Disney and CalArts

I like the headline on your business article (Oct. 30), “Disney’s Magic School,” because it is indeed magic that goes on at California Institute of the Arts.

My tenure on the board of trustees runs from 1961 (in a planning stage) to the present. From 1968 to 1971, I served as board chairman in times that were often difficult and traumatic. From 1958 to Walt Disney’s death in 1966, I met with him privately and in groups in countless meetings on the concept and program for this unique educational enterprise. It is from this 36-year perspective that I want to comment on your article.

The article says that “CalArts was conceived three decades ago as a clever way to funnel an army of skilled animators into the Disney Studios.” This is not so:

* Animation is but 14% of the student body.

* Animation is but one program in the film/video school, which in turn is one of five schools at CalArts (theater, dance, art, film/video, music).

* Animation graduates are spread throughout the industry (for example, Amblin, Film Roman, Hanna Barbera, Hyperion, Warner Bros. and 11 other studios in my alumni list). It is not a Disney captive supply by any measure.

Not in any of the hundreds of hours of discussion on the purpose of this school was “animator supply” ever mentioned as a motive. The prime objectives were: 1) to create a place where artists could be broadened in their cultural grasp and reach by exposure to an extensive inter-arts program (he called it the cross-fertilization of the arts), and 2) students were to be taught by professionals leading to professionalism and employability. We were to defeat the bugaboo of the artist’s life described best by the adjective “starving.”

We are delighted that CalArts alumni have become an integral part of the Disney Co. but we know that our alumni and their work are also an integral part of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Museum of Contemporary Art, Whitney Museum, Guthrie Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Bella Lewitzky Co., Loretta Livingston Co., Knott’s Berry Farm, MCA, BRC Imagination Arts and many, many other thriving arts and entertainment companies. Our alumni are widely dispersed and thankfully this has been matched by the development of a very broad support structure which carries on the work launched by Walt Disney and Roy Disney Sr. and their families.

My point is that Walt’s vision of this place was long-term, far-reaching and never parochial. He often said that it would be his most important legacy. He did not, however, put a personal stamp on it. It would not be named after him. That would have limited the perception of his quest.

HARRISON A. PRICE

San Pedro