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| Image courtesy of wikipedia.com |
On this day, in 2009, Roy Edward Disney, son of Roy O. and
nephew of Walt, passed away in Newport Beach, California. Born January 10,
1930, Roy would end up being the last member of the Disney family to take an
active part in the company his father and uncle created. He graduated from
Pomona College, long considered to be the premier liberal arts college on the
West Coast, in 1951 and began working in Hollywood, initially as an assistant editor
when Dragnet made the move from radio to television. By 1954, he’d joined the
family business as an assistant director and producer on the Tru-Life Adventure
series. Six years later, Roy would earn an Oscar nomination for a short film he
penned, Mysteries of the Deep.
After Walt’s death, Roy was elected to the company’s board
of directors, a position he would hold off and on for the next few decades.
Fiercely loyal to the ideals of the elder Disneys and staunchly supportive of
all things animation, Roy would often have a cantankerous relationship with the
company leaders who came after both founders passed away. In 1977, he resigned
his position within Walt Disney Productions in protest over the direction the
company’s entertainment division had been taking. He knew the string of
mediocre-at-best live action movies the company had been throwing out, coupled
with the fact that all the old school animators were disappearing without, in
his opinion, being adequately replaced, were hurting the company. The Black
Cauldron was still a few years away but Roy could see it coming. He retained
his position on the board however and several years later, when the company
faced a hostile takeover crisis, he stepped up to the plate to save the
company.
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| Image courtesy of wikipedia.com |
One of the first things Roy had to do in 1984 was create a
group of investors large enough to keep the company together. In order to
effectively do this, he resigned from his seat on the board. Once he had the
necessary funding in place, he then set about forcing the current company
president, Ron Miller, out. I’m sure this move made for some awkward moments at
family reunions from that point on as Ron was married to Roy’s cousin (and
Walt’s daughter), Dianne Disney. He then was instrumental in getting Frank Wells
and Michael Eisner hired as president and CEO. When the dust settled, Roy came
back to the company as vice chairman of The Walt Disney Company and chairman of
the animation branch. Since Michael and Frank were like the second coming of
Walt and Roy O, Roy E was heralded as a savior who put loyalty to the company
over personal considerations.
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| Image courtesy of d23.com |
Throughout the remainder of the Eighties and well into the
Nineties, the Walt Disney Company experienced a rebirth. Animation hits like
The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King flowed out of the
studio. All seemed rosy for the company, but tensions brewed behind closed
doors. Roy clearly didn’t care for the new studio head, Jeffrey Katzenberg. He
felt that Jeffrey took too much credit for recent successes and frequently
overstepped his place in the scheme of things. When Frank Wells died in a
helicopter accident in 1994, Jeffrey demanded a promotion. Roy told Eisner that
he would start a proxy war if that happened. Roy would win this round. Jeffrey
would leave the company (albeit with a large monetary payout) but his
relationship with Eisner would slowly deteriorate over the next decade. This
was partly due to the fact that, rather than replace Frank, Eisner simply took
on the financial duties of the company (which was not a good move) and partly
because the creative juices seemed to be drying up. Again, Home on the Range
was a couple years off, but Roy saw it coming.
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| Image courtesy of mouseplanet.com |
During this cooling off period between Roy and Eisner, a
couple of bright spots did occur. In 1998, Roy was surprised when he was made
an official Disney Legend. Then in December of 1999, Roy’s pet project,
Fantasia 2000, was finally released to theaters. The film had been in
production for nine years and was meant to fulfill his uncle’s dream of making
the 1940 movie Fantasia an on-going, ever evolving picture. Like its
predecessor, Fantasia 2000 combined classical music with high quality animation
and mostly inventive story lines. And, like its predecessor, it didn’t do
terribly well at the box office.
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| Image courtesy of nydailynews.com |
By 2003, Roy’s relationship with Eisner had not only gone
completely south but his influence within the company was evaporating as well,
as most of the executives now owed their positions to Eisner. Roy once again
resigned his positions with the company and began a second campaign to remove
someone he saw as ruining the company from the top spot. Part smear campaign
against Eisner, part rally-to-my-last-name-boys bravado, Roy’s efforts
eventually worked after he managed to put together a coalition of 43% of
shareholders that voted against Eisner at the 2004 meeting. It would take
another 18 months of bitter pressure before Eisner would finally resign, but in
the end, Roy won that round, too (sort of, Eisner’s second in command, Bob
Iger, took the helm). He rejoined the board as Director Emeritus, a non-voting
position (although he still retained 1% of all shares) and remained in that
position until his death.
In 2008, Roy was diagnosed with stomach cancer, a disease he
would battle for over a year before finally succumbing. His passing was truly
the end of an era. Other Disneys of his generation were still around, but none
of them took an active interest in the company that bears the family name and
now even they are gone.
