Thanks For Everything, Roy.

I'm so sad to hear that Roy E. Disney passed away earlier today. I wasn't aware that he'd been battling cancer, so it was quite a shock to me. There are a lot of memories that are flooding back from the last 25 years - starting in 1984, when there was that attempted takeover of Disney, which coincidentally reared its ugly head only several months after I'd first started my Disney career in the Canadian office.

I recall that Disney staff far and wide were all pretty nervous of how that would end, but once the attempt was thwarted and the dust had settled, Disney had a new management team in Michael Eisner and Frank Wells, with Roy having been instrumental in negotiating their installation at the helm. Admittedly, I wasn't that thrilled with the direction they soon started taking Disney in, but I was happy that Roy's part in the deal was that he would be the, albeit, figurehead in charge of Disney Feature Animation, as we saw him as the protector of that most important, yet under-appreciated division of the studio. It seemed that, were it not for Roy Disney, Disney Animation might have been dissolved soon after Eisner and Wells took charge. Fortunately, Roy convinced them of how important it was and that eventually led to such films as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, putting Disney once again at the forefront of animated entertainment.

After Frank Wells was tragically killed in a helicopter crash in 1994, Michael Eisner started getting too big for his britches, making a lot of ill conceived decisions that were judged by many to be detrimental to Disney. Eventually Roy became so fed up with it all that he quit the board of directors (or was in danger of being squeezed out ) and started the "Save Disney" campaign to oust the tyrannical Eisner from his position as CEO. His efforts ultimately proved successful, leading to a humiliating revolt against Eisner at the 2004 shareholders' meeting, forcing his hand to leave the Company during the following year before his contract officially was up.

Back around 1981 or 1982, before all that mess with the Disney takeover attempt, I have one very fond, personal memory of Roy that I think says a lot about the man's character. Here in Canada on CBC (our public network) there's a long running current affairs show called The Fifth Estate, similar in format to CBS's 60 Minutes. Back at that time, they did a show where they investigated the mistreatment of animals that was purported to be rife within the TV and movie industry. It ran at least a couple times in repeats, so I remember it well. One of the guys they interviewed on the subject was Marlin Perkins, former host of TV's Wild Kingdom. When confronted with information from people who'd worked with him on some of his nature shows claiming there were contrived setups with animals that put them at risk of injury and death, Perkins denied it all, eventually losing his cool and demanding that they turn off the camera and stop the interview. Perkins came off as a bald-faced liar as a result.

Afterwards, there was a similar confrontational grilling of Roy Disney in what looked like his living room at home. The journalist confronted Roy with the accusation that there had been deaths of animals during the making of some of the True Life Adventures of the 1950s, in which Roy had been in charge of one of the camera units filming animals supposedly going about their business in the wild. I recall the journalist aggressively accusing the filmmakers of stampeding a horde of lemmings over a rocky cliff in White Wilderness. And while lemmings are believed to commit mass suicide in such a fashion, apparently these weren't the right sort of lemmings who are purported to do that! While the self-righteous journalist was accusing him of these misdeeds, Roy just sat there in his armchair very calmly smoking his cigarette before finally being given a chance to respond to the accusations. Instead of denying it all like Marlin Perkins had done, Roy just casually replied (and I paraphrase) "Yeah, that probably was what happened. We wouldn't do that type of thing today, but back then we did what had to be done to get some exciting footage in the wild". No vehement denials - just a somewhat sheepish grin, perhaps denoting some small pangs of latent guilt. Anyway, it took the wind out of the sails of that indignant interviewer and I admired Roy Disney for his refreshing frankness then and ever since, as every time I'd seen him on camera I was struck by how genuine and devoid of Hollywood b.s. this mild-mannered man was.

If you'd like to see Roy at his finest, I'd highly recommend checking out his lengthy interview with Leonard Maltin on the On the Front Lines DVD set, devoted to Disney's wartime cartoons. Roy fondly shares his firsthand memories of visiting his dad's and uncle's studio as a boy during World War II. His incredible knowledge of that period and nostalgic anecdotes are just a joy to watch. You can see just how much Roy loved and respected his uncle Walt's legacy, which explains why he felt so compelled in later life to defend Disney animated filmmaking at all costs. I'll always love ol' Roy for that, and I'll miss the man very much.

Happy Birthday Leonard!

Here's a salute to my favourite film reviewer and historian, Leonard Maltin. I was lucky enough to meet Leonard way back in 1982 when he was one of the attendees at The Ottawa International Animation Festival. He'd only recently started appearing on the newly created "Entertainment Tonight" (which was so much better in those days), so not many people were as familiar with him as they are today. However, I knew of Leonard Maltin primarily as a noted authority on animated films, through his two books, "The Disney Films" and "Of Mice and Magic". Anyway, I wasn't going to be shy about saying hi, so I went up and started chatting with him. He was such an affable fellow that, since he was going to be around the festival all week, I took the opportunity to do a caricature of him and presented it to him a few days later. He seemed quite genuinely delighted with it and was happy to sign my copies of his two books in return. He also extended an invitation to come visit him if I ever found myself in NYC, which I ended up taking him up on about a year later.

At that time, Leonard and his wife Alice were still living in Manhattan, even though Leonard was having to fly to LA for all of his Entertainment Tonight film reviews. Some time later they would relocate to LA in order to make that task more practical. When I saw him in New York he was in the middle of obtaining a second apartment in his building to set up as an office, as his film and cartoon collection had gotten too big for the one apartment they lived in. He and Alice were very gracious to me and Leonard took great delight in showing me his extensive collection of cartoon memorabilia. After an enjoyable visit, they strolled with me back to where I needed to catch a bus back to my hotel.

What I love best about Leonard is his obvious enthusiasm for movies and, even when he does offer up some criticism he is never mean spirited with it, always balancing out the bad with some good. Back when he wrote "The Disney Films" in 1973, it was long before it was fashionable to write about Disney and there were very few textbooks available on the subject. I think that the only two books on Disney I personally had at that time were his and "The Art of Walt Disney" by Christopher Finch. I found myself referring to his book often, as those were still the years of "The Wonderful World of Disney" on Sunday night TV, and I would read up on any of the live action Disney films that were about to show up on there for extra background on their production. What I didn't know at the time was that Leonard would have been only a young fellow of 23 when that incredible reference book was published!

In recent years, longtime Disney fans have Leonard Maltin to thank for his efforts in launching the "Walt Disney Treasures" series of boxed DVD sets devoted to vintage Disney animation, early television productions and Walt Disney, the man himself. Leonard also hosts these DVDs, providing a lot of historical background and supplemental interviews with legendary artists and performers. I have pretty much all of these sets, and find myself returning to them often to indulge in the warm nostalgia of that wonderful era of real entertainment.

Leonard currently has a website called "Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy" as well as a quarterly publication that showcases vintage films of the early days of Hollywood, his real passion. And since Leonard has been such a loyal friend to animation and Disney over his many years as a film historian, I thought I'd give this new caricature of him an appropriate Disney cartoon-style, sunburst backdrop. By the way, I see from my list of celebrity birthdays that Leonard shares his birthday with Steven Spielberg, which I'm certain makes him happy. But he also shares his birthday with screen legend, Betty Grable, and I'll wager that makes him even happier! Happy Birthday Leonard!