Roy E. Disney Rejuvenated Company

The year was 1984 and all was not well in the house that Walt built.

After a series of management missteps and expensive motion-picture failures such as “Tron,” the Walt Disney Co.’s stock had plummeted in value, and support for President Ronald W. Miller--Walt’s son-in-law--was rapidly eroding among executives at the Burbank entertainment giant.

Enter Roy Edward Disney, son of the company’s late co-founder, Roy O. Disney, and nephew of Walt. Born in 1930, Roy E. Disney had joined the studio in 1954 as an editor on the successful “True-Life Adventure” documentary films and watched with growing dismay as his family’s empire became poised for a corporate raid.

After briefly resigning from the board of directors, Disney helped to thwart the takeover efforts of investor Saul Steinberg, oust Miller as head of the company and install Michael D. Eisner as the Walt Disney Co.’s chairman and CEO.

“Roy gave two conditions for his support,” Eisner says in Christopher Finch’s 1995 book, “The Art of Walt Disney.”

“One was that the company should not be broken up, which had been a threat of the early ‘80s, and the other was that we should give animation a fair shake.”

Today, as vice chairman, Roy Disney presides over a rejuvenated animation department from his perch in a whimsical Burbank building inspired by “Fantasia,” a department that has produced such recent high-grossing hits as “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King.”