Walt's Women

The “Fab Five” characters in Disney legacy are Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto. They all have played a key part over the years and are well known.

However there is another “Fab Five” group that has not enjoyed the fame and acknowledgement and maybe it’s time we look at this group and learn about them.

I am talking about the women in Walt Disney’s life and how each of them influenced him in some way that manifested into a component or two that was a big part of his career and success.

Shall we?

Flora Call Disney (1868-1938)

Walt Disney’s mother, Flora, was born April 22, 1868, in Steuben, Ohio. She married Elias Disney when she was only 19 and together they produced five children. Some you know and some you don’t. The five children were Herbert, Raymond, Roy, Walt, and Ruth.

Not much has been written about Flora Disney but we do know that as a mother she was devoted to her children and did whatever she could to be involved in their lives.

I recall reading one Disney biography that touched upon Flora Disney’s death.

Both Walt and Roy Disney were close to their parents and as the Disney brothers found success in California they also found an opportunity to show this success to their parents. They bought a house in California and this house would be the new home for Elias and Flora.

Before they could move into the house however Walt addressed some issues that needed some attention. The biggest issue was a faulty heating system. Walt brought in a team to correct the problems with the heating system…or so he thought.

Unfortunately the repair fell far short of being successful and one night the heating system malfunctioned and filled the house with carbon-monoxide poising. As a result Flora Disney became ill and succumbed while her husband Elias barely survived.

Flora Disney died on November 26, 1938 at the age of 70.

News reports from that era indicated that after Walt returned from his mother’s funeral, he never mentioned her death publicly going forward. It has also been said that he blamed himself for her death.

From that time on Walt seems to have been influenced by that tragedy to the point where he operated every day as someone who was focused on being sure about something and to really be convinced that something was “right” before moving on. This work ethic was seen in his approach to his company.

Flora’s first name eventually appeared in Disney history in a very unexpected way.

Flora is the name of one of the three good fairies in Sleeping Beauty—Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. The name Flora had special significance to the Disney family because it was Walt’s mother’s name.

Flora Disney died a year after Snow White premiered.

Many Disney biographers have implied that Walt’s motherlessness, due to Flora’s death, explains why so many Disney protagonists have absent or deceased mothers. I’m not sure if that is true because many of these stories were based on older fairy tales and books that already had absent or dead parents.

Ruth Flora Disney Beecher (1903-1995)

Ruth Flora Disney Beecher was Walt Disney’s younger sister and only daughter of Elias and Flora Disney. She was born on December 6, 1903 in Chicago, Illinois and unlike her famous brothers, Ruth lived a quiet life.

Ruth was a private and reserved person and kept her Disney family connections private. She was close to the Disney family and was the family “librarian” as she kept extensive family memorabilia and diaries, which later provided valuable insight into the Disney family’s personal history.

Much of that material is now displayed at the Walt Disney Hometown Museum in Marceline, Missouri.

Ruth’s passion was music and specifically organ music and had an old theater organ in her home.

Philanthropy was a large part of Ruth’s life and would often help aspiring musicians financially, including people who wanted to become concert pianists. She often did this anonymously, without seeking recognition.

Once when Ruth was young she once became ill with measles and Walt entertained her by making drawings that appeared to move when the pages were flipped. You may be thinking the same as I am thinking that this may be an early glimpse of Walt experimenting with animation. However, this anecdote is somewhat flimsy so I’d treat it as a family-history story rather than definitive proof that this was Walt’s “first animation.”

Ruth has a small film credit: IMDb lists her in the animation department for the 1926 Disney short Alice’s Orphan.

Walt was very close to his sister and often wrote to her, especially on her birthday.

In one birthday letter, back in 1956, he told Ruth about his granddaughter Joanna and how much he and his wife, Lillian, enjoyed being grandparents.

In 1957, after returning from a long trip abroad, Walt told Ruth that he and Lillian had been homesick for their grandchildren. He then happily described the newest granddaughter, Tammy.

One of my favorite examples is a 1947 letter about his electric train.

In that letter Walt told Ruth he bought himself an electric train as a birthday/Christmas present. He also joked that, because she was a girl, she probably couldn’t understand how much he’d wanted one.

He set it up near his office so he could play with it during his spare moments.

There’s a very telling 1937 letter from Walt to Ruth about providing financial help for her new house and discussing plans for their parents’ golden wedding anniversary. This was evidence that Walt was personally involved in helping his sister financially.

The Marceline museum exists in large part because of Ruth who was the quiet sister who avoided her brothers’ celebrity but ended up preserving thousands of pieces of the family’s private history.

She died on April 7, 1995, at the age of 97.

Lillian Marie Bounds Disney (1899-1997)

Walt’s wife Lillian was born on February 15, 1899, in Spalding, Idaho. She grew up in Lapwai, on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation. Her father worked as a blacksmith and federal marshal. Lillian moved to Los Angeles in 1923 and worked at the Disney studio as an inker and painter of animation cels.

She later and became Walt’s secretary earning about $15 a week.

She and Walt married on July 13, 1925, in Lewiston, Idaho.

Here’s the story we all know.

When Walt lost control of his earlier character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, he developed a new character and wanted to call him “Mortimer Mouse.” Lillian thought the name was too formal and suggested “Mickey” instead.

The rest is Disney history

Lillian was private and stayed out of the spotlight. She has also beed described as being more conservative than Walt which gave balance to Walt’s sometimes extraordinarily ambitious ideas.

Walt died in 1966, but Lillian lived for another 31 years. She became more publicly involved in preserving and extending his legacy.

She supported CalArts, the California Institute of the Arts, and became a major patron of the arts and in 1987 she announced a $50 million gift toward the construction of what became Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, designed by Frank Gehry. The hall eventually opened in 2003.

Lillian passed away on December 16, 1997, at the ripe old age of 98.

Diane Disney Miller (1933–2013)

Diane Disney Miller was Walt and Lillian’s older and only biological daughter, born December 18, 1933.

She was very close to her father. Walt commissioned portraits of both Diane and Sharon by the famous illustrator Norman Rockwell.

In 1954 Diane married Ron Miller, who was a former professional football player who eventually became president and CEO of Walt Disney Productions serving from 1983 to 1984. They had seven children over their 60 years of marriage, making Diane the mother of a large Disney family.

Diane is known for preserving the real history of Walt Disney, and not the corporate mythology surrounding him. She co-founded the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco in 2009.

Her goal was to have the public learn more about her after as a person rather than the head of a large entertainment company.

Diane was also a big part in getting the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles completed.

Not many people knew that Diane was a very good pianist and loved classical music.She was a huge supported of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony.

She died on November 19, 2013 in Napa, California. at the age of 79. Apparently she died due to injuries she sustained in a fall.

Oh, one more fact about Diane and Ron. They developed the Silverado Vineyards in Napa Valley. Who knew?

Sharon Disney Lund (1936–1993)

Sharon was Walt and Lillian’s younger daughter. She was adopted by the couple as an infant in 1936.

Sharon was much less involved in documenting Walt’s personal history but did have a significant connection to the Disney business.

She became one of the founders of Retlaw Enterprises, the family company associated with Walt Disney’s personal assets and interests. In 1984, she was elected to the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company.

She died in 1993, at only 56 years old.

I think in all of this we see that Walt was quite the son, husband, and father and we can easily see how his life influenced his desire to make his company a family focused entertainment empire.

See you next time.