Thoughts of death were now taunting him, dancing around his every movement, his every utterance. And he could tell by the looks on his colleagues’ faces that they could see his terror.
Walt tried to ease the tension with a joke. “You’d think I was going to die or something.”
Walking into the cafeteria, he shied away from his usual spot in the corner and sat with his team from WED. They looked shocked at his appearance.
“My lung was removed,” he told them. “But I’m going to be fine. Just as soon as I get some rest.”
It wasn’t until he met his long-suffering wisecracking nurse, Hazel, in the same room where they’d teased each other and joked and laughed a million times, Walt Disney faced his harsh reality.
“There’s something I want to tell you,” he said quietly. He couldn’t complete the thought. Hazel knew anyway. The two friends embraced each other, and they both cried.
Los Angeles, California
December 14, 1966
Walt Disney was his old self again. At least, that was how it seemed to Roy. He was smiling, animated, eager—and as impatient as always.
Bored and restless in his hospital bed, Walt looked up at the ceiling. Using it as an imaginary grid, he began sketching new designs for his EPCOT dream with his finger.
This, Roy knew, wasn’t just a sick man trying to idly pass the time. Walt wanted his big brother to understand that this was the reason he had lived. Walt spoke and his voice was gravelly but firm. “You must build this when I’m gone.”
“I’ll do my best,” Roy replied.
“No, not your best,” Walt said. “You must promise me that you’ll build it. Promise me that you’ll see it done.”
Roy could see in his dying brother’s eyes that he fully believed his plans for a city of the future would change the world. Roy knew it didn’t matter whether that was true—all that mattered was that Walt believed it.
Now, as he stood there watching Walt wave his finger through the air, Roy was more in awe of his younger brother than he’d ever been before. He’d stood up to their father all those years back—and he’d spent nearly every day of his life since turning that hammer from a weapon back into a tool that could be used to build, to dream, and to change the world.
“I promise,” Roy said, tears streaming down his face. He started toward the door, then stopped and turned back to face his brother.
“Maybe we can still build it together.”
Los Angeles, California
December 15, 1966
Roy Disney stood by the edge of his brother’s bed. Walt’s hands were folded across his chest. He was not moving. The official time of his death was 9:30 A.M. The cause: acute circulatory failure.
Roy had left his brother yesterday exactly the way Walt wanted Roy to remember him—cheerful, hopeful, and with a smile on his face. Now that smile was forever gone.
“Well, kid,” said Roy, as tears streamed down his face and his voice choked, “this is the end, I guess.”
He kissed his brother’s forehead, squeezed his hand, and left Walt’s side for the last time.
Orlando and Kissimmee, Florida
Spring 1967
Roy was a frequent visitor to the swamps of Orlando, watching as builders brought his brother’s last wish a little closer to reality.
Roy was seventy-four years old and far past retirement age by any measure. When Walt died all the joy Roy had found in running the company was gone. As soon as I finish Walt’s dream, he thought to himself, I’ll retire and leave it to the younger guys.
People everywhere had begun referring to the theme park as “Disney World.” And that had started to rankle Roy. “I don’t care what they say, this is not going to be called Disney World,” he told his executive team. That name wasn’t good enough. Everyone has heard of the Ford car, but not everyone remembers that it was Henry Ford who started it all.
“This is going to be Walt Disney World. So everyone will know that this was Walt’s dream.”
Even as he said the words, Roy knew that the park would never really reflect the way Walt dreamed it up. Roy never really understood EPCOT the way his brother did, or its world-changing possibilities. All he could do was try his best.
Burbank, California
December 20, 1971
It had been a very long day. Exhausted, Roy undressed and readied himself for the comfort of his bed. The house was empty and quiet—his wife and kids had gone to the Disneyland Christmas parade. His sadness over Walt’s death still hovered over him like a dark cloud.
Everything inside Roy told him that it was time to retire, to finally rest and enjoy his success. But he felt a duty to carry on. At least for a little longer. There was no one else to fulfill Walt’s mission. Certainly not Lilly, who’d remarried in 1969, less than three years after Walt’s death. No, it was up to Roy, and Roy alone, to make Walt’s last dream come true.
Two months earlier, Walt Disney World had opened to widespread acclaim and success. But Roy was not as excited. It was simply an amusement park. An impressive one, to be sure, but nothing close to the kind of model city that Walt had envisioned.
Still, Walt Disney World included some of Walt’s ideas: pneumatic tubes carried garbage to a compacting plant far from the park’s center; a noiseless monorail whisked people throughout the grounds; electrical circuits and other service tubes were all contained underground so there was no need for potholes and street excavations that tied up other cities in gridlock.
Overall, it was not what Walt had originally laid out in his plans, but Roy believed it was as good as he could possibly make it without his brother’s personal guidance.
Roy reached for his night robe, ready to get a good night’s sleep under way, and felt a sharp pain in his head.
He collapsed to the ground and, for the first time in years, Roy and Walt were reunited.
EPILOGUE
Orlando, Florida
October 1, 1982
The new EPCOT Center theme park, which would eventually be relabeled as “Epcot,” perhaps in order to take attention away from what Walt wanted those letters to stand for, was a corporate compromise.
Card Walker, Roy’s successor as CEO, had made an effort a few years earlier to revive Walt’s original dream. The board had voted against it. No one, members determined, would want to live under a microscope and be watched constantly. Nothing so grandiose could ever be accomplished. Besides, nobody knew how to run such a city without Walt’s guidance.
The new EPCOT contained pavilions designed to celebrate achievement and innovation. Nine other pavilions were devoted to different cultures. At the center of the park was Spaceship Earth, a geodesic sphere resembling a massive golf ball. But it was decidedly not the model city housed under a glass dome that Walt believed could change the world.
To all those at Disney, one thing was now clear: Walt’s dream for a kind of utopian kingdom in Florida had died right along with him.
Thirty Years Later
Orlando, Florida
October 30, 2012
Robert Iger and George Lucas sat together to announce a breathtaking new deal to expand the Disney universe further. Lucasfilm, home of the Star Wars franchise, had found a new home with Disney—to the tune of $4 billion, a sum that would have likely even shocked the free-spending Walt.
The Star Wars franchise was the latest part of a vast Disney empire. With a market capitalization of $149 billion and revenue of $47 billion, the empire includes parks in Japan and Paris; hotels; the Disney Channel; live-action blockbuster films; animated smash hits; Broadway musicals; the television networks ABC and ESPN; toys and toy stores; the Animal Kingdom; a movie studio theme park; and of course, what was meant to be the biggest part of the Disney legacy of all, Epcot.
Tens of millions of people have visited Epcot since its founding. But most don’t realize that it is still not even close to the EPCOT of Walt’s dreams. It stands as an unambitious compromise, rather than a cutting-edge laboratory o
f democracy and governance.
Epcot is a theme park to honor science and culture, innovation, magic, and joy. But it’s a theme park nonetheless—not the real, working city that Walt had imagined.
If, as Walt had warned his nurse, he truly was looking down on his company from above, he would undoubtedly have a lot to say.
A NOTE FROM GLENN
The 1953 Disneyland drawings done by Herb Ryman over one chaotic weekend—drawings that had been hand-colored by Walt Disney himself—were presented to bankers in an attempt to secure financing for the park. One banker who’d rejected Walt’s pitch took the drawings home to show to his family the new crazy scheme that Disney had concocted.
Decades later, those weathered drawings were put up for auction by the banker’s family. The Glenn Beck American History Reclamation Project purchased them in an effort to secure their preservation and place in American history.
Since one of Walt’s hallmarks was his ability to speak big things into existence, I will attempt to do the same thing here: The Ryman drawings, representing Walt’s entire, original, and unfinished dream (complete with the white-steepled church that he envisioned being built at the center of Main Street) will one day play an important role in my own “Independence Park.” While this is still very much in the “dream stage,” I don’t envision this being a traditional theme park, but instead something more in line with Walt’s lost dream for a new kind of city that can be a beacon of hope and courage throughout the world.
10
“Make It Great, John”: How Steve Jobs and John Lasseter Changed History at Pixar
Mountain View, California
April 1, 1976
He ate only fruit, rarely wore shoes, and believed that technology should be more than efficient; it should be beautiful.
Several weeks earlier, the shaggy-haired adopted son of a car mechanic had sold his Volkswagen bus for $750. His friend had sold his HP 65 calculator for $500. As he eased back in his desk chair, he shuddered at the thought of putting his entire life’s savings on the line.
He nervously twirled the pen in his hand, then gave it a few hard chomps between his front teeth. He had read the partnership agreement numerous times, but he couldn’t resist flipping through its pages one final time. He finished and then signed his name on the line at the bottom of the last page.
The man who dreamed of the intersection of technology and art had just launched a computer company.
His name was Steve Jobs.
Anaheim, California
July 1, 1976
“Hello, everyone, welcome aboard Disneyland’s World Famous Jungle Cruise.” The man in the khaki vest and floppy hat smiled constantly as he spoke. “My name is John and I’ll be your captain—unless we run into trouble.”
The tourists on the boat laughed, just as John Lasseter knew they would. They’d been standing in line in the hot sun for almost an hour. They were ready for some entertainment, and their bar for humor wasn’t especially high.
Lasseter felt like the luckiest guy in the world to be working at Disneyland. Like most boys growing up in the early 1960s, he had loved cartoons, but unlike his friends, his love for them had never faded. While his high school classmates played sports, he went home to watch Elmer Fudd and Mickey Mouse. When Lasseter realized in ninth grade that grown men could actually get paid to draw cartoons, he instantly knew what he wanted to do with his life.
“Before I came to the Jungle Cruise, I worked in an orange juice factory,” he told the boat’s passengers, “but I got canned because I couldn’t concentrate.” In truth, Lasseter had come to the Jungle Cruise after a brief stint sweeping the sidewalks of Disney’s Tomorrowland. “My boss almost beat the pulp out of me,” he continued, laughing along with his audience. Sure, the joke was corny, but with an easy audience and the right delivery, puns like this were part of the stock-in-trade of every Jungle Cruise guide.
Three years earlier, Lasseter had enrolled at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts), a college established by Walt Disney as a training ground for the next generation of animators. There he’d found a troupe of fellow animation junkies. In between classes taught by Disney’s renowned artists and animators, John and his friends checked 16mm prints of Disney classics out of the school library and sat around watching them over and over again, like rabbis studying the Talmud.
As the boat rounded another curve, its passengers came face-to-face with animatronic jungle natives dancing in a circle. Some hopped on one foot and others thrust their spears up and down in rhythm with a beat pounded out by several drummers.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Lasseter gasped, “this is extremely rare! They’re doing their ‘I-Can’t-Find-the-Bathroom’ dance!” With that joke even the one or two grumpy dads on the boat joined in the laughter, interrupted only by Lasseter’s follow-up line: “That’s why they call them ‘head hunters.’ ”
Over the course of his four years at CalArts, Lasseter learned a lot about the technical elements of writing, drawing, and production. But the lessons he learned as a Jungle Cruise guide would prove almost as valuable. His summer of making corny quips and honing his deadpan humor taught him how to time a joke, pace a story, and feel confident in front of perfect strangers. After his summer at Disneyland, Lasseter was no longer just a cartoonist.
He was also a storyteller.
San Francisco, California
December 12, 1980
Standing in the offices of a small investment bank, surrounded by his cofounder Steve Wozniak and a slew of investors, Steve Jobs—who no longer made a habit of going barefoot—raised a glass of orange juice and offered a concise, if somewhat immodest toast: “To beautiful machines. To computers that will change the world. And to an insanely great company!”
Jobs was smiling, and for very good reason: his company was going public that very day. He thought back to the moment of fear and trepidation four years ago when he signed away everything he owned in return for a sheet of paper that stipulated his ownership stake in a company called Apple.
Not that Jobs was known for lacking self-confidence. As a boy, he had once called up Bill Hewlett, the cofounder of Hewlett-Packard, at his home to ask for some spare computer parts. Now, at the age of twenty-five, Jobs was a co-owner of the most revolutionary computer company in the world, a company that endeavored to put the power of personal computers into the hands of ordinary people.
When the day began, Apple’s stock was priced at $22 per share. By the time the closing bell rang its value had risen to $29. The company that Jobs had cofounded using money from the sale of his Volkswagen bus was now the most oversubscribed initial public offering since Ford Motor Company.
Anaheim, California
December 12, 1980
His office was cluttered with the classic toys he collected: a cherished tin wind-up soldier; a GI Joe; a Mr. Potato Head, all staring at him as he sketched at his drafting table. Now a junior animator at the Walt Disney Company, John Lasseter was working on the animated film The Fox and the Hound. It was a cute story, and everyone at Disney was fairly confident it would entertain kids and make some money—but something nagged at Lasseter. He believed it could be much more than that.
Lasseter dreamed of making movies that would become classics watched by generations of kids and treasured for decades, maybe even centuries. He thought about the animated masterpieces that had been created in the very offices where he now worked: Pinocchio; Fantasia; Dumbo; Bambi; Cinderella; Alice in Wonderland; Peter Pan; Lady and the Tramp; Sleeping Beauty; One Hundred and One Dalmatians; and The Jungle Book. They had been stories for the ages. But the creative geniuses behind those movies had retired years ago. In their place was a second tier of animators and executives who had risen to the top at Disney—not through talent, but through attrition. Their mission was to make movies as quickly and cheaply as possible. They seemed to care more about making big profits than making timeless movies.
As a result, the company had been making neither. r />
Lasseter mustered the courage to walk down the hallway and get everything off his chest. “I have a couple of ideas I’d like to run by you,” he said as he walked into the office of Richard Coyle, one of Disney’s more senior animators.
“Who are you?” Coyle barked.
Lasseter introduced himself, and then unleashed a slew of ideas for The Fox and the Hound. He believed he had come up with ways to better develop both title characters, to elevate the plot, and to make some of the key background scenery visually stunning. It would require more time and cost more money, but Lasseter thought the results would be worth it.
On the other side of the desk, Coyle’s eyes narrowed. When Lasseter finally finished his pitch, Coyle stared at him in silence for what seemed like an eternity before he spoke.
“Let me tell you something, John. You are a junior animator. It’s not your job to think big, expensive thoughts. Our audience is a bunch of kids who couldn’t care less about ‘character development’ and ‘plot strength.’ Just do what you’re told. And if you don’t like our way, there’s a line of people out the door who would be happy to take your place.”
Lasseter was speechless. And crushed. In that moment he realized that his dream had never been to merely work at Disney; it had been to create movies like Walt himself had made. But now Lasseter was beginning to understand that when Walt had died, the magic he’d brought to the movies that bore his name had died right along with him.
Anaheim, California
September 16, 1983
In a conference room at the intersection of Mickey Avenue and Dopey Drive, John Lasseter showed his bosses at Disney Animation a pitch he’d been working on for months. His proposal was to combine computer-generated sets with traditionally animated characters for a movie based on the classic short story by Thomas M. Disch, The Brave Little Toaster.
Lasseter’s vision for the film was based on three of his most deeply held beliefs: first, that animation could appeal to both children and adults alike by tapping into ageless themes and emotions; second, that computer animation could add unimagined visual richness to cartoons; and third, that inanimate objects, like toasters, could be depicted to have real emotions, and that the depiction could be used not just for comic effect—as Walt Disney had done—but for dramatic effect as well.