Mary Poppins in 2004, Walt Disney first attempted to purchase the film rights to "Mary Poppins" from P. L. Travers as early as 1938, but was rebuffed because Travers did not believe a film version of her books would do justice to her creation and did not want an animated cartoon based on it. The books had been a favourite of Disney's daughters when they were children, and he finally succeeded in purchasing the rights in 1961, although Travers demanded and got script approval rights. The relationship between Travers and Disney is detailed in "Mary Poppins She Wrote", a biography of Travers,
Mary Poppins to various media. The character was first brought to life in an early television play telecast live in 1949 by CBS television, as part of their anthology series "Studio One". She was played by character actress Mary Wickes. E.G. Marshall portrayed Mr. Banks and future "Lassie" child star Tommy Rettig played Michael. David Opatoshu played Bert, who was a Match Man (a seller of matches) in this version. "Mary Poppins" was made into a film based on the first four books in the series by Walt Disney Productions in 1964. According to the 40th anniversary DVD release of the film