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A VISION OF THE FUTURE, 1960-1966
by Katherine and Richard Greene
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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?'"
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A rare photograph of Walt with a cigarette, while relaxing with the music score of "Fantasia"
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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.
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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?
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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."
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Shortly before his death, Walt shot a promotional film about his plans for EPCOT
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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."
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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.
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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."
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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).
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Walt with grandchildren Chris,
Joanna, and Tamara in Disneyland
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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."
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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."
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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.'"
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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.
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Walt and Lilly
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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."
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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.'"
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A candid photo of Walt in his last years
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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.'"
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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."
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"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."
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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."
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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.
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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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