Roy Edward Disney, KCSG [1] died he was 79was a longtime senior executive for The Walt Disney Company, which his father Roy Oliver Disney and his uncle Walt Disney founded. At the time of death he was a shareholder (over 16 million shares or about 1%),[2] and served as a consultant for the company and Director Emeritus for the Board of Directors. He is perhaps best known for organizing the ousting of two top Disney executives: first, Ron Miller in 1984, and then Michael Eisner in 2005.(January 10, 1930 – December 16, 2009)
As the last member of the Disney family to be actively involved in the company, Roy Disney was often compared to uncle and his father. In 2006, Forbes magazine estimated his personal fortune at about USD$1.2 billion.[3]
Roy Disney resigned as an executive from the Disney company in 1977 due to disagreements with corporate decisions at that time. As he claimed later, "I just felt creatively the company was not going anywhere interesting. It was very stifling."[4] He retained a seat on the board of directors. His resignation from the board in 1984, which occurred in the midst of a corporate takeover battle, was the beginning of a series of developments that led to the replacement of company president and CEO Ronald William Miller (married to Walt's daughter Diane Marie Disney) by Michael Eisner and Frank Wells. Roy soon returned to the company as vice-chairman of t
He set his goal as revitalizing the company's tradition of animated feature films and by the end of the decade there were successes in this department. Although Roy acted largely as a figurehead, he could wield significant power, even over Eisner, his ostensible boss, and employees of the department have praised Roy for ensuring them plenty of artistic freedom on their projects.
During the 1990s, Roy's department produced a number of commercially successful, critically acclaimed films and the era has been called a renaissance for the company and animation in general, though there was a decline in profits starting at the end of the decade. On October 16, 1998 in a surprise presentation made at the newly unveiled Disney Legends Plaza at the company's headquarters, Disney Chairman Michael Eisner presented him with the prestigious Disney Legends Award. Roy Disney's pet project was the film Fantasia 2000, a sequel to the 1940 animated movie Fantasia produced by his uncle Walt Disney. Walt Disney had planned a sequel to the original movie but it was never made. Roy decided to make this long-delayed sequel, and he was the executive producer of the film that took nine years to produce and was finally released on December 17, 1999. Like its predecessor the film combined high-quality contemporary animation and classical music, however it was not a financial success at the US box office.
After his resignation, Disney helped establish the website SaveDisney.com, intended to oust Michael Eisner and his supporters from their positions and revamp the Walt Disney Company. On March 3, 2004, at Disney's annual shareholders' meeting, a surprising and unprecedented 43% of Disney's shareholders, predominantly rallied by former board members Roy Disney and Stanley Gold, voted to oppose the re-election of Eisner to the corporate board of directors. This vigorous opposition, unusual in major public corporations, convinced Disney's board to strip Eisner of his chairmanship and give that position to George J. Mitchell. The board didn't give Eisner's detractors what they really wanted: his immediate removal as chief executive. In fact, Roy Disney's campaign regarded Mitchell himself unfavorably; 25% of shareholders opposed Mitchell's re-election to the board in the same election.
As criticism of Eisner intensified in the wake of the shareholder meeting, however, his position became more and more tenuous, and on March 13, 2005, Eisner announced that he would step down as CEO on September 30, one year before his contract expired. On July 8, Roy and the Walt Disney Company, then still nominally headed by Eisner but, in fact, run by Eisner's long-time lieutenant, Bob Iger, agreed to "put aside their differences." Roy rejoined the Walt Disney Company as a non voting Director Emeritus and consultant. Roy and Gold agreed to shut down their SaveDisney.com website, which went offline August 7.
On September 30, Eisner resigned both as an executive and as a member of the board of directors, and, severing all formal ties with the company, he waived his contractual rights to perks such as use of a corporate jet, a Golden Pass and an office at the company's Burbank headquarters. Eisner's replacement was Bob Iger. One of Roy Disney's stated reasons for engineering his second "Save Disney" initiative had been Eisner's well-publicized but financially unjustified dissatisfaction with long-time production partner Pixar Animation Studios and its CEO Steve Jobs, creators of shared hits Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and other critically acclaimed computer animated motion pictures. This estrangement was quickly repaired by successor Iger upon Eisner's exit, and on January 24, 2006, the company announced it would acquire Pixar in an all-stock deal worth US $7.4 billion, catapulting Jobs, also co-founder and CEO of Apple, Inc, to Disney's largest shareholder with 7% of the corporation's outstanding shares. Jobs also gained a new seat on Disney's board of directors. Former CEO Eisner, who still holds 1.7% of shares, became Disney's second largest shareholder, and Director Emeritus Roy Disney, with 1% of shares, became its third largest owner.
Roy Disney's efforts to oust Eisner from the company were chronicled by James B. Stewart in his best-selling book, DisneyWar.
- On the initial VHS release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney hosted a mini-documentary chronicling the progress made by his uncle and the Walt Disney Company.[citation needed]
- Disney held a position of Trustee to the California Institute of the Arts.[6]
- He voiced a cameo of himself in the animated show, Disney's House of Mouse where Mickey had accidentally sent him an angry fax meant for Mortimer Mouse.[7]
- He was the Executive Producer of the Multiple Network anti-drug Program "Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue" in 1990.[8]
- He was Executive Producer of the documentary Morning Light.[9]
- Shamrock Holdings, which Roy Disney chaired and Stanley Gold runs as CEO, is an investment company that manages Roy Disney's personal investments.
- Disney was well known in the sailing community. He has held several sailing speed records including the Los Angeles to Honolulu monohull time record. He set it on his boat Pyewacket in July 1999 (7 days, 11 hours, 41 minutes, 27 seconds).[10]
On January 19, 2007, Roy Disney (then 77 years old) filed for divorce from his wife, Patricia (then 72), citing "irreconcilable differences", according to court documents. The couple, married 52 years, had been living apart for an unspecified amount of time, according to the Los Angeles County Superior Court filing. They have four adult children.[11]- In 2008, Roy Disney married Leslie DeMeuse, a former ESPN and current CSTV producer, and Emmy winner of various sailing documentaries. The two created the sailing documentary "TransPac—A Century Across the Pacific" in 2000, and are executive producers of the sailing documentary "Morning Light", which follows the selection and training of 18- to 23-year-old sailors on the 2007 Transpacific Yacht Race.[12]
- On April 26, 2008, Roy Disney received a Doctorate honoris causa from The California Maritime Academy for his many contributions to the state and the nation, including international sailing.
On December 16, 2009, Disney, who had been battling stomach cancer for a year, died at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, California. His death occurred 43 years and one day after Walt Disney died, also from cancer. In addition, he died exactly 12 years after his aunt, Lillian Bounds Disney. Roy Disney was 79 years old.[1]
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