Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Diane Disney Miller Remembers Her Dad

And of course, her dad is Walter Elias Disney, or Walt Disney to you and me.

This is a rather insightful interview with Diane Disney Miller. It covers topics such as the private apartment that Walt has in Disneyland, to the reason why she started the Disney Family Museum. She obviously still despises Neil Gabler's biography of Walt (and that book continues to be sold at Disney's theme parks).


What made you want to start the museum? Why did you think it was important to get the message about his life out there?

I don't think anybody really knows him. His name is so familiar and the brand is everywhere and the company gets larger and larger, but there were a couple of really terrible books written about him. There was one that was a total invention. And I thought, what can I do? And the best way, I realized, we did a little film on him, and then we had a website done by the authors who made the film, Richard and Katherine Greene, and it would get lots of comments. It was presented like a virtual museum of Walt's life, and it would get comments like, where's the real museum?

And then I encountered enough people who said "I love you father" and enough of the negative comments, other little kids would say to my kids, "My mother said your grandfather was anti-Semitic" or "Your grandfather is frozen, isn't he?" And I couldn't let that stand. And I thought, I have a really good life because of him and the one thing I can do is establish this place, and I wasn't doing it just for him, I was doing it for all those millions of people that kind of love him.
Fascinating interview!

Zz.

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