Roy O. Disney
Roy Oliver Disney (June 24, 1893 – December 20, 1971) was an American businessman and co-founder, with his younger brother Walt Disney, of the company that became The Walt Disney Company. While Walt supplied most of the creative direction, Roy managed finance, business operations and fundraising, a division of labour that lasted from the founding of their Hollywood cartoon studio in 1923 until Walt's death in 1966. Roy then came out of planned retirement to complete Walt Disney World in Florida, which he dedicated in October 1971, shortly before his own death.
Early life
Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Elias Disney and Flora Call Disney, and was eight years older than Walt. The family lived in Marceline, Missouri, and Kansas City during his youth. As boys, Roy and Walt worked together on their father's newspaper delivery route in Kansas City. Roy worked in banking after leaving school and served in the United States Navy during the First World War. He later contracted tuberculosis and was convalescing in Los Angeles in 1923 when Walt arrived from Kansas City after the failure of his first animation company.
Founding the studio
The brothers pooled their resources to start the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio on October 16, 1923. Roy contributed about 250 dollars of his own savings, supplemented by a loan from their uncle and money from their parents. In the earliest period Roy was not only the business manager but also helped in practical roles, including operating a camera.
As the company grew through the Mickey Mouse cartoons and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Roy's work centred on distribution deals, licensing and keeping lenders willing to support expensive animated features. He was known for resisting Walt's most costly proposals at first and then finding a way to finance them once a decision had been made. In 1929 he became the company's chief executive in practice, although formal titles changed over time; he served as president from 1945 to 1968 and as chairman from 1964 until his death. His son, Roy E. Disney, later became a senior executive and board member.
Disneyland and television
Roy handled the financial structure behind Disneyland in the 1950s. The park was held through an arrangement in which the ABC television network held a substantial minority stake in exchange for its investment and for the weekly Disney programme that promoted the park. In 1960 Roy arranged to buy out ABC's interest, at a cost many times larger than the network's original investment, bringing the park fully under the studio's control.
Roy generally avoided public attention and rarely appeared as the public face of the company. Historians have described him as the quieter partner whose willingness to manage debt and negotiate with banks made it possible for the studio to survive costly feature production, the Second World War and the construction of Disneyland.
Completing Walt Disney World
When Walt Disney died on December 15, 1966, the Florida project had been announced but construction had not begun. The planned centrepiece, EPCOT, was a working city rather than a park, and the board was unwilling to operate a municipality. Roy postponed his retirement, took charge and directed that a theme park on the Disneyland model be built first, with hotels to support it.
Roy also insisted that the resort be named Walt Disney World, rather than Disney World, so that Walt would be identified as its originator. He supervised financing and construction through a period that required drainage, roads, utilities and the municipal framework of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, authorised by Florida in 1967.
On October 1, 1971, Magic Kingdom opened, along with the Contemporary and Polynesian resorts. Roy dedicated the resort later that October, retired after the opening and died in Burbank, California, on December 20, 1971, at the age of 78, from an intracranial haemorrhage, less than three months after the resort opened.
Legacy
Roy Disney is commemorated less visibly than his brother, reflecting a lifetime preference for working away from publicity. A statue of Roy seated on a bench beside Minnie Mouse was installed in Town Square at Magic Kingdom, complementing the Partners statue of Walt and Mickey. Accounts of the company's history generally credit Roy with providing the financial discipline and continuity that allowed Walt's projects, including the Florida resort Walt never saw built, to be completed.