The 1962 World's Fair: A Timeline
By the Numbers
Duration April 21–October 21, 1962
Fair Admission Adults $2, children $1
Space Needle Admission Adults $1, children 75¢
Out-of-State Visitors to Seattle 7 million
Attendance 9,696,936
Fair Income $23 million
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It Happened to Albert Fisher
It’s the sort of thing you expect to see in, well, an Elvis Presley movie. Bright-eyed 20-year-old leaves his native New Orleans and, wham, the kid’s BFFs with the King himself. In 1962, Albert Fisher scored a job as director of TV and movies for the fair, which meant he rubbed elbow patches with the likes of Candid Camera’s Alan Funt, talk show host Merv Griffin, and newsman Walter Cronkite—all of whom filmed TV specials at the fair. And when Elvis Presley arrived in September to film It Happened at the World’s Fair (a musical that finds the King on the monorail, in the Space Needle, and fleeing security guards across the fairgrounds), Fisher and the singer struck up a friendship.
When local shooting wrapped, Elvis invited Fisher to Los Angeles to consult on the film—basically to make sure the sets looked like the Seattle World’s Fair. The opportunity resulted in a lifelong career in television and film. “Meeting Elvis and working on that film changed my life,” says Fisher, today a producer in Hollywood.
“We actually went on a couple of double dates while in Seattle. I was dating a Scottish girl at the time.” Elvis bought out the two back rows of the now-demolished Music Hall theater and he and his entourage—Fisher and the Scot in tow—slipped in after the film began and exited just before it ended, avoiding the notice of rabid fans. The film? Kid Galahad, starring Elvis Presley.
Rock out with Elvis in the trailer for It Happened at the World’s Fair:
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Peaceful Protests
On May 5, while fair attendees fantasized about life in the twenty-first century, 400 peaceniks staged a protest, but it was a far cry from the WTO rioters who would storm Seattle nearly four decades later. Repping groups like the Unitarians for Social Justice and Seattle Women Act for Peace, they called for an end to nuclear arms testing while marching calmly from City Hall to the fairgrounds.
Not only was it drama-free, the protest was the lone high-profile act of defiance during the fair’s run—unless you want to include the letters sent to Century 21 offices pooh-poohing a rumored visit by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.
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The Cold War and Godless Communists
“I did not detect either angels or gods” in space, said Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov at his World’s Fair press conference. In the midst of the Cold War, his statements toed the atheist line of the USSR: “I don’t believe in God. I believe in man.” That stopped the presses.
Titov’s routine photo op instantly became a Cold War battleground, and Sharon Lund Friel of the fair’s press headquarters remembers the flap it caused: “It was offensive. But at the same time, some people were very suspicious of Russia. It was just the era we were living in,” she says.
Though Century 21 was a fair that revolved around the space age, Titov’s deity dis was only softened by American astronaut John Glenn four days later; he said, “The God I pray to is not small enough that I expected to see him in outer space.” It was the Cold War’s biggest mark on the fair—until the Cuban Missile Crisis coincided with closing day in October.
Published: February 2012
(Corrected) Barbara Sharkey Smith was my mom. We had those 2000 copies of Seymour in a closet in our home on Capitol Hill for 10 years. I still have my copy. My parents did not have much money at the time and I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to lose $1400, but we recovered. Even now the friends I grew up with remember Seymour. I still remember the excitement of the Fair, the wonder of the Space Needle, the Bubblator, the Monorail and the Wild Mouse. And, Seymour gave me and my sister the feeling that we were a direct part of it all. It was a great time to grow up in Seattle.
Barbara Sharkey Smith was my mom. We had those 2000 copies of Seymour in a closet in our home on Capitol Hill for 10 years. I still have my copy. My parents did not have much money at the time and I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to lose $1400, but we recovered. Even now the friends I grew up with remeber Seymour. I still remember the excitement of the Fair, the wonder of the Space Needle, the Bubblator, the Monarail and the Wild Mouse. And, Seymour gave me and my sister the feeling that we were a direct part of it all. It was a great time to grow up in Seattle.
I would like to purchase a copy of the commemorative 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. How do I do that? Plese let me know.