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A Vision of the Future
 
A VISION OF THE FUTURE, 1960-1966
by Katherine and Richard Greene
 
Walt The last six years of Walt's life were marked by a furor of activity. Although he obviously had no idea that his life was to be abbreviated by lung cancer right after his 65th birthday, he seemed deeply impatient to get as much done during these years as he possibly could. This included feature-length animated films, more work on Disneyland, and the live-action film that was arguably his greatest -- "Mary Poppins." Plans for the future were also abundant, including dreams of a ski resort in California, a new kind of university for creative young people, and -- most notably -- his notion of a city of tomorrow, dubbed EPCOT, to be built in Florida. As all this was going on, he was a powerful presence in the lives of his grandchildren. Even today, over 30 years after his death, those who were old enough still recall a man who seemed endlessly entertained by their exploits. He was thoroughly patient with the chaos their presence sometimes caused. Their only memories of a gruff side to Walt were associated with times they squabbled among themselves.
 
His last months continued to be filled with activity, including a memorable shipboard trip through British Columbia waters in July 1966. Onboard, Walt and Lilly celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary. He enjoyed being surrounded by all his grandchildren and spent his spare moments reading about city planning. During Halloween he took another trip with Lillian, Sharon, and her husband to Williamsburg, Virginia. Sharon recalled him as the perfect tourist, showing his family around the place with pleasure. Just days later, Walt was in the hospital. His left lung was removed. Though he paid several visits to the studio in the next few weeks, he was back in the hospital on November 30, and died on December 15.
 
Other men might have been slowing down as they entered their sixth decade. Not Walt. If anything, his pace seemed to accelerate, despite the fact that the passage of the years had taken some toll on his health. Though he could still out-work most 20-year-olds, he seemed to frequently come down with colds and sinus infections. Meanwhile, his old polo injury had left him with chronic neck pain; biographer Bob Thomas indicates that it sometimes caused "almost unbearable agony." Many nights at five o'clock he would visit studio nurse Hazel George for heat treatments that were supposed to relieve the discomfort. A drink or two helped the relaxing treatments along. Walt obviously had no inkling that he had only a few years left to him. Still, he was not oblivious to his own mortality. In 1961 his oldest brother, Herbert, died at 72. "Dad was scheduled to go to Vandenburg Air Force Base," recalled Diane, "and Ron went with him. He didn't go to the funeral. I remember standing by the grave and I saw a plane overhead, and I've always thought it was Dad. He never, ever, went to funerals. He went to one once and said, 'I hope no one ever has to go through this for me.' It wasn't for lack of love that he didn't go to Herb's funeral."
 
On May 31, 1963, he sent a memo to Roy concerning estate planning: "It is not myself I am thinking about, but it is the effect of what might happen to whatever is left that bothers me. When I'm up in heaven playing the harp, I really couldn't put my heart into it if I thought I had left things a mess down here." His smoker's cough was as bad as ever. And he always had a cigarette in his hands; for years he preferred unfiltered Lucky Strikes. Later he smoked strong French cigarettes, Gitanes. He'd light one up, become engrossed in conversation, and hold the cigarette in his fingers until the ash was two inches long. Said Lilly, "He's burned more furniture and more rugs and more everything with his cigarettes than anybody I ever knew." When Diane was younger and sat in his lap, she was burned more than once by the ubiquitous cigarettes. Of course, the surgeon general's report, which straightforwardly pointed to the link between smoking and disease, didn't come out until 1964. Still, it was clear that the chain smoking couldn't be doing him any good. "He got into one of these coughing jags once," recalled Ward Kimball. "It was longer than usual. I stood there and I just blurted out, 'For Christ's sake, why don't you give up smoking?' He looked up and his eyes were watering and he said, 'A guy's got to have a few vices, don't he?'"
 
Walt relaxing
A rare photograph of Walt with a cigarette, while relaxing with the music score of "Fantasia"
 
The general public was virtually unaware that Walt smoked altogether. Out of thousands of photographs published of him during his lifetime, virtually none show him smoking; artful cropping at the studio ensured that. Walt also enjoyed a drink or two at the end of the day. For years, his drink of choice was an Irish Mist -- a mixture of scotch and crushed ice. But he rarely drank during the workday. Though he didn't approve of staffers who had liquid lunches -- and given the pressure of the studio, there were more than one -- he rarely brought the matter up. All that mattered was that they got their work done. In the late 1960s he told Imagineer Marty Sklar, "You know something? I'm not Walt Disney anymore. Walt Disney is a thing. An image that people have in their minds. And I spent my whole life building this. Walt Disney isn't that image. I smoke and I drink and there's a whole lot of other things that I do that I don't want to be part of that image." This may have been a major tactical error on Walt's part -- as well as the publicists' at the studio. By perpetuating a mythic, idealized version of the man -- the so-called Disney Version, as author Richard Schickel put it in his less than positive portrait of Walt -- they opened the door to countless revisionist versions of his life. There is an entire species of journalist -- some good, some bad -- who regard any previously hidden information about a topic as a sign that there are closets full of skeletons ready to be exposed to a world that seems to enjoy defiling its great men and women.
 
In fact, in his last years Walt sometimes gave vent to the thought that he was a not entirely happy prisoner of the image he had created. When parents sipped martinis in "The Parent Trap" and a prostitute bantered with Fred MacMurray in "Bon Voyage," he was beset with complaints. Of the "Bon Voyage" scene he later said, "That was a disaster. You should have seen the mail I got over it. I'll never do that again." "He was concerned and frustrated by the fact that he couldn't do something a little off-color," said Ron Miller. "But he had created this image. I'll never forget, when he saw the movie 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' he said, 'It's too bad I can't make a picture like that. . . .' He was locked in a corner." In fact, this frustration moved him to spend less time in the studio and more and more time with WED, a company that Walt started with his own money to work on Disneyland. As years went on, WED (Walt's initials) became the home of Walt's Imagineers: artists, engineers, designers, sculptors, architects, and a pantheon of other talented men and women who worked to stretch ordinary ideas into remarkable creations. A relatively recent joke crystallizes the attitude Walt encouraged at WED: Q. How many Imagineers does it take to change a light bulb? A. Does it have to be a light bulb?
 
Walt loved it at WED. Some staffers referred to it as Walt's "laughing place," a reference to the line from "Song of the South." WED was not a huge corporation, as the studio had become. WED was a place where the creative people ruled. WED was a place where people didn't have to make appointments to talk to Walt -- they'd just catch him in the hall and say, "Look at this." In short, WED was a lot like the studio -- 30 years earlier. It was within the confines of WED that Walt began to explore the possibilities of moving his operation on to a whole new plane, with his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT). With typical enthusiasm, Walt began to read books about cities and city planning, and to talk to anyone who could help him understand more."
 
Promo for EPCOT
Shortly before his death, Walt shot a promotional film about his plans for EPCOT
 
In an unpublished biography of Walt, Larry Watkin (who wrote the screenplays for "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" and "The Sword and the Rose") wrote, "A college dean with an imposing array of degrees told me that Walt Disney was one of the most stimulating conversationalists he had ever met. The reason, of course, was that Walt possessed a tremendous store of knowledge. His curiosity was unbounded. He wanted to know how everything worked and never forgot any bit of information he picked up. He tucked it away for future reference . . . . He said he had never met a man who wouldn't stop and take the time to explain something you wanted to know. He'd be flattered to be asked."
 
Walt's calendar shows that the years 1964, 1965, and 1966 were a blur of activity: Mineral King, the Florida Project, "Mary Poppins," "The Jungle Book," "The Happiest Millionaire," Disneyland, and various parades, honors, and celebrations. He even considered helping his hometown of Marceline by building a public attraction: Walt Disney's Boyhood Home. He purchased a great deal of land in Marceline toward that end, and had plans drawn up. But then the project went nowhere.
 
The next generation of relatives was also advancing at this time. Ron Miller assumed greater and greater responsibilities in the studio. He became co-producer with Walt on a number of the studio's 1960s comedies, such as "That Darn Cat!" and "Lt. Robin Crusoe." Bob Brown, Sharon's husband, was finally persuaded to work at WED, where he became a valued staff member. And Roy's son, Roy Edward, was also involved -- not on the business side with his father, but working for Walt. He had begun back in 1954 as an assistant film editor on the True-Life Adventures. He then wrote and produced various television shows. "Walt called me one time," Roy Edward recalled. "I had done a show that was an adaptation of a Hungarian television program. Walt was doing the lead-in. I had written as part of the lead-in that this show was originally made by an old friend named Estvan. I'd written it out phonetically. And they were down here shooting, and I got this frantic call from the stage: 'You'd better get down here. Walt doesn't know how to pronounce this name.' I went down there and I [told him it was] Estvan. And he got very impatient quickly with that sort of thing. 'What is Estvan, anyway?' he asked. 'Well,' I said, 'It's Hungarian for Steven.' 'Oh, it's Steve, then.' And it was simple after that."
 
In 1961, Walter Elias Disney Miller was born. Diane had kept her promise to her dad and had named the next boy after him. As the older children grew up, they got to know and adore their famous grandfather. On occasion, they would spend the night with Walt and Lilly in their firehouse apartment in Disneyland. Other times, he'd bring them to the studio, where they hung around while he worked (just like Diane and Sharon had a generation before, and Lilly even before that). His desk invariably had a pencil holder one of the children had made in school. Weekends, Walt and Lilly were the babysitters of choice. His fame sometimes embarrassed them. When he'd drop them off at school, they'd make him leave them off around the corner so the other children wouldn't spot their famous grandfather. And Joanna and Chris were petrified with fear when he cajoled them into accompanying him in the lead car of a parade (though Tamara says she loved it).
 
Walt with grandchildren
Walt with grandchildren Chris,
Joanna, and Tamara in Disneyland
 
But by and large, their memories of him are remarkable mainly in how unremarkable they are. Any grandchild remembering a loving grandparent might have similar recollections. All of the older grandchildren describe their grandfather as a calm, undemanding man, fun to be with, who seemed to derive a great deal of pleasure from just watching them play. Joanna: "We rarely had babysitters. Mostly Mom and Dad would leave us at their house. He just seemed to love having us around. We would sit out in the lawn. We would make towers and pile up his patio furniture, and we'd be making forts and rocket ships out of it, and he'd just be sitting there on the lawn, and it seemed like he loved having us there." Tamara: "He just seemed to enjoy us interacting in front of him. We were a group of kids, rather a wild bunch. And I think my grandmother was overwhelmed. She'd end up with one child at a time, and it was often Jenny (the youngest at the time). But he enjoyed the commotion. He seemed to be a guy who craved commotion." Christopher: "He was so interested in us. I drew like crazy when I was a kid. And I remember his advice. He was an artist himself, of course, and he'd tell me how to improve my technique. I remember him showing me how to get effective-looking smoke. Because most of my drawings were typical boy stuff: disasters, train collisions, mine explosions. He was always there -- and he took a big interest in my developing artistic skills." Jennifer: "There was just an overall feeling of warmth and love. The fact that you walked in the door made them happy. Nobody remembers him getting angry at us -- except if we were arguing with each other. I remember one time in Palm Springs, we were fighting about something. I remember hearing him yell from over the house, 'Knock it off!' and freezing. I hadn't ever heard him yell before." Joanna: "I remember once, we were staying at the hotel in Disneyland. We were watching scary movies on the television at the hotel; Chris and Tam and myself. It was a movie like "The Blob" or something. And I was really afraid. So he took me out of the room and we went for a walk. I was about eight at the time, and he took me up in the elevator to the bar there; and of course everyone knew who he was. He introduced me as his girlfriend. And I was embarrassed that people should think my grandpa had a girlfriend." Christopher: "As I recall, the firehouse apartment was just one room. So we'd be sleeping in the same room. The neat thing about that was getting up in the morning before the park opened. The view was unobstructed -- which is wonderful from a kid's point of view. I remember one time, the Submarine Ride was under construction. And he took us to see the undersea world in dry dock. He explained the stuff to us, the processes, the fiberglass coral reefs." Tamara: "He always had a camera with him -- always -- and he had a tendency of handing the camera to a child, whether it be Chris, Walt, or me. We have photographs of him, one is a picture of me with him and the head is missing because a child took the picture. There's a great series of him crouching lower and lower as a child took the picture."
 
On a couple of occasions, Walt got his grandchildren involved in his films. Chris did a walk-on in "Bon Voyage," and little Walter appeared as a baby in a television commercial in "Son of Flubber." "I can remember him trying to talk us into venturing into what he was doing at the studio," says Tamara. "I remember one dinner I made some wild, funky face where I had my eyes going in different directions. He said, 'If you do that again, I'll put you in a movie.'" In 1964, Ron and Diane had their sixth child -- named Ron, after his dad (a seventh, Patrick, would be born after Walt's death). And in 1965 Sharon became pregnant, and Walt wrote Ruth, "We have another grandchild on the way come January. . . . Needless to say, we're all looking forward to the event. Diane's brood continue to be a great pleasure to Grandpa and Grandma Disney." After Sharon's child, Victoria, was born, Walt was the first one at the hospital. "Oh, she's going to have great eyes," he announced. "I can tell she has great eyes."
 
While Walt's grandchildren remember him as a paradigm of loving calm, studio employees had a very different impression. He seemed to be quicker to snap than ever, even chastising trusted employees like General Joe Potter, one of Walt Disney World's chief engineers. For years, animators whispered about the stroke 30-year veteran Ken Anderson suffered after Walt reacted to his work on "101 Dalmatians." Whether or not Walt was the direct cause of the stroke, Anderson recalled how Walt treated him afterward: "He must have sensed that it was the result of something that he had said that made me have this thing because -- talk about being good to me -- I made more money and made more stuff when I was in the hospital. Walt would send me every sort of thing. Couldn't be nicer . . . He said, 'When you come back, don't ever think about punching the clock. Don't ever think about having to be here at any time. . . . All I want for you to do when you come back is just sit there and create.'"
 
In July 1966, Walt and his whole family -- Lilly, Diane, Ron, Sharon, Bob, and all their children (including baby Victoria) -- took a memorable trip through the waters of British Columbia on a 140-foot yacht. During that time, he and Lilly celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary.
 
Walt and Lilly
Walt and Lilly
 
A large craft by any means, it wasn't huge for six adults and seven children. But according to Diane, "The kids playing all around him didn't bother him. They were climbing all over him, and he seemed to really like that. It was a beautiful, wonderful trip. We loved it." "The Vancouver trip was wonderful," echoes Tamara, who was nine at the time. "I didn't realize at the time that he was sick. I remember him finding an eagle's feather and giving it to me. He'd just listen and observe. Knowing he didn't feel good, now it makes sense. He was the guy sitting on the boat with the camera." When Walt would grow weary, he'd retire to the upper deck of the yacht and read. Diane recalls there were two books he was focused on; one dealt with the task of choosing a college president (he was very involved in Cal-Arts at the time) and the other was a book about city planning, which he was clearly reading to inspire plans for EPCOT.
 
On July 24, Walt checked into UCLA Medical Center, where tests showed that he would need an operation to help relieve the pain in his neck. But he decided to wait for a while. In mid-September, Walt attended a press conference for Mineral King -- his proposed resort near Sequoia National Park. It was a gray, cold day, and Walt didn't seem well. A public relations man explained that he had simply been affected by the altitude and cold. But even a quick glance at photos taken that day show that Walt's face had aged noticeably in the year; more than the cold was ailing him. It was to be his last press conference.
 
In early October, Walt made a film to promote EPCOT. Shortly after the film was made, he checked into St. Joseph's Hospital. It's almost certain that he learned he had lung cancer while there. But he said not a word to his family. Later that month, he traveled to Williamsburg with Lilly, Sharon, and son-in-law Bob Brown to receive an award from the American Forestry Association. Diane and her family were invited but "we said we couldn't go. It was Halloween. The kids loved Halloween and they wouldn't miss it for anything -- not even to go to Williamsburg with Grandpa. It seems shortsighted now." "We were there for three days," recalled Sharon. "We ate and ate and talked and talked. Daddy was a good tourist. He had been back there before, so he was showing it to these two newcomers who had never been there. And he went through everything! On Halloween, the leaves were all dropping deep into the streets. There was no one around, and it was raining. One little boy came to the door for trick-or-treat. We hadn't even thought about it. It was the most awful feeling of not having anything. And I remember Daddy going from room to room trying to find a pack of gum, and he finally found something upstairs in his room; a pack of gum for this little boy. It bothered him."
 
On November 2, doctors told Walt that he would need surgery to remove a cancerous spot on his left lung. He ran into Peter Ellenshaw and pooh-poohed the artist's concerns. "There's no problem," Walt said. "My God," thought Ellenshaw. "My great man is going to die." The next Monday, after the operation, the surgeon reported that Walt's left lung had been removed. Lilly, Diane, and Sharon had waited for the surgeon's report -- they had no idea of the news they were about to hear. "It was as I suspected," the doctor told them. "I'd give him six months to two years." Walt spent about two weeks in the hospital, and then insisted it was time to get back to work. Secretary Tommie Wilck picked him up and brought him to the studio. "I only saw him from a distance when he was released from the hospital and came back to the studio," said Ward Kimball. "I didn't see him up close. As an artist you go by the outward shape . . . or how a person walks. He looked awfully old and bent over. . . . People who saw him up close hardly recognized him."
 
He had lunch with John Hench and a few others and told them about the cancer. He asked them about their current projects and then returned with them to the WED offices. "When he got over there, his voice took on enthusiasm and deepened," said Hench. "We had a few laughs and went over a few things. . . . We went over the Moon Ride. We had a full-scale mock-up of a space center control room, with which he checked out the viewing angles from public areas. He was interested in seeing how the ideas suggested at the last meeting had worked out. And he came over to see the pirate ride mock-up." Walt then walked over to artist Marc Davis' office, where he chuckled at sketches of bears that Davis was preparing for Mineral King. Davis commented on how much weight Walt had lost, "He looked at me with big, sad eyes," recalls Davis, "and God, I could have bitten my tongue off." When he left, "I stayed at the door," the artist remembered, "and watched him walk down the hall. He was, I guess, about 50 feet away. He turned and said, 'Good-bye Marc.' He never said good-bye. It was always, 'See ya later.'"
 
Walt
A candid photo of Walt in his last years
 
Walt told everyone at the studio and WED that with the removal of the one lung he was practically good as new. But rumors flew. He was back at the studio the next couple of days, visiting the set of "Blackbeard's Ghost." The next day was Thanksgiving, which Walt and Lilly celebrated with the Miller family. "We were sitting there," Diane recalled, "and that's when I brought him a drink and a little dish. And he said, 'I don't smoke, kid. But they're still not sure that smoking causes lung cancer.' He couldn't admit that maybe it did. I had gotten on his back the last five years of his life about smoking. I said, 'You've got to stop it, Daddy. You've got to cut it out. At least smoke filter tips. He'd say, 'Knock if off, kid.'"
 
After a one-night stay in Palm Springs, he was back in the hospital on November 30. From there, his health failed far more rapidly than the doctors, or his family, had anticipated. "I trusted the doctors," said Lilly. "I really didn't know he was going to go. Neither did he. We had a trip planned for him to recover." The last days of his life Walt was heavily sedated -- and in some pain.
 
Every year for decades, Walt had sent his sister Ruth a Christmas letter, accompanied by a check. In 1966 the letter was written by his secretary, Tommie Wilck. After a little small talk, she wrote, "When Walt is back in his office, I'm sure you'll get a more up-to-date and personal note from him. In the meantime, he sends his love." The night before he died, Roy visited and reported that Walt was staring at the ceiling and pointing to where everything was going to fall at EPCOT, including the entrance and exit roads. On December 15, 1966, Walt died.
 
Diane: "Mother called us -- we lived nearby -- and said the hospital called and said there's been a turn for the worse. I quickly drove over to pick her up. I remember it took her forever to get dressed. Meticulously putting on her earrings. I was impatient to get there. I think Mother and I both knew, without saying it. Ron was there ahead of us. As we came down the hall, I saw Ron start into the room, and back out, as if someone had pushed him out. I don't think he expected to find Dad dead. I did. And then we went in and Roy was already there, standing at the foot of his bed, with his hand on one of Dad's feet, kind of rubbing his feet, with that sweet half smile that was always his expression. And he was saying something, I forget exactly what it was -- nothing corny or trite or anything. Something loving. The older brother. Then my brother-in-law Bob came to the room with Sharon. I had some kind of peculiar energy. Bob asked me to take her in. And I did, and I put her hand on Dad's and she said, "Now Daddy, now you won't hurt anymore." After he left the room, Roy's grief was intense. "I'd never seen him cry," said his daughter-in-law Patty. "And I put my arm around him and he walked away. He wanted to be alone."
 
Ruth was stunned to hear the news on the radio. "It was said so casual," she recalled with a tone of disbelief in her voice. "Then right on to the next item." "It was a great shock," said his niece Dorothy Puder. "I don't think I realized that he was that near death." Marvin Davis -- a studio designer who had married Walt's niece Marjorie -- was in a conference room at WED. "Margie called me and I excused myself, and I went out and came back and said, 'Well, gentlemen, I'm afraid I have bad news.' And everybody's faces all dropped. They knew exactly what it was."
 
"I don't think he believed it would ever happen," said Ward Kimball. "I don't think he accepted it, knowing Walt. Not until he closed his eyes for the last time was he ever convinced."
 
Disneyland employee Ron Dominguez recalled, "Dick Nunis called us all in and announced that Walt had passed away. It was a sad thing. We knew he was sick. But he was such a talent. Such a creative person. Our leader."
 
True to their word to him, Walt's family held a small service. They dissuaded Ruth from flying in from Portland -- for fear that journalists would follow her and the event would turn into a media circus. Walt was cremated and the ashes interred in Forest Lawn. Where the idea that Walt was frozen began, nobody knows. He may have had some interest in cryonics and explored the topic. But when Disney archivist Robert Tieman researched the issue, he discovered that the first attempts at freezing a person weren't even discussed until well after Walt's death. In any case, the people who knew Walt and loved him never heard him utter a word about trying it out himself. He never mentioned the subject to Diane or Sharon or Lilly. What's more, he was allowed to pass peacefully; his family lingered around him for some time after his death. No physicians rushed his body off to some kind of freezing chamber as would have undoubtedly been the case if he was frozen.
 
Roy had wanted to retire for some time. With Walt gone, he couldn't. He resolved to finish Walt's final dream -- which he insisted be called Walt Disney World. Although Walt's plans for EPCOT as a real city of tomorrow weren't followed, it's fair to say that without Walt at the helm, the venture might never have worked out anyhow. Of course, no one will ever know. A few days after Walt died, Tommy Wilck called the family. She said, "I have boxes and boxes of things of Walt's. Do you want them?" It was too much for Lilly to handle, so Sharon went and got them all. She found postcards that she had sent him in college. She found letters from Diane. She found mementos from the grandchildren. "They were all in his office," said Sharon. "And none of us knew it."
 
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