Roy E. Disney, the son and nephew of The Walt Disney Co. founders who twice led shareholder revolts that shook up the family business, died Wednesday. He was 79.
The Walt Disney Co. announced that Disney died in Newport Beach, Calif., after a bout with stomach cancer.
Although he generally stayed out of the spotlight, Roy Disney didn't hesitate to lead a successful campaign in 1984 to oust Walt Disney's son-in-law after concluding he was leading the company in the wrong direction.
Nearly 20 years later, he launched another successful shareholders revolt, this time against Michael Eisner, the man he'd helped bring in after the previous ouster.
Disney, born in 1930, had practically grown up with the company. His uncle Walt Disney and his father, Roy O. Disney, had co-founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio seven years before, later renaming it The Walt Disney Co.
Despite his heritage, Roy Disney never got the chance to lead the company as his father and uncle had. But as an investor who grew his Disney stock into a billion-dollar fortune, he ultimately had a huge impact on the company's destiny.
In 1984, dissatisfied with the leadership Walt's son-in-law Ron Miller was providing, Disney resigned from the company's board of directors and sought investors to back a bid to install new management. (Miller was the husband of Diane Disney Miller, Roy's cousin.)
His efforts resulted in the hiring of Eisner and Frank Wells, who led the company as a team until Wells died in 1994.
During that time, Disney rejoined the board and rose to become the company's vice chairman and chairman of its animation division, where he helped oversee the making of such hit films as 1994's "The Lion King."
In 2007, Forbes magazine ranked him as the 754th richest person in the world and estimated his fortune at $1.3 billion. He was not on the list in subsequent years.
Born in Los Angeles on Jan. 10, 1930, Roy Edward Disney was Roy and Edna Disney's only child. As an adult, he often wore a mustache, which gave him a striking resemblance to his legendary uncle.
After graduating from Pomona College in 1951, he briefly worked at NBC as an assistant editor on the "Dragnet" TV series.
After joining Disney, he worked on a series of live action short features, including "The Living Desert" and "The Vanishing Prairie."
Disney was also an active philanthropist, supporting the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, a school founded by his father and uncle.
In 1999, he matched a gift from The Walt Disney Co. to establish an experimental theater space as part of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The theater was named the Roy and Edna Disney-CalArts Theater or Redcat.
In 2005, he pledged $10 million to establish the Roy and Patricia Disney Cancer Center at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.
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