Meet the Grim Grinning Ghosts of the Haunted Mansion (Part 1)

“When hinges creak in doorless chambers, when strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls, whenever candle lights flicker and the air is deathly still, that is the time when ghosts are present, practicing their terror with ghoulish delight!”

Greetings, friend. And welcome to this haunted edition of the Celebrations Magazine Blog. The air is growing crisp, the leaves are changing color, and we’re all feeling a bit spooky. That’s why we decided to take a trip to the Haunted Mansion. We wanted to get to know some of its 999 residents a little better. Care to join us? Look alive…the tour is about to begin.

The Ghost Host

Heard, but never exactly seen, the Ghost Host provides the narration for the Haunted Mansion. In early concepts, his lines were meant to be delivered by a marble bust that came to life. Instead, Imagineers opted for a phantom voice that seems everywhere and nowhere at once. We do, however, get a brief glimpse of him when a corpse is seen hanging from the ceiling. 

The actor Paul Frees (who also performed as Ludwig Von Drake in multiple Disney cartoons, and narrated attractions like Adventures Thru Inner Space) provided the voice for the character.

In 1969, Disney released the album The Story and Song from the Haunted Mansion to coincide with the opening of the Disneyland attraction. It featured Ron Howard as a teenager trapped in the Mansion, with Pete Reneday (who also voiced Max and Henry in the Country Bear Jamboree) providing the voice of the Ghost Host.

Master Gracey

Your first encounter with Master Gracey, the owner of this sinister mansion, occurs in the cemetery as you approach the entrance. His epitaph reads:

Master Gracey
Laid to Rest
No Mourning
Please
At His
Request

If you’ve ever wondered who inspired the name of Master Gracey, look no further than the world of Disney Imagineers. X Atencio included the moniker in tribute to Imagineer Yale Gracey. As noted in his D23 Disney Legends biography, “With no special effects training other than his own hands-on experimentation, Yale worked as a research and development designer creating illusions. These included the “grim, grinning ghosts” featured in the Haunted Mansion and the flames of the burning city in Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Contrary to popular belief, the Ghost Host and Master Gracey are not one and the same. There was actually a bit of stir earlier this year when Disney themselves seemed to contradict this by saying that the two characters were indeed the same. Disney had released a collection of beautiful Haunted Mansion ornaments, and one of them showed the figure of the Hanging Man/Hatchet Man (whose portrait you can see in the hallway with the doors) and labelled it Master Gracey. This looked to be long-awaited official confirmation that the Ghost Host and Master Gracey were the same. However, for many this came as a surprise, for Disney had long maintained (unofficially) that they were separate characters. Was this now canon? Is Master Gracey the infamous Ghost Host after all? Alas, it turns out the ornament had been a mistake, and it has since been redesigned so it now says the character is the Ghost Host. That makes sense, as Disney has previously confirmed that the Hanging Man and the Ghost Host were one and the same, but the official word continues to be that Master Gracey is a separate character.

Further speculation involves the changing portrait you see before you enter the Stretching Room. Is this Master Gracey? Surprisingly, that actually wasn’t the Imagineers’ original intention. The portrait was originally designed by Marc Davis and was meant to be the character of Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde’s 1890 gothic novels “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” However, the belief that the portrait was really Master Gracey quickly spread, even becoming a part of unofficial back stories shared by Cast Members. The story became so persistent that Disney eventually made Master Gracey’s association with the aging portrait canon. You can even find a bell for “Master Gracey’s bedchamber” in the servants’ quarters (the access area you go through if you need to bypass the Stretching Room).

Madame Leota

Perhaps the best-known resident of the Haunted Mansion, Madame Leota is a disembodied head floating in a crystal ball. Her face is that of Imagineer Leota Toombs (could there have been a better name for a spooky attraction???), but her voice is that of Eleanor Audley (the voice of both Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty and Lady Tremaine in Cinderella). 

Guests curious to know what Leota Toombs’s voice sounded like will have to wait until the end of the attraction. That’s when they’ll see “Little Leota” who beckons all visitors to “Hurry baaaack!” Toombs lent her voice to the apparition, though there is some debate as to whether or not she is meant to be the same character as that in the seance room.

Ever wonder just how Imagineers made Leota come to life? Originally, the illusion was created by projecting a looped projection onto a bust inside the crystal ball (a similar effect is used to bring the singing busts “to life” in the graveyard). In the 1990s the effect was updated in the Disneyland version to project a fiber optic image from inside the head itself. Unfortunately, this made the resulting image somewhat dimmer, so the Imagineers went back to using an externally projected image in 2001. Meanwhile, the Magic Kingdom version of the attraction incorporated an internal LCD projected image, making for a much more realistic (and brighter) face. (Disneyland now uses this same technology.)

The Hatbox Ghost

While he hasn’t arrived at the Magic Kingdom’s Haunted Mansion just yet, we thought we’d mention the infamous Hatbox Ghost. After all, it was announced at this year’s D23 Expo that he’ll be coming to Florida in 2023. 

For years, the Hatbox Ghost was the stuff of legend. He was part of the original plans for the Haunted Mansion, but suddenly disappeared around its grand opening. It seems that Imagineers were not satisfied with how the character’s illusion performed. Guests were meant to see his head disappear from his shoulders and reappear in a hatbox he gripped in his hand. At the time, the plan was to achieve the effect through spotlights…basically just illuminating the head wherever it was supposed to appear, and turning off the light to make it “disappear.” Unfortunately it was realized that there was just enough ambient light in the attic to allow Guests to see the head even with the light turned off, thus ruining the effect. Years later this dilemma was solved by utilizing projection technology, and the Hatbox Ghost found his way into the Disneyland version of the Haunted Mansion as part of the park’s 60th-anniversary celebration. It would be years before he would arrive in Orlando however, but Haunted Mansion fans in Florida can finally look forward to the long-awaited Walt Disney World version of this infamous spirit! 

Constance Hatchaway 

While most of the Haunted Mansion’s haunts are more silly than frightening, there is one truly chilling resident: the black widow bride who resides in the attic. Before seeing the glowing apparition of the character, Guests encounter her through a series of portraits that depict her with a variety of grooms. In each, she appears to grow slightly wealthier, adding a strand of pearls around her neck for each husband she has married and done away with. This is Constance Hatchaway.

But let’s back up a moment. The attic is not actually your first encounter with Constance. She appears in the stretching room at the beginning of the attraction as the spinster sitting atop a headstone clutching a red rose. The visage of a man can be seen on the monument, an ax driven into his head. 

Like Leota, two separate performers were used to create Constance. Her physical appearance is that of actress Julia Lee, while her voice is provided by Kat Cressida. 

The Hitchhiking Ghosts

Before departing the Haunted Mansion, Guests are warned that a ghost may follow them home. These “hitchhiking ghosts” are unofficially known as Phineas (the portly gent with a carpet bag), Ezra (the thin ghost tipping his hat), and Gus (the convict with the ZZ Top-style beard). 

Curiously, given how beloved the characters have become, they were not in the attraction’s original plans. According to Imagineer X Atencio, “‘It was kind of an afterthought…It didn’t come until the ride was practically put in there.”

You’ll encounter these wandering phantoms as you move through a hall of mirrors, which reveal that the ghosts are sitting beside you in the attraction vehicles (courtesy of some synchronized projections). In 2011, they received a frightening enhancement, which allowed them to “interact” with Guests. Depending on which ghost you encounter, they may do things swap your head, or make it inflate like a balloon. 

Be Sure to Bring Your Death Certificate…

Of course, these are only a few of the Mansion’s many residents, and we’ll visit some more in our blog next week. To meet them all, you’ll need to ride the attraction again and again, because it seems there is always something new to discover. Maybe you’ll even decide to remain permanently. After all, there’s always room for one more. Make final arrangements now. They’ve been dying to have you…