| Diane Marie Disney | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 18, 1933 USA |
| Spouse(s) | Ron W. Miller (b.1931-) (Married in 1954) |
| Children | Christopher D. Miller (b.1954) Joanna Miller (b.1956) Tamara Scheer (b.1957) Jennifer Miller-Goff (b.1960) Walter Elias Disney Miller (b.1961) Ronald Miller (b.1963) Patrick Miller (b.1967) |
| Parents | Walt Disney (1901–1966) Lillian Bounds Disney (1899–1997) |
Diane Disney Miller (born Diane Marie Disney on December 18, 1933) is the eldest daughter of Walt Disney and his wife Lillian Bounds Disney. She had a younger sister, Sharon Mae Disney, who was adopted by the Disneys in 1936, and who died in 1993.
Miller's husband, Ronald William Miller, was CEO of The Walt Disney Company until 1984, when Diane's cousin Roy E. Disney supported Miller's ouster in favor of Michael Eisner and Frank Wells. She and her husband have seven children.
In the early-1970s, Diane and Ron Miller purchased a vineyard in Napa Valley, California. Their intention was to upgrade the property, replant to premium varietals, install new trellising and frost protection, but not to build or run a winery. Because their vineyards produced exceptional, top-quality fruit and award-winning wines for other wineries, Diane and her husband decided to construct their own winery in 1980. Since 1981, they have operated their winery, Silverado Vineyards Winery, on a tract of their Napa property.
Diane was instrumental in pushing ahead with the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. The project was initiated with a $50 million gift from Lillian Disney but got bogged down in wrangling over costs. Diane ensured the original design by Frank Gehry went ahead, and Walt Disney Hall finally opened in 2004.
Diane read her father's original dedication fifty years later to the day at the birthday celebrations of Disneyland on July 17, 2005. Diane organized the development of The Walt Disney Family Museum at the Presidio of San Francisco. The museum opened in October, 2009.
She criticized the use of a lookalike of Mickey Mouse named Farfour in Tomorrow's Pioneers, a Hamas children's show that she referred to as "pure evil."[1] Animation historian Michael Barrier reports Miller in August 2007 sent a fax to a number of executives at the Walt Disney Company, denouncing Neal Gabler's biography of Walt Disney published in 2006 Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination as "a monstrous piece of libelous junk. My parents were not the people he creates in this book, and I cannot understand why all of you who aided and abetted Gabler in writing this book, and who praise it and promote it, can do so without suffering serious qualms."[2]
See also
References
- ^ "Disney condemns Hamas Mickey Mouse", ITN.com, 2007-05-09, Retrieved on 2007-05-14
- ^ "Diane Disney Miller on Neal Gabler", Retrieved on 2007-08-29
External links
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