
Kim Irvine honored by Ming Na Wen at Legends ceremony
Kim Irvine is being honored as a 2026 Disney Legend at D23 by fellow Disney Legend Ming Na Wen.
"Thanks to your vision, your leadership and most of all your love of Disney, you have given park lovers new attractions to look forward with each visit," she said to Irvine. "We are eternally grateful for pouring so much passion into the Happiest Place on Earth, where we all get to play."
Irvine later shared that in 1970, when she started her career, she was only going to work for the summer.
She noted that all the original Imagineers were still working there and would come down to the model shop where their drawings and dreams came to life.
When she was asked in 1990 to lead a team of Imagineers to take care of Disneyland, she said, "I was so honored by that and so happy to have done that for all of those years."
Kim Irvine is a self-described "second-generation Imagineer" and Southern California native who spent 55 years preserving and enhancing Disneyland. The daughter of Disney animator Harvey Toombs and Disney Legend Leota Toombs (the face of the Haunted Mansion's Madame Leota), Irvine began her career at WED Enterprises in 1970 as a model builder and painter.
Under the guidance of Disney Legends John Hench and Marty Sklar, Irvine helped establish the first on-site Imagineering office in Anaheim in 1979 to ensure Disneyland received dedicated creative focus. As Executive Creative Director of the Walt Disney Imagineering Anaheim office, she oversaw concept design, color styling, and architectural aesthetics for major Disneyland projects, including the Disneyland Dream Suite, Rancho Del Zocalo, the Club 33 expansion, and multiple Sleeping Beauty Castle refurbishments. Notably, in 2001, she stepped into her mother's iconic role to project Madame Leota's face for the Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay.
Before her retirement in 2025 during Disneyland's 70th anniversary, Irvine became the first female recipient of the prestigious Buzz Price Thea Award for Lifetime Achievement (2011). Her legacy continues through her mentorship of global Imagineers and her daughter, Ali Irvine-Wheeler, a third-generation Imagineer.













































