Eisner Looks Back and Ahead

On the eve of his exit, outgoing Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Michael Eisner took center stage at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel and reflected on his fortuitous timing.

Speaking to an audience of entertainment executives Tuesday, Eisner noted that the company’s once-suffering ABC television network had launched the fall season at the top of the heap for the first time in a decade. ABC was No. 1 among viewers 18 to 49 years old, the audience most coveted by advertisers.

The network’s strong showing came “just in the nick of time,” Eisner said. “Next week, I couldn’t take credit for it.”

On Friday, Eisner, 63, will step down as head of the company he has led for 21 years, formally giving over the reins to his handpicked successor, Disney President Robert Iger.

While attending functions such as the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland and promoting his book “Camp,” Eisner has kept a low profile in recent months, surprising critics who suspected he’d have trouble wrenching himself from a company in which he had vested so much of his identity and stirred up so much controversy.

Indeed, the mere prospect of Eisner’s remaining at Disney in some capacity became a central issue during the search for a successor. Eisner’s critics in and out of the company believed that if he was to remain in a position of power he might undercut his replacement.

His exact role with Disney in the future remains unclear. Publicly, Eisner has said only that he expects to remain in the entertainment field. Behind the scenes, however, he is seeking continuing ties to the company.

Those could include a consulting deal and the use of such perks as the corporate jet and an office with an assistant.

Eisner had considered moving into the vacant office of Roy E. Disney, a former dissident director who quit in a dispute with the CEO and later led a shareholder revolt that resulted in Eisner being stripped of his chairmanship title.

That office had once been occupied by Roy’s uncle, Walt, as well as by Eisner himself.

Disney spokeswoman Zenia Mucha acknowledged that Eisner had considered keeping an office on the company’s Burbank lot but chose not to do so. She would not say where an office might be found for the ex-CEO.

Disney board members are expected to finalize the terms of his ongoing relationship next month. But this much already is clear: Eisner will remain one of the largest individual shareholders of the company, holding approximately 14 million shares, valued at $327 million based on Tuesday’s closing price of $23.36.

In his waning days, Eisner has said that he does not want a send-off party. He is expected to send a farewell e-mail to the company’s approximately 120,000 employees this week. He is likely to remind them of the entertainment giant Disney has become.

Eisner transformed the company from an ailing studio with a few theme parks to a $30-billion global media giant with 11 parks, television networks, Broadway shows and cruise ships.

But his legacy was also tarnished by a series of high-level clashes, leading to the departure of executives who in many cases moved on to successful careers elsewhere.

His most publicized falling-out was with former Disney President Michael Ovitz, who was fired in 1996 after just 15 months on the job.

On Tuesday, as the honored guest of the Hollywood Radio and Television Society, he gave little hint of his controversial tenure, other than to say he had less hair now than when he began in 1984. Instead, he reminisced about the markers of his career, from his days as a page at NBC to his involvement creating such hit shows as “Happy Days” at ABC to years at Paramount Pictures, where with Barry Diller he oversaw movie hits that included “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “48 Hours.”

He also told the executives not to fret about the advent of technologies -- particularly the Internet -- that are changing the nature of the business.

“I do know creative exploration never ages or dies,” Eisner said, speaking not only of the industry but of himself.