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Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Walt Disney will live again as a robot. His granddaughter says he never wanted this
Joanna Miller was 10 — no, '10 and three-quarters,' she clarifies — when she lost her grandfather. Even then, in December 1966, she shared him with the world. For Miller's grandad was Walt Disney, a name that would emblazen one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in the world, and come to signify uniquely American storytelling, family-friendly optimism and the creation of the modern theme park. Front-page stories across the globe announced his death, hailing him as a 'world enchanter,' 'amusement king' and 'wizard of fantasy.' But to Miller, he was just 'grampa.' She peppers stories about Disney in her conversations, often going down tangents as she recalls heartwarming moments. Such as the Christmas season when Disney, despite having access to Hollywood's most renown artists, put Miller's drawings on a holiday card. 'The bad art we were doing when we were 6 years old? He treated them like they were great works,' she says. She pauses, a tear forming in her eye. 'He was just the greatest guy. The best guy.' Miller is, to put it mildly, protective of Disney. So is the Walt Disney Co., and as Disneyland Resort's 70th anniversary in July approaches, both share a goal — to remind audiences of the man behind the corporate name. Last fall the company announced that an audio-animatronic of Disney would grace the opera house on Main Street, U.S.A., long home to 'Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln.' The new show, 'Walt Disney — A Magical Life,' will give parkgoers a sense of 'what it would have been like to be in Walt's presence,' Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D'Amaro explained at the announcement. The way Miller sees it, it's an abomination. 'Dehumanizing,' she wrote in a Facebook post that went viral among Disney's vast fandom. Calling the figure a 'robotic grampa,' she wrote, 'People are not replaceable. You could never get the casualness of his talking.' She also argued staunchly that Disney was against such mechanical immortalization. She stands by the post — she's one of the few, she says, to have seen the animatronic in the fake flesh — but also nervously laughs as she reflects on the attention it has brought her. Miller has long lived a private life, noting she considers herself shy — she declined to be photographed for this story — and says repeatedly it pains her to take a stand against the Walt Disney Co. She frets that the company will take away her access to the park, granted as part of an agreement when her father, the late Ron W. Miller, stepped down as CEO in 1984. But as Miller sees it, she has to speak up. 'He's ours,' Miller says of Disney. 'We're his family.' Most robotic figures in Disney parks represent fictional characters or overly-saturated political personalities, such as those in Florida's Hall of Presidents, which includes President Trump and living former presidents. Few speak and most are limited to statuesque movements. And unlike an attraction in which the company has full narrative control, such as a Pirates of the Caribbean, 'Walt Disney — A Magical Life' represents real life and a person who happens to have living, vocal descendants. And real life is complicated. 'When you get older,' Miller says, sometimes when things go wrong in life, 'you just start to get pissed off. And you get tired of being quiet. So I spoke up on Facebook. Like that was going to do anything? The fact that it got back to the company is pretty funny.' Get back to the company it did, as Miller soon found herself having an audience with Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger. These days, Miller is in the midst of remodeling Disney's first L.A. home in Los Feliz, a craftsman bungalow owned in the 1920s by his uncle Robert and aunt Charlotte, who let Disney stay with them when he came from the Midwest. Miller envisions the house hosting events, perhaps workshops and artist talks for arts education nonprofit Ryman Arts. Its feel is of a mini museum. In the garage sits a Mercedes Benz, the last vehicle Disney owned. Black-and-white images of Disney furnish the walls, decorative 'Fantasia' dishware shares space with vintage toys in a glass-doored cabinet, and animation artwork, waiting to be framed, is laid out on one of the beds. 'I have been thinking a lot about this house and what it means,' Miller says. 'I wouldn't be here. Grampa wouldn't have met granny. This all started because people were helping out grampa. Aunt Charlotte was making peanut brittle in this house that they sold at Disneyland. So this house, there would not be Disney company if it weren't for this house.' Miller's relationship with the company has wavered over the decades. She's more excited to share memories of Disney than recall the tumultuous corporate period when her father oversaw the behemoth company. On Saturdays, Disney would often bring her and her siblings to the studio. There, they had the run of the place, cruising around the backlot in their very own mini-cars designed for Disneyland's Autopia ride. Those visits largely ended when Disney died, as her father dedicated his weekends to golf. Championing Disney, and preserving his legacy, runs in her family. Her mother, Diane, who died in 2013, was the guiding force behind the foundation of San Francisco's Walt Disney Family Museum. Miller, who long sat on the board, said the idea of creating an animatronic of Disney is not new, and was once considered for the museum. 'When we started the museum, someone said, 'Hey, let's do Walt as an animatronic,'' Miller recalls. 'And my mom: 'No. No. No. No.' Grampa deserves new technology for this museum, but not to be a robot himself.' Her mother, says Miller, 'wanted to show him as a real human.' Miller says she first heard of Disneyland's animatronic last summer, a few weeks before D'Amaro announced the attraction at the fan convention D23. The show will follow a similar format to the Lincoln attraction, in which a film plays before the animatronic is revealed. Lincoln, for instance, stands and gives highlight's of the president's speeches, doing so with subtle, realistic movements. Disney, promises the company, will be even more lifelike, with dialogue taken from his own speeches. D'Amaro said 'A Magical Life' had the support of the Disney family, singling out Disney's grandnephew Roy P. Disney, who was in the audience. Miller stresses that she does not speak for her five siblings or other descendants, but as she wrote in a letter to Iger, 'I do speak for my grandfather and my mother.' Shortly after her Facebook post, Miller was invited to see the figure and meet with Iger and members of Walt Disney Imagineering, the secretive creative team responsible for theme park experiences. 'He was very kind,' Miller says of Iger. 'He let me do my spiel.' But she wasn't swayed. She says she asked him to create a set of guidelines on how the company would portray Disney, and Iger promised to protect his legacy. 'But I don't think he has. They're different people. He's a businessman, grampa was an artist.' Imagineering and Disneyland discussed the project at a media event in April, but the animatronic was not shown, nor were pictures revealed. Imagineering did display an early sculpt used in modeling the robot to show the care taken in crafting Disney. The sculpt depicts Disney in 1963, when he was 62. One could detect age spots on Disney's hands and weariness around his eyes. Miller recalls her reaction when she saw the figure. 'I think I started crying,' Miller says. 'It didn't look like him, to me.' There are at least two Walt Disneys. There's the company founder, Mickey Mouse designer and Disneyland creator who, later in life, visited millions of Americans via their television sets on the weekly 'Disneyland' show and became known as 'Uncle Walt.' Then there's the man Miller knew, a grandfather who exists to the rest of us only via stories. Sometimes these public-private personalities overlapped, such as the moments Disney would be paraded down Disneyland's Main Street with Miller and her siblings in tow. Miller pulls out a photo showing her face buried in her lap as she tried to hide from Disney's adoring fans. Or the times fans caught Miller looking out from Disney's Main Street apartment, a place where she spent many nights as a child and that still stands today. She recalls Disney stopping to talk to people at the park. 'It was the dearest thing,' she says. He would take photos with fans and sign autographs. 'I never ever saw him not be less than tickled and honored that people loved him so much.' Imagineers argue that the two Walt Disneys are being lost to history. 'Why are we doing this now?' said longtime Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald. He cited two reasons, the first being Disneyland's 70th anniversary. 'The other: I grew up watching Walt Disney on television. I guess I'm the old man. He came into our living room every week and chatted and it was very casual and you felt like you knew the man. But a lot of people today don't know Walt Disney was an individual.' The company also says that animatronic technology has advanced to a point it can do Disney justice. Miller is sympathetic to Imagineering's arguments. It's clear she holds tremendous respect for the division, believed to have been the aspect of the company Disney held dearest to his heart. She gushes about Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, the most recent major addition to Disney's original park. 'It's amazing,' Miller says. Yet she doesn't buy into the theory that the company is simply out to preserve Disney's legacy. If that were the case, she argues, then episodes of his weekly 'Disneyland' show would be available on streaming service Disney+. Worse, she worries an animatronic will turn Disney into a caricature. The robotic Lincoln works, says Miller, because we lack filmed footage of him. She wishes the company had abandoned the animatronic and created an immersive exhibit that could have depicted Disney in his park. 'I strongly feel the last two minutes with the robot will do much more harm than good to Grampa's legacy,' Miller wrote in her letter to Iger. 'They will remember the robot, and not the man.' Miller has a number of letters and emails of support, some from former Imagineers, but has crossed out their names before handing them to a journalist. Most contacted for this story didn't return calls or emails, or declined to speak on the record, noting their current business relationships with the Walt Disney Co. The legacy of Disney is 'precious yet vulnerable,' said one such source, refusing to give a name because they still work with the company. 'Isn't it honorable when a granddaughter defends her grandfather? There's nothing in it for her.' Miller says she simply wants the company to respect Disney's wishes — that he never be turned into a robot. 'In all our research, we never found any documentation of Walt saying that,' Imagineer Jeff Shaver-Moskowitz said in April. 'We know that it's anecdotal and we can't speak to what was told to people in private.' And therein lies a major hurdle Miller faces. Those who Miller says knew of Disney's preferences — her mother, her father and Imagineers he was closest to, including confidant and former Imagineering chief Marty Sklar — are all dead. That leaves, unless someone else comes forward, only her. Miller, however, is realistic. Her family's biggest mistake, she argues, was selling the rights to Disney's name, likeness and portrait to the company in 1981 for $46.2 million in stock. It leaves the family little to zero say in how Disney is preserved in the park, although Imagineering says it has worked closely with the Walt Disney Family Museum and those descendants who are currently on the museum board in constructing the animatronic show. But there's one thing the Walt Disney Co. can't control, and that's Miller's voice — and her memories. On their trips to Disneyland, Miller's grandfather was happy to stop for autographs, but he also signed — in advance — the pages of an office pad. When the crowds became a bit much, he would hand a park-goer an inscribed piece of paper. 'After 10-15 minutes,' Miller recalls, 'he would say, 'Hey, I'm with the grandkids today, and we have things to do.''
Los Angeles Times
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Disney's exclusive Club 33 is opening its membership. Here's how you can join the waitlist
Disneyland's Club 33 has long been touted as the theme park's most exclusive and mysterious members-only club, but that's changing as the 'Happiest Place on Earth' opens up its member list. Club 33's allure is that members and staff don't talk about the not-so-secret society openly hidden in New Orleans Square at Disneyland. Club 33 stays on the down-low with discreet rules and even a dress code. But Disneyland is breaking those rules and sharing access to its Club 33 location within the Disneyland resort for the first time by advertising the club's existence online and on the Disneyland app. But don't hold your breath. The wait list to join reportedly is several years long. Demand for membership is so highly coveted that an Arizona husband and wife sued — but lost their bid — to regain entry into the club after the theme park revoked the couple's membership because the husband was caught allegedly drunk in the park. The club was founded by Walt Disney himself and, according to the theme park website, it offers various curated experiences for members, including access to exclusive dining locations at the Disneyland resort. Located next to the Blue Bayou restaurant, the club takes its name from its 33 Royal St. address in Disneyland's New Orleans Square. A '33' sign on a locked green door signals the entrance to the mysterious club. It was inspired by the VIP lounges Walt Disney experienced at the 1964 New York World's Fair where 'It's a Small World' and 'Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln' debuted. The private club opened its doors in 1967. Celebrities who belong to the club include Tom Hanks, Christina Aguilera and Elton John, Eater reported. Club 33 was the only restaurant and bar in the theme park that served alcohol until Oga's Cantina opened in Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge in 2019. But being a member of Club 33 comes at a high price: as much as $50,000 for the initiation fee as well as an annual membership fee of $15,000 or higher, depending on the membership level. You have to express interest in a Club 33 membership by filling out an online form. You'll be asked to provide your name, address, phone number and email address. Submitting a form doesn't mean you'll be automatically become a member. 'If the opportunity presents itself, Club 33 may contact you,' according to the website. How Club 33 leadership decides which people to offer membership to is up to their 'sole discretion.' You'll only hear from the club as opportunities become available.
