 | |
| Author | Marc Eliot |
|---|---|
Publication date | 1994 |
| Media type | Paperback |
| Pages | 372 |
| ISBN | 0-06-100789-7 |
| OCLC | 31745719 |
| 791.43/092 B 20 | |
| LC Class | NC1766.U52 D5328 1994 |
Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince is a biography by Marc Eliot, presenting a darker picture of entertainer Walt Disney than his popular perception.
Eliot's book casts a shadow on some of Walt Disney's actions.
It discusses the urban legend that, in preparation for his death in December 1966, Disney had himself cryogenically frozen, in the hopes of being returned to life by medical science in the future. Eliot opines that the myth of Disney being frozen is probably false, although Disney did have a strong interest in cryonics. [1]
Eliot alleges his lifelong anti-Semitism and his covert activities on behalf of the House Un-American Activities Committee as a spy against Communists in Hollywood alongside his alleged right-wing politics, including an incident in which Disney allegedly wore a Barry Goldwater badge while receiving the Medal of Freedom from Goldwater's political opponent, President Lyndon B. Johnson just before the 1964 election. Eliot alleges that Disney refused to lower the American flag [2] at Disneyland after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
The book also discusses the absence of a birth certificate for Walter Elias Disney and the possibility that Disney was actually born in 1890 to a peasant woman in Spain, then adopted by the Disney family alongside the possibility that Disney was later passed off as a full decade younger than he actually was. During that era, some birth certificates in various American states were never created or were lost or destroyed, so resolving this issue is impossible unless his body was exhumed and tested.
The book has received sharp criticism from wife Lillian and daughter Diane Miller [3] and some of the book's claims have been disputed by other authors. [4] [5]
Animation historian Michael Barrier, who collected interviews from over 150 of former Disney employees since 1969, claimed Eliot's book was "easily the worst Disney biography I've ever read. It is packed with errors and distortions. To rely upon Hollywood's Dark Prince in any way is exactly the opposite of meticulous". [6] Barrier also noted that an analysis of the photo of Walt receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from US President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 showed that the object on his shirt may or may not have been a button showing support for the President's Republican opponent Barry Goldwater and was possibly "of something else". [7] Though acknowledged that Walt supported Goldwater during the 1964 US presidential election and attended the Republican National Convention after Goldwater was nominated, the claim that he was wearing a Goldwater button has only been backed by accusations of a few people close to him and it was noted that Walt and President Johnson did in fact have a friendly conversation before he was given the Medal. [7]
Disney historian Didier Ghez calls it on his website "the latest and by far most stupid and uninteresting "scandalous biography" of Walt". [8]
Barry Morris Goldwater was an American politician and major general in the Air Force Reserve who served as a United States senator from 1953 to 1965 and 1969 to 1987, and was the Republican Party's nominee for president in 1964.
Walter Elias Disney was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, he holds the record for most Academy Awards earned and nominations by an individual. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and have also been named as some of the greatest films ever by the American Film Institute.
The Walt Disney Company is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Oliver Disney as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio; it also operated under the names Walt Disney Studio and Walt Disney Productions before changing to its current name in 1986. In 1928, Disney established itself as a leader in the animation industry with the short film Steamboat Willie. The film used synchronized sound to become the first post-produced sound cartoon, and popularized Mickey Mouse, who became Disney's mascot and corporate icon.
The 1964 United States presidential election was the 45th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 3, 1964. Incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Republican Senator Barry Goldwater in a landslide victory. Johnson was the fourth and most recent vice president to succeed the presidency following the death of his predecessor and win a full term in his own right. Johnson won the largest share of the popular vote for the Democratic Party in history, 61.1%, and the highest for any candidate since the advent of widespread popular elections in 1824.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to as LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served as the 37th vice president from 1961 to 1963. A Democrat from Texas, Johnson also served as a U.S. representative and U.S. senator.
The Disney animators' strike was a 1941 American film industry work stoppage where unionized employees of Walt Disney Productions picketed and disrupted film production for just under four months.
Walter Wilson Jenkins was an American political figure and longtime top aide to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. Jenkins' career ended after he was arrested and charged with "disorderly conduct" with another man in a public restroom in Washington, D.C. The incident happened weeks before the 1964 presidential election, in an era in which homosexual behavior was widely condemned.
"Daisy", sometimes referred to as "Daisy Girl" or "Peace, Little Girl", is an American political advertisement that aired on television as part of Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign. Though aired only once, it is considered one of the most important factors in Johnson's landslide victory over the Republican Party's candidate, Barry Goldwater, and a turning point in political and advertising history. A partnership between the Doyle Dane Bernbach agency and Tony Schwartz, the "Daisy" advertisement was designed to broadcast Johnson's anti-war and anti-nuclear positions. Goldwater was against the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and suggested the use of nuclear weapons in the Vietnam War, if necessary. The Johnson campaign used Goldwater's speeches to imply he would wage a nuclear war.
The Disney Family is an American family that gained prominence when brothers Roy and Walt began creating films through the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, today known as mass media and entertainment conglomerate The Walt Disney Company. The Disney family's influence on American culture grew with successful feature films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 and the opening of the Disneyland Amusement park in 1955. Other Disney family members have been involved in the management and administration of the Disney company, filmmaking, and philanthropy.
Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS), sometimes shortened to Disney Animation, is an American animation studio that creates animated features and short films for The Walt Disney Company. The studio's current production logo features a scene from its first synchronized sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie (1928). Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney after the closure of Laugh-O-Gram Studio, it is the oldest-running animation studio in the world. It is currently organized as a division of Walt Disney Studios and is headquartered at the Roy E. Disney Animation Building at the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California. Since its foundation, the studio has produced 62 feature films, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to Wish (2023), and hundreds of short films.
Retlaw Enterprises, originally Walt Disney Miniature Railroad, then Walt Disney, Inc. (WDI), and then WED Enterprises (WED), was a privately held company owned by the heirs of entertainment mogul Walt Disney. Disney formed the company to control the rights to his name and to manage two Disneyland attractions that he personally owned. The name, Retlaw, is Walter spelled backwards.
Michael J. Barrier is an American animation historian.
There are many coincidences with the assassinations of U.S. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, and these have become a piece of American folklore. The list of coincidences appeared in the mainstream American press in 1964, a year after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, having appeared prior to that in the GOP Congressional Committee Newsletter. In the 1970s, Martin Gardner examined the list in an article in Scientific American, pointing out that several of the claimed coincidences were based on misinformation. Gardner's version of the list contained 16 items; many subsequent versions have circulated much longer lists.
The 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater began when United States Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona elected to seek the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States to challenge incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson. Early on, before officially announcing his candidacy for the presidency, Goldwater was accused by Governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller of attempting to galvanize Southern and Western Republican support while neglecting the industrial northern states, eventually becoming one of Goldwater's primary opponents in the race for the Republican Party's nomination in 1964.
The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt Disney is a 1968 book by Richard Schickel. It is a biography of Walt Disney. It was one of the first polemical books about Disney that takes a harshly critical view of much of his work.
Walt Disney is a documentary film created by PBS for the American Experience program. The two-part, four-hour documentary premiered on September 14, 2015, with part two on the following day and centers on the life, times and legacy of Walt Disney. According to Sarah Colt, director of the documentary film, the biggest challenge was "capturing the truth of the man who had such [an] outsized influence and notoriety ... People think they know him but in reality they don't know him ... He was a human being with many layers of complexity". Rob Lowman, of the Los Angeles Daily News, described "Disneyesque" as being "synonymous with a specific artistic style and, eventually, a fantasy world". Richard Sherman, a Disney songwriter, recalled that "Disney was never driven by a desire for wealth or fame. He wanted to be seen as a master storyteller ... He got great joy out of making people happy with his movies".
"Confessions of a Republican" is a political advertisement aired on television during the 1964 United States presidential election by incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign.
The 1964 presidential election in Arkansas was held on November 3, 1964 as part of the 1964 United States presidential election. State voters chose six electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. Incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson won the state of Arkansas with 56.06% of the popular vote, which was a substantial increase upon John F. Kennedy's 50.19% from the preceding election, although the Republican vote remained virtually unchanged at 43.41%. Johnson won all but ten of Arkansas' seventy-five counties, and all four congressional districts. As of the 2020 presidential election, this is the last election in which Arkansas voted for a different candidate than neighboring Louisiana. Furthermore, with Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina voting for Goldwater, Arkansas became the last Southern state to have never voted for a Republican candidate since the end of Reconstruction.
The 1964 United States Senate election in California was held on November 3, 1964.
The 1964 presidential campaign of Lyndon B. Johnson was a successful campaign for Johnson and his running mate Hubert Humphrey for their election as president and vice president of the United States. They defeated Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater and vice presidential nominee William Miller. Johnson, a Democrat and former vice president under John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as president upon Kennedy's assassination. In 1964, Johnson did not look optimistically upon the prospect of being elected president in his own right. Despite Johnson's uncertainty about running, he was seen as the most likely candidate to get the nomination. He entered the primaries starting with New Hampshire and won the state by almost 29,000 votes. Johnson's main opponent in the primaries was Alabama Governor George Wallace, who had announced his intention to seek the presidency even before Kennedy's assassination.
