This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people, coming to you

from the city where the west begins, Fort Worth, Texas. More than a half century after Mary

Poppins premiered on August 27, 1964, it is still one of the most beloved films of all time.

Here's Greg Hengler with the story.

You may have seen the 2013 period drama Saving Mr. Banks,

starring Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks,

as filmmaker Walt Disney,

who attempts to obtain the screen rights to P.L. Travers' Mary Poppins novels.

Whether you've seen the movie or not,

we thought we'd kick it up a notch and hear from the people who were actually there. Now,

let's begin with television and screen legend, Dick Van Dyke. I think all would agree that Mary Poppins truly is Walt Disney's crowning glory.

Like Mary Poppins herself, the film is practically perfect in every way.

The perfect creative team, perfect songwriters, the perfect cast, and the perfect person to put it all together, Walt Disney.

But getting started wasn't that easy.

Here's Disney animator Andreas Dejas and P.L. Travers' biographer, Valerie Lawson. I remember him being interviewed for it and he said that his daughter, Diane, had read the books.

And she actually was the one who said, Dad, maybe there is something for you here,

and he loved the books too.

So it was something very personal to him from the start.

P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins, was published in 1934, in London,

...