The Exhibitor (1966)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

Disney Firm Vows To Top Creative Talent Plans No Slowdown Of Activities; Roy Disney Indicates Walt Planned Well For This Day By MARK GIBBONS BURBANK, CALF. — The brothers Disney —Walt and Roy — had been long geared for the day when one or both should depart the world and prepared to leave behind them a financially-buttressed and artistically creative entertainment empire that would not pass with its founders, w'ho started virtually from scratch 43 years ago. “From top to bottom, we are well reinforced with fine younger men with many years of experience who are well able to carry on successfully in the event of anything happening to either Walt or myself.” Earlier this year, Roy Disney made that statement of assurance to the financial com¬ munity on the fundamental strength of a com¬ pany, whose fortunes scaled successive astral heights in 1965 and 1966. The statement was part of a presentation by Walt Disney Produc¬ tion executives to New York security analysts. Elaborating on the company’s executive hier¬ archy, Roy, who is president and board chair¬ man of the Burbank-based firm while his late brother bore the title of executive producer, continued : “Walt, of course, would be by far the most difficult to replace. Flowever, Walt has built around him a really fine group of creative people who could carry on on their own with a high degree of competency.” Roy added the company’s production depart¬ ment contained “a group of seven top creative men” whose personal investment in live action pictures runs more than $100,000 per man per year under an arrangement whereby each puts up one per cent of the cost of the pictures. As a result, “they all enter into careful evaluation of every story — its potential as a motion picture and its probable cost — before a decision is taken to produce a particular story.” For some time, there has been speculation in motion picture industry circles that E. Cardon Walker eventually would succeed to the company’s top executive posts. Walker is vicepresident of marketing and a member of the creative task force which is permitted to make personal investment in the company’s film productions. He also is on the firm’s eight-man board of directors. Roy Disney is 73. Walt Disney’s demise came at a time when the company was enjoying its greatest financial health. Last month, Walt Disney Productions reported earnings of $12 million or about $6.30 per share on gross revenues of $116 million in the fiscal year ending Oct. 1. The figures set new records for the company. The best previous year was in fiscal 1965 when it earned $11,378,778 on revenues of $109.9 million. Results in each of the last two years were substantially boosted by income from “Mary Poppins,” the biggest hit Disney every had, financially speaking. The two biggest contributors to company revenues have been theatrical film (46 per cent in 1965) and Disneyland (29 per¬ cent). The Disney firm also has derived sub¬ stantial income from tv shows, music and records, and publications. 8 Last Rites For Disney Aid Institute Of Arts HOLLYWOOD — The secretly arranged private last rites for Walt Disney at the Little Church of the Flowers in Forest Lawn Cemetery served a two-fold purpose in keeping with his earnest wishes: Abhorrence of ostentation in attendance of the morbidly curious in deaths of promi¬ nent filmland figures and a burning desire for fulfillment of the project dearest to his heart. In the first sad announcement of Walt Disney’s passing, the family strongly urged that instead of floral tributes, dona¬ tions be made to the California Institute of the Arts, which he was instrumental in founding at the college level as a school of the creative and performing arts. He looked upon the Institute, now being built on the Disney Ranch in the San Fernando Valley, as his single most important con¬ tribution to posterity. “That’s the principal thing that I hope to leave when I move on to greener pastures,” he once said. “If I can provide a place to develop talent of the future, I think I will have accomplished something.” News of Walt Disney’s death last week had a slight but not important impact on Wall Street. Disney shares fell following the death flash report. Trading was halted in the stock at 64|, when it was then down 3^ points. It recovered in the closing minutes when a block of 22,000 shares traded at the final bell at 69, upon one on the day and up \\ from the last trade prior to the halt. After the close, 1,400 shares of Disney Productions were traded on the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange and the price settled back to 67f, down If from the last price on the New York Exchange. The Disney brothers started business in 1923, but the present corporate entity did not come into being until 1939. Walt was president and chairman until 1945, when he relinquished the post of president to Roy. Walt continued as chairman until 1960, when he also gave up that position to Roy to devote all of his time and energy as head of production. Disney Productions reported that as of Dec. 9, Walt Disney owned 25,948 shares of its stock directly and 250,000 shares as community property with his wife, Lillian. Her personal holding was 28,236 shares, so that together they held 15 per cent of the total outstandingshares. Roy and his wife, Edna, held 100,849 shares jointly at that date for the second largest ownership. Altogether, Disney family members control 39 per cent of the stock. With one mammoth monument — Disneyland — already a world-wide attraction in perma¬ nent perpetuation of the Walt Disney image, two other vast projects have left the drawingboard with adequate funds earmarked for their completion — Mineral King in Califor¬ nia’s high Sierra mountain range, with $35 million as a starter, and “Project Florida” with a 27,500-acre site for an amusement center. Mineral King will be a winter resort and the world’s largest when completed. The 70-acre Disneyland, which has been called the “world’s biggest toy” — an enchant¬ ment created, ruled over, and cherished by ( Continued on page 14) MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR Carry On From All Over The World: Tributes To Walt Disney HOLLYWOOD — Perfectionist as he was in life, so were his wishes perfectly fulfilled in death for Walt Disney. The last rites were a closely guarded secret for the showman known around the world as the creator of a legion of storybook characters. Exactly 32 hours after he died just 10 days following his 65th birthday, a terse announcement was issued by Walt Dis¬ ney Productions: “Private family services for Walt Disney were held this afternoon, Friday, Dec. 15, at 5 p.m. at the Little Church of the Flowers, Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glendale. The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, contribu J tions may be made to the California Institute of the Arts in care of Walt Disney Produc¬ tions.” Studio and cemetery officials refused to re¬ veal any additional details, including disposi¬ tion of the body. A Forest Lawn spokesman told MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITOR: “Mr. Disney’s wishes were very specific and had been spelled out in great detail.” But if details of his passing were obscured * from the press, Walt Disney’s past was not. Not since the assassination of President John | F. Kennedy has an international figure’s de¬ mise aroused such mourning and global inter¬ est, including the passing of Winston Churchill and Herbert Hoover. There were even eulogies from behind the Iron Curtain. While the Soviet newspaper Komsomolskaya j Pravda announced the death without com J ment, Politika in Belgrave declared: “In the opus of Walt Disney, death does not exist . . .” In Paris, the newspaper Parisien Liber e said: “All the children in the world are mourning. \ And never have we felt so close to them.” To a newspaper in Holland, Walt Disney was a “king who reigned for several decades over »l the fantasy of children in all the world.” In , London, every paper carried the story on page one, and one publication said: “The children will never forget him.” In Turin, a journalist described him as “a poet-magician who brought the world of fable alive.” A Mexico j City paper said the children were in mourning, “and more than one tear was seen in the eyes of grown men.” A reporter in Dusseldorf, Ger i, many, declared Walt Disney’s Oscars “were of less value to him than the shouts of joy from the young and old.” The Los Angeles Times j said : “He was Aesop with a magic brush. Ander j sen with a color camera. Barrie, Carroll, j Grahame, Prokofieff, Harris — with a genius j touch that brought to life the creatures they ! had invented. “He was Walt Disney. “No man in show business has left a richer jl legacy than Walt Disney . . . “In an era when too many moviemakers seemed to be outbidding each other for sensa¬ tionalism, (he) proved beyond a doubt that | genuine entertainment did truly exist. His j imprimateur on a film was the surest guaran | tee for wholesome fun, worth a dozen produc >| tion seals . . . (for) therein lies inspiration, a sort of challenge, for those skeptics who think that we have become too sophisticated to understand that the simple good things of life are, after all, the best.” ( Continued on page 14) December 28, 1966