One of the greatest missed opportunities in the PBS documentary about Walt Disney was not allowing more commentary from Walt’s son-in-law Ron Miller. For many Disney fans, Ron’s name and accomplishments may be a bit hazy since he has avoided the spotlight for decades (so all the more reason to use all of his interview in the documentary instead of replacing him with pseudo-authorities).
Years ago, I wrote praise for Ron Miller, and that material has been liberally borrowed by many sources (thinking no one would locate the original article), including DisneyWiki, without attribution.
I felt it was time to update, revise and expand my original article, and now you will know where those other sites got their information and out-of-the-ordinary quotes like the one to Dale Pollock if they once again decide to borrow.
The Disney Channel. Epcot Center. Tokyo Disneyland. Splash with Tom Hanks. The young Tim Burton’s first animation opportunity. Roger Rabbit. Disney's first attempts at computer animation like John Lasseter and Glen Keane’s experiment with Sendak’s children’s book Where The Wild Things Are. Touchstone Films. The opening of Epcot Center. The first Walt Disney Home Entertainment videotape release. The opening of Tokyo Disneyland. What do all these things have in common? Ron Miller was responsible for all of them and more which set a foundation for future success for the Disney Company.
In 1984, it was fashionable to blame Miller, who was president and CEO of the Disney Company, for ruining the company and losing the vision of his father-in-law, Walt Disney. Frank Wells and Michael Eisner were hailed as saviors who had come to rescue Disney from the hands of this ex-football player who had brought Disney to the brink of destruction.
In truth, Miller was doing quite well at re-imagining Walt's dream by bringing in new talent and attempting to break the mold of just repeating past Disney triumphs by taking a chance on previously unexplored concepts. Unfortunately, he also faced a Board of Directors who opposed any changes from the way Walt would do things.
Ronald William Miller was born April 17, 1933.
Walt's 20-year-old daughter, Diane, met Ron Miller on a blind date. Miller, who played football for the University of Southern California (1951-1953), began dating Diane.
Both Walt and Lilly approved of the young man and Ron and Diane married in a small church ceremony in Santa Barbara on May 9, 1954. (Playfully, the wedding cake had Diane in Levi jeans and Ron in Bermuda shorts and bare feet, but wearing a football helmet.)
In October, Ron was drafted into the Army. During their first six years of marriage, Ron and Diane had four children and eventually a total of seven children. After his Army service, Ron played a season in 1956 as tight offensive end with the Los Angeles Rams professional football team.
Ron Miller, former Disney president and CEO, at the Disney Studios. Miller set up many things with the Disney Company that he didn't necessarily get credit for.
“My father-in-law saw me play in two football games when I was with the L.A. Rams. In one of them, I caught a pass and Dick 'Night Train' Lane let me have it from the rear. His forearm came across my nose and knocked me unconscious. I woke up in about the third quarter,” Ron told entertainment reporter Dale Pollock in August 1984. “At the end of the season, Walt came up to me and said, 'You know, I don't want to be the father to your children. You're going to die out there. How about coming to work with me?' I did and it was a wise decision on my part. I'm really very proud of having been a professional athlete. I think it teaches you to be competitive, to accept challenges and to see things through. I realize the image some people have of jocks, but I think that certainly has changed over the years.”
However, the fact that Miller never finished school and played football became fodder for his critics to label him a “dumb jock” who lucked into marrying into an entertainment empire.
Miller was a witness in the trial of stockholder lawsuits accusing Disney and its directors of paying “greenmail” in 1984 to Saul Steinberg. Miller got a laugh from the jury when his own attorney asked him how he got his first job at the company and he replied, “I married Walt’s daughter.”
Contrary to popular belief, the company was not financially hemorrhaging, but was basically undervalued although some of its recent films were underperforming, so it looked like a vulnerable target. Ron was working hard to shore up the film division, but it took time for it to work and it didn’t reap his efforts until he was ousted.
Walt sponsored his son-in-law and got him into the Screen Director's Guild and Miller worked as a second assistant on Old Yeller (1957). (Miller had worked for the Disney Studios for a few months in 1954 as a liaison between WED Enterprises and Disneyland before being drafted.) He soon rose up the ranks to a variety of producer positions and also directed some of Walt's lead-ins for the popular weekly Disney television show.
In 1958, one of the most popular television shows was the first hour-long Western program titled Cheyenne. Produced by Warner Brothers and broadcast on ABC (which was also the home for Disney’s weekly television show), it was so successful that it spawned an impressive string of Warner Brothers-produced hit shows, including Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip.
The premise of the series was that Cheyenne Bodie, a loner in the old West who was raised by Cheyenne Indians after the loss of his parents, traveled from town to town each week taking on different jobs and solving problems.
The lead role was played by 6-foot 6-inches-tall Clint Walker, who was part Native American, in his first lead performing role. Cheyenne ran from 1955-1963 but, in 1958, Walker literally walked out and went on strike.
He wanted increased residuals, reduction of the Warner Brothers edict that he had to pay 50 percent of his personal appearance fees to the studio and released from the restriction of only recording music for the Warner record label.
While Walker was on strike, Warner Brothers quickly rushed into production the adventures of Cheyenne’s cousin, Bronco Layne, played by Ty Hardin. When Walker finally returned to the series in 1959, Bronco was spun off into its own successful series. Walker may have worked out a deal because he was prohibited from seeking other work during the contract re-negotiation, saw that the fill-in series was successful, and also knew that Warners was actively looking for a replacement for his role.
William T. “Bill” Orr was the producer of the Warner Brothers television series, and he called in Miller, who had chiseled good looks and a massively imposing football player physique, to audition for the part.
“I had no acting experience at all. None. Not even in high school. I did have a small appearance in a Boy Scout film. I didn’t know what to do with my hands during the scene and Bill told me to grab on to the back of a chair and I did. I held on tightly for dear life,” Miller told me over lunch in 2011. “They gave me three pages to read from John Wayne’s movie Hondo [1953, Warner Brothers]. It was the part about Hondo’s wife being killed and I looked out a window at some point. I thought I had blown it completely but Bill obviously saw something he liked and he phoned me to come back for a screen test. Walt heard about it and called me into his office. ‘What are you doing trying to be an actor?’ he lectured. ‘ Forget about it. You’d be a lousy actor. I am grooming you to be a producer!’ So I forgot about it and I never pursued any other opportunities as an actor.”
Miller spent his time in the film division and his co-producer credits appear on such Disney classics as Son of Flubber, Summer Magic, and That Darn Cat! His first movie with full producer credit was Never a Dull Moment (1968).
“It was obviously a great atmosphere when Walt was alive,” Miller said. “If Walt liked something, we knew damn well it had to be good; it had to be successful. Obviously, things are not the same without him. Walt was a great leader, and in his own way, a genius. For that one genius it has taken 50 geniuses to fill his void.”
Miller continued to get producing credits on films like Tron, Pete's Dragon, and Escape to Witch Mountain.
As their Silverado wine website states:
“In 1976 Lillian Disney, widow of Walt Disney, with her daughter Diane and son-in-law Ron Miller, purchased two vineyards in the Napa Valley. Their intention was to upgrade the property, replant to premium varietals, install new trellising and frost protection, but not to build or run a winery. Their vineyards were clearly exceptional, producing top-quality fruit and award-winning wines year after year… for other wineries. So construction of the Silverado winery began in 1980. Architect Dick Keith designed the old California mission-style structure, which is often mistaken for an actual restoration.”
In 1980, Miller was also elected president and chief operating officer of Walt Disney Productions. In addition to his other duties, he supervised all film and TV production and was a member of the Board of Directors and the executive committee. In 1983, he became CEO of the Disney Company.
Miller was responsible for the creation of The Disney Channel; funded Disney's first produced show on Broadway (Total Abandon with Richard Dreyfuss in 1983); hired a young Tim Burton as an animator and gave him encouragement to develop his own style; acquired the rights and put into development the book Who Censored Roger Rabbit, against the wishes and advice of other Disney executives, especially Card Walker; and initiated Disney's first attempts into computer animation, among other accomplishments.
Certainly, these early efforts laid the foundation for later successes for the Disney Company. Miller was only president for about four years and CEO for only one year and still made some amazing accomplishments in that limited amount of time.
He was also responsible for starting a separate film label, Touchstone, to handle subject matter that might not have been appropriate for the more family-oriented brand of Walt Disney Pictures. The first release was the Ron Howard film Splash (March 1984) with Tom Hanks, and Michael Eisner later took full credit for the success of that new label.
Here are some quick quotes from Miller to Disney Studio cast members in 1984, shortly before he was voted off and replaced with Eisner and Wells. I don’t think many people have seen them since he was pretty much wiped off the records, but I think they give some insight into how he thought at the time.
On Touchstone and Disney Movies:
“People think we have been in the doldrums for ages and ages. We were making pictures that people thought were corny and old-fashioned, like the 'Love Bug' movies. But they were very profitable and that's the name of the game.…We were actually afraid to move ahead, afraid of introducing things into a Disney picture that might be frowned upon by certain members of society.
“But society changes.…I've received a handful of letters saying that I did the wrong thing (making Splash ), that I'm putting Disney in the gutter.…I don't want to forget Disney values-in fact we can't forget it. If we had made Splash a year from now, I would say that Splash would be considered a Disney film.…Touchstone means films that will be very sensitive, very hard and very dramatic. The perfect example is Country with Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard. It's a powerful film, and I think it is fantastic.
“We believe that, fairly or unfairly, we were stereotyped as to the kind of film we would consider for production and so there were a lot of very good scripts that we never had the opportunity to see: Kramer Vs. Kramer, On Golden Pond, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ordinary People, Wargames, and, of course, E.T. and several other award-winning films.
“We would have been prevented from doing those films under the Disney banner for a variety of reasons, including language, intensity, adult situations and violence. Yet, they are all excellent films of very high quality. We believe that will definitely change with Touchstone and we will attract a broader range of production and creative talent for future filmmaking efforts.
“Touchstone will allow us to maintain the inherent strength of the Disney tradition without tampering with the legacy.”
One reason Miller created a separate film brand was his memory of watching the film To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) with Walt Disney and, at the end of the film, Walt sighing that he wished the Disney Studio could make a film like that, but it wouldn't fit with the type of films audiences expected of Disney.
“I worked closely with Walt on 10 motion pictures and I feel I knew him as well or better than most people did. While we know that Walt loved creating entertainment for the whole family, he was first and foremost a very good businessman.
“He always thought of Walt Disney Productions as a major movie studio operation. We don't think he would have wanted us to give up that role in the industry. We don't see the change we contemplate as being destructive to quality and good entertainment values from Disney. As I said earlier, all business must adapt to their changing markets. Touchstone represents a subtle change in our posture in the film industry, not a revolutionary one.”
On Animation:
“I'm very close to the whole animation area, and I can truthfully tell you that the new Disney animation is as good, if not better, than the old Disney animation. We have the new generation of animators in place now, but you can't move too fast. If you do put something out there, it better be damn good.”
On Theme Parks:
“We're not going to rest on our laurels. We realize that Epcot has to grow, just as Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom have grown. We learned a long time ago that you have to continually have new openings, new rides, new events to bring back the audience.…As far as theme parks, we're going to Europe, there's no question about it, maybe with something a little bit larger than a theme park. We don't want to limit ourselves to thinking just in terms of a Magic Kingdom. It's just a question of where and when. We will find an area that has a large population nearby, obviously. We just have to pick our preference and work out arrangements with the local government. You have to have the government's sanction or else you are asking for trouble.
On Recreational Opportunities:
“We are looking at something called the Disney Entertainment Center, which we would open in major cities that would not compete with our California and Florida operations. We don't know exactly the combination of elements, but it would include restaurants, entertainment and some of the film innovations from Epcot. When you look at cities like Detroit and Chicago and Houston, they're hungry for entertainment. We feel very strongly that we can blend all those elements into a successful package.”
On Television:
“My major concern right now is that we're not on commercial network television. I've given our people a mandate that they've got to get us on because we belong there each week. There's a void in this company from not being on network television.”
Just one month before he left the Disney Company in 1984, Miller said, “I think my greatest responsibility is to challenge the creative people in this organization to come up with new things we've never even considered. I hope that in 1990 we will be doing something that people never thought Disney could do. This company's going forward. And I'm very proud and pleased to be part of it.”
Ron Miller celebrates Disneyland's 60th with Mickey Mouse. His presence ended a self-imposed 30-year exile.
In his memoir, Work in Progress, Michael Eisner praised the ouster of his predecessor, Ron Miller, by Walt Disney Company's board as an “act of independence and even courage” when they asked for and received Miller's resignation on September 7, 1984.
Like his father-in-law, Ron Miller is not perfect. He is human and has made some mistakes, but I think he has been unfairly vilified over his time at Disney and, unfairly, not given credit for setting the foundation that allowed Eisner and Wells to transform a mom-and-pop company into an entertainment empire.
For decades, Miller avoided returning to Disney property or talking publicly about Disney, but with the death of his wife Diane in 2013, he has had to come out to represent her legacy.
That is why he at the age of 82 showed up at Disneyland for the 60th anniversary. Most Disney fans don’t realize how remarkable that appearance was as evidenced by the lack of reaction on all sites. He ended a 30-year self-imposed exile, and no one seemed to notice. Just as they never noticed what he was doing at the Disney Company.
