I had the pleasure of meeting Roy Edward Disney several times over the years and I genuinely liked him, although anyone who has tried to interview him will tell you that it was sometimes difficult to get a focused response from him. He told wonderful stories, but was “all over the map” when you tried to tie him down to a particular memory.
Roy Edward was born on January 10, 1930. He was the only child of Walt's older brother Roy OIiver and his wife Edna. As a school kid, Roy was teased mercilessly by his fellow classmates who, when they made the connection that he was part of “the” Disney family, wondered if he had been the model for Goofy, which probably added to his shyness.
Graduating from Pomona College with an English degree in 1951, he found it difficult to find work at the Disney Studios because he was considered one of “Roy's boys,” which meant the financial end of the business rather than one of “Walt's boys,” which was the creative end.
Producer Harry Tytle was confused when Roy's mother, Edna, pleaded with him to try and find a creative job for her son at the studio until he understood the distinction between the two camps.
Roy got a job editing the early black-and-white Dragnet television shows for producer and star Jack Webb, who was filming the series on the backlot of the Disney Studio (until the noise of building things for Disneyland in the soundstages became so distracting that it forced Webb to find another location). Roy earned his union card on that job.
With this professional experience on his resume, it was easier for him to begin working for the Disney Studio in 1954 as an assistant film editor on the True-Life Adventure films. The job primarily entailed going through countless feet of raw footage and finding sections to put together to tell a short sequence.
One of the films he co-produced was the 24-minute documentary short subject Mysteries of the Deep (1959) about the assorted sea creatures of the Galapagos Islands, shot by Jack and Lloyd Beebe. Roy was also responsible for writing the narration that was done by Winston Hibler, who mentored him in the True Life Adventure films.
The short was nominated for an Academy Award, but didn't win, losing to The Golden Fish, produced by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and Roy claimed that, “I am still sore about that.”
Roy helped write narration for animal-related episodes of the weekly Disney television shows from 1957 to 1971, and also directed (1973 to 1978) and produced (1968 to 1977) many of the same type of shows.
Another Disney film editor, Stormy Palmer, recalled that one day when during a break, Roy Edward was bouncing a ball off a wall and it got accidentally stuck on the roof.
Roy Oliver, who was then president of the company, was hosting an important guest and, as the two were talking in his office, suddenly saw through the office window Roy Edward awkwardly climbing up on the roof.
“Yes, my son works here,” Roy Oliver reported sighed to his guest, “He's the one on top of the camera building retrieving that ball.”
Roy Edward's affection and respect for his father is well-known, as was his frustration that his father does not get significant recognition for his contributions to the Disney Company.
“In his heart of hearts, he would have loved to have had more credit, I believe, but he didn't want to take away from his little brother. He recognized very clearly that the name 'Walt Disney' was gold, so why mess around with it?” stated Roy.
Roy remembered his father telling him that as boys, he and Walt slept in the same bed and sometimes Walt would wet the bed. “He peed all over me then, and he's still doing it today,” Roy Oliver joked to his son.
However, Roy Edward knew when his father had a tough time with Walt at work, because if his father pulled into the driveway and slammed his car door hard, then “you knew it was time to go do your homework and stay out of his way.”
Roy's engagement to his wife Patty was officially announced the day before the opening of Disneyland in 1955. While it was obviously a difficult chaotic time for Walt, Walt made a point of going out of his way the next day to greet the couple at the front gate of the park to let them know how happy he was for them.
“My nephew's marrying a girl with some spunk!” Walt gushed.
Roy was so shy that when he asked Patty to marry him, he sent the proposal in a five-page letter with the note that if she accepted, to please call him in Utah where he was working on the Disney True-Life Adventure Perri (1957). She tried to reach him but couldn't track down a phone near him, so she finally resorted to sending him a telegram with just two words: “Hell, yes.”
Author Bob Thomas, who wrote biographies of Roy Oliver as well as Walt, described Roy Edward as the following: “He isn't impressed with himself, or what he has done. He is essentially a very shy person. He was an only child, so the family doted on him. He also was always in the shadow of his uncle.”
Roy E. Disney recalled that his Uncle Walt was very tough on him.
Roy took some amusement in sharing the story of Walt taking him around the Disney Studio and saying, “Here is my idiot nephew,” an unfortunate nickname that stuck for many years but Roy's work ethic and upbeat demeanor won him the respect of those he worked with as well as them liking being around him.
“Walt could be tough on me, but God knows he was tough on everybody,” remembered Roy Edward. “I got along with him well. If he liked what I did, that was great. If he didn't like what I did, it was tough. That wasn't just with me; that was with anybody.”
Here are some excerpts from an interview I did with Roy Edward in March 2004 as he was connecting with Disney fans and writers to support his “Save Disney” campaign to oust Michael Eisner from the Disney Company.
Last time, I talked about that event. This week, I am concentrating on what it was like growing up a Disney.
Jim Korkis: What is one of your favorite memories of your Uncle Walt?
Roy Disney: One of my favorite memories of Walt is that he was kind enough to let me make a couple of films for him as a producer in the last few years before he died. One of them, in particular, which I am sure no one has seen or remembers seeing was called The Legend of El Blanco (that aired on the Wonderful World of Color on September 25, 1966) about this white horse that would end a drought. It was a film shot down in Mexico and I sort of inherited it, which is why I am listed as co-producer. I tried to make a very serious show and Walt hated it. He said, 'Let's turn it into a spoof' and we did.
You don't know how hard making a spoof is but we got through it. We had this wonderful little quartet that came up from Mexico. They had a big hit record in Mexico of a song called (doing a Spanish accent) “Super-califragilistico-expeali-doso” in Spanish.
It was three guys and a girl. (Los Tres Con Ella) It really was pretty funny stuff. And we ran it for Walt and I got at least four loud laughs from Walt in the screening. So maybe that's my fondest memory of him. It's a little like Sally Field, you know, 'He likes me. He likes me!'
JK: Your dad didn't seem convinced that Epcot Center would be a good idea.
RD: I was always so proud of my dad. Walt wanted to build this futuristic city called Epcot where people were going to live. My dad didn't know how that made us any money. He argued with Walt that we needed to build a Magic Kingdom and some hotels first to get money to afford to build Walt's Epcot.
Walt kept insisting that Epcot needed to be built first or it would never get built. Walt died while they were having those arguments. So Dad won by default and he regretted winning that way. Walt probably would have been surprised to see what it all is today. Epcot, of course, was supposed to be a real town where people would live and the final thing was much different.
My Dad literally put his heart and soul into building [Walt Disney World]. I've never been prouder of anybody in my life than seeing my dad up there at the dedication ceremony for Walt Disney World.
JK: Do you have any memory from that Dedication Day that particularly sticks out in your mind?
RD: My family and I were sitting up on that railroad station balcony facing the flagpole. Meredith Willson, who was responsible for The Music Man, which was a huge hit on Broadway, was the bandleader. And they had the 76 trombones and 101 cornets and I don't remember what all but it was a very big band. The drummers came out from under where we were sitting and it felt like the entire thing shook. It was like a California earthquake and it took us by surprise but it was amazing.
JK: While we often hear of Walt and Roy disagreeing about things, they spent a lot of time together outside of work, especially traveling. Did they play together, as well?
RD: My Dad and Walt spent a lot of time together. They played around. My Dad was certainly the more serious of the two of them. Walt was just like a big kid all of his life. I think Dad helped him to be able to be that way. Walt loved to have fun and I think truly his playground was the company itself. He got to do the things he always wanted to do when he was a kid. But, in order to do that, you have to have a businessman who watches the money and the deadlines and that was my Dad.
Growing up with my Dad, I learned that you get what you pay for. Value created by investment is what makes a company grow. Dad would complain about getting the money but he knew it would pay off in the end if you provided quality. That was his philosophy.
There were two other brothers as well, Herb and Ray. They were older than Walt and my Dad. They used to come to our house when I was a kid on Sundays in the summer. We had a big backyard and set up a croquet court out there. And these four brothers would get together and they had to send me to my room because I would have learned a lot of bad language. They were very competitive, even my Dad. That was in the 1930s. I thought they were all great guys. They were a lot of fun. I was a killer at croquet, too, after I grew up. It's a nasty game. Really brutal.
JK: Do you have a favorite Disney animated film?
RD: My first impulse right now is to say Snow White. I was just a kid and it made a real impression on me because there was nothing else like it. I remember the premiere of the film very well. I had seen it several times before it opened but it was that opening at the Carthay Theater that somehow made it all real.
JK: Of course, there is that famous story about Walt telling you the story of Pinocchio which was the film he made after Snow White.
RD: He could be a tough boss but he was also a very warm uncle. I was home in bed with the chicken pox. It was miserable. Have you ever had chicken pox? You get isolated until you start getting better. Walt and Lilly came over to the house to have dinner with my Dad and mom. Walt knew I was feeling bad so he came into my room and sat on the edge of the bed and told me the entire story of Pinocchio. He acted out all the different parts, including the whale and everything else.
He scared me to death with the stuff about the whale. He was an incredible storyteller. You really have no idea how good he was. He became the story. He became all the characters. He believed in it completely. He was hypnotic. That is how I would describe it. He was better in person than on TV or anything else.
What a great story the way he told it. I remember it very, very sharply and very clearly even today. He was that good a storyteller. But when the movie came out, it was big letdown for me. It was nowhere near as good as Walt's version.
That was his way of working things out when it came to a story. He'd tell it and he'd watch your reaction. If he could get a laugh out of you, or a tear, or whatever, he'd know it was working. If you seemed to not be paying attention, he knew he needed to work on that part.
JK: You certainly became a great advocate of animation in the Disney Company.
RD: I never had much to do with animation when I first worked at the studio, but I grew up around it and I certainly understood the process very well. I understood the people who were there at the time and what they were trying to do. When I was a kid hanging around at the studio, the animators would pull me in to show me things and say, “Watch this, kid, and see if you think it's funny.”
When the Board of Directors voted in Michael [Eisner] and Frank [Wells], all of us had this big celebration lunch. Michael looked at me and, towards the end of the lunch, said, 'Now that all of this is all over, what do you want to do?' And without thinking, I said, 'Why don't you give me animation?' Because I felt that Disney animation had fallen away from those things that had made it so extraordinary.
At that time, (animators/directors) John Musker and Ron Clements had this little story they'd been working on that wound up becoming The Great Mouse Detective (1986). We gave them a go-ahead within a week, just so the animators had something to work on, because we were paying them all this time and they were just sitting around. It turned out to be a good little movie, but it proved not only to the outside world but to ourselves that we could still do it. Then we began to dream bigger.
JK: Is there a particular film you worked on that you are especially proud of producing?
RD: We made this film for the weekly television show back in 1969 called Varda, the Peregrine Falcon. That's another film you probably never heard or saw and that's a shame. When we made the film, the Peregrine Falcon was on the endangered species list due to the DDT problem. It was a beautifully done film and it got high ratings.
You never know whether a film will connect with an audience or not but this one somehow did. I think 40-some million people saw the film and became aware of the DDT problem. Among other things, it creates sterility in the eggs. Many of them got involved in an effort to save this species including the creation of an organization called the Peregrine Fund, which was dedicated to breeding falcons in captivity and releasing them back into the wild. I was chairman of the board from 1990-1992.
Just a few years ago (2000), they took the Peregrine Falcon off the endangered species list. We had a huge celebration in Idaho. So I am very proud of doing something about that.
I love Disney's Animal Kingdom because it relates so closely to the things I spent much of my life doing for Disney. When I returned to the company, I kept whispering in Michael's ear that part of our tradition is the nature films and our commitment to conservation. It was the right thing to do to build DAK and Walt would have loved it. He was very committed to animals and the environment. We need to keep expanding it. We still need to save this planet.
JK: There is a train named after your father at Walt Disney World that you got to rededicate after it had been restored in 2002. Of course, Walt always had a love of trains, but did you?
RD: I rode on the Carolwood Pacific in Walt's backyard. While he may have had fun with that miniature train, he took it very seriously. One time, I was dragging my feet on the ground and it was kicking up dirt and it derailed the car behind me. Walt stopped the train, came back and gave me 'that look' and sent me to the barn to wait until he finished with everyone else riding on the train.
I was a restless little boy when I was 3 or 4 years old, and very sensitive about things or so my mother used to tell me. We lived at the time near the Glendale railroad station that was adjacent to Burbank. My folks discovered that if they drove me over at about 5 p.m or so, I would just watch the various trains come in to the station and that made me happy for hours, and I would get a good night's sleep.
I remember one night, my dad and I wound up standing next to this big engine. When you are 4 years old, those things look just enormous. So I was standing there with my Dad and the engineer looks down and says, 'Hey, kid, you want to come up in the cab?' And I was scared but also excited so I said, 'I guess so'. My dad handed me up to this guy and there I was in the cab of this huge Southern Pacific locomotive.
I know why Walt got so excited about trains when he was a child. Sitting there, you just feel so alive. The thing is hissing and steaming and rumbling like some sort of wild animal. I've had that memory with me all of my life.
I had a chance when I was older to be in a cab and run a train for a bit. It is an amazing experience. You've got to understand when you start pulling that throttle back how much power is really there waiting to be unleashed. You have to be careful. You can feel the fire, the wheels starting to spin and it's like it is ready to escape.
So, yes, I guess I have always loved trains. We traveled on them a lot because that was the way to get to New York and my Dad had to go there a lot to handle financial business. I was an only child and he would take me along often and I have these wonderful memories of traveling on a train.
JK: Thank you so much, Roy, for your time and sharing these memories.
RD: It was my pleasure. Thank you.
