you will sing it much better than us which was patently untrue so he sat down at the piano and started banging out if that's not a rude way of putting it the tune of let's get together and they sang it both of them with all their heart and soul extremely well and at the end of it they made me laugh and that was the first time I heard that song and Richard was warm and lovely and all encompassing as everybody has said he made you feel that he was a human being who was doing exactly what he wanted to do he he knew that he was really good at what he was doing and it was his special purpose and he was a happy man and it you know he it was very infectious they both were they were both lovely now the second memory of them was the day that I had to record the song it was in the recording studio at Disney Studios and um I was very nervous and and I said to them uh I said I am very nervous because I'm not a singer and Richard said oh he said don't worry you're an actor so act being a singer it was very good advice so I did and and I i' i' I've done it all my life to me what a good actress you were even at that age yeah what you act did you acted as song you yes exactly well it's like lesle said you know well you do have to act song so after all you're expressing you know the emotion of your character you you have to act it you you should say that Haley funny you should say that you have to act to sing and that you two would be together having uh the same feeling at the moment uh let's get together was a big hit song uh on the film's release and you certainly made an impression singing with your twin and since you're here and and we happen to have a band don't know where they came from uh would you guys be willing to do just maybe Haley a couple of bars let's get together you're you mean you're acting me to act like a singer again yes yes yes that is what I'm doing I'm acting like her twin okay no I've always avoided it I've avoided it for years and years and years um and it's a long time since I've I've done any singing besides to be perfectly honest I would only I could only possibly do it if I had you know if I had my twin to sing with I have good news for you my friend Leslie dear Leslie please go on go on I mean you think so much better than I do I mean you were in actual musical so I was just in movies with songs come on all right all right all right this is for Richard [Applause]