RIP: Roy Disney

[LikaNui]

I'm very sad to say that Roy Disney has passed away.
Roy was Walt's nephew, even though there was often confusion because he resembled Walt more than he did his own father. Roy's dad was the financial genius to Walt's creative genius. Roy headed the animation department at Disney Studios and was responsible for many of Disney's successes over the past two or three decades; he was also Vice Chairman of Disney's Board of Directors for eons. Roy was also the guiding light behind Disney's purchase of the ABC television network and all its subsidiaries, including ESPN.
Roy's biggest love was sailing, mostly racing on one of his yachts named Pyewacket. (Pyewacket was the magical cat in the movie "Bell, Book and Candle," which wasn't even a Disney movie. Warner Brothers, as I recall.) I'm honored to have raced with Roy on Pyewacket on numerous occasions, and I mentioned here on HT a long time ago that I was shocked to see a photo of us in the Hawaii Maritime Museum taken as we crossed the Transpac Race finish line at Diamond Head. (I posted that photo here on HT somewhere, and I've added them here again, below.) There were also races to Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, and Mazatlan.
Roy was an extremely nice guy and had no ego or pretensions at all. His office at Disney Studios looked more like a yacht club, full of racing photos (some of them were shots I'd taken) and trophies and nautical memorabilia. Except for Board meetings, Roy always wore t-shirts, jeans and TopSiders (boat shoes). Just a regular guy. One of the boys.
Roy used to own one of the TV stations here in Honolulu, KGMB if I recall correctly. At that time he owned a fabulous apartment at the Colony Surf near Diamond Head, which he later sold to Thurston Twigg-Smith. Roy was most recently in the process of building a home at the foot of Diamond Head (Kahala side) where he was going to live with his new wife, Honolulu cinematographer Leslie DeMeuse. He was also very outspoken about the sorry condition of Hawaii's harbors and marinas, and he let our government officials and our local media know about it.
Roy, you most certainly will be missed.

[leashlaws]

Re: RIP: Roy Disney

Yes, another legend gone. RIP.

[Vanguard]

Re: RIP: Roy Disney

So sorry to read this news. RIP.

[LikaNui]

Re: RIP: Roy Disney

I hope you'll pardon me for re-living some old memories. I've been looking back at some photos of racing with Roy aboard various versions of Pyewacket.
Here's one of all of us at the dock in Honolulu after the TransPac race from Los Angeles, wearing our crew shirts. Roy is standing at the far right; I'm the one kneeling at the far left:



This one is racing on Santa Monica Bay in the Cal Cup Regatta. I'm at the base of the mast adjusting the hydraulic boom vang, wearing yellow shorts:



Two more photos to follow, regarding the Pyewacket cat itself...

[Vanguard]

Re: RIP: Roy Disney

I hope you'll pardon me for re-living some old memories. I've been looking back at some photos of racing with Roy aboard various versions of Pyewacket.
Here's one of all of us at the dock in Honolulu after the TransPac race from Los Angeles, wearing our crew shirts. Roy is standing at the far right; I'm the one kneeling at the far left:

No pardoning necessary! Thanks for sharing that wonderful bit of history.

[LikaNui]

Re: RIP: Roy Disney

If you noted in my first post about "Pyewacket" being the magical cat from the movie "Bell, Book & Candle", you'll get these photos.
First is a long shot of the boat, and you can see the graphic of the cat on the boat's transom, below and to the right of the US flag:



And here's the actual graphic we used:



On a couple of his boats, we used that cat on the sides of the boat and on some of the spinnakers, but the one on the rear was a version of it snarling. Just to intimidate our competitors. Heh.
Sail on, Roy, sail on.

[anapuni808]

Re: RIP: Roy Disney

You're very fortunate to have raced on one of the "big" boats in TransPac! That must have been very exciting. I used to work for someone who did the race but in a 35' boat. I spent many days tracking his boat through the website, during the race.

PS: you don't look anything like your profile pic

[LikaNui]

Re: RIP: Roy Disney

Almost every major news outlet is running the story about Roy's passing. I liked this one that a friend e-mailed to me.
It included these items, and I've made a few comments:

Disney, born in 1930, had practically grown up with the company. His uncle Walt Disney and his father, Roy O. Disney, had co-founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio seven years before, later renaming it The Walt Disney Co.
Two years before he was born, the company gave birth to its iconic cartoon character, Mickey Mouse. While Walt was the company's creative genius, his brother was the one in charge of the company's finances.
Starting in the 1950s, the younger Roy Disney worked for years in the family business as an editor, screenwriter and producer. Two short films he worked on were nominated for Academy Awards: the 1959 "Mysteries of the Deep," which he wrote, was nominated as best live action short, and the 2003 film "Destino," which he co-produced, was nominated as best animated short.
Despite his heritage, Roy Disney never got the chance to lead the company as his father and uncle had. But as an investor who grew his Disney stock into a billion-dollar fortune, he ultimately had a huge impact on the company's destiny.
(...)
During that time, Disney rejoined the board and rose to become the company's vice chairman and chairman of its animation division, where he helped oversee the making of such hit films as 1994's "The Lion King."
He also became a savvy investor over the years, forming Shamrock Holdings with his friend and fellow Disney board member Stanley Gold in 1978. The fund grew to become a major investor in California real estate, the state of Israel and other entertainment and media companies. In 2007, Forbes magazine ranked him as the 754th richest person in the world and estimated his fortune at $1.3 billion.

Roy named his Shamrock Holdings investment company after his first large boat, a 54' Sparkman & Stephens cruising yacht painted emerald green and named Shamrock. (Hey, he's Irish.) He spent a lot of time sailing around SoCal with his family in that boat in the 1960s and 1970s, before he got the racing bug. He did a lot of races to Ensenada in Shamrock and that's what got his then-young son, Roy Pat, into sailboat racing. Roy Pat has been on many races with us, and even skippered Pyewacket in a Transpac one year when his dad had severely broken his leg in a car crash and had to skip the race. And of course that was the year that Pyewacket finally won the TransPac. Winning the TransPac's "Barn Door Trophy" (a giant piece of koa wood, awarded to the first boat to finish) had always been Roy's dream, and he wasn't even aboard the year he won it. He was disappointed but sure was proud of Roy Pat. (Roy Pat is not in the Disney business; he owns a chain of gyms in SoCal.)
I wasn't on the boat that year, but enjoyed watching some daily TransPac updates on ESPN, with Roy acting as commentator. Roy flew to Honolulu in time to catch the end of the race. I was having lunch with Roy (in his wheelchair from the traffic accident) and his wife Patty at the Hawaii Yacht Club and told him I'd enjoyed seeing him on the ESPN coverage. I asked how he happened to get that gig. He looked around to make sure nobody was listening, and said "You forgot. I own ESPN."
Roy always spent big buck$ getting new sails and equipment for each TransPac. (Mainsails and spinnakers alone can each cost $50,000 or more, with all the high-tech sailcloth material and their huge size. He also replaced stainless steel fittings with ones made of titanium; much more expensive but stronger and lighter.) During that same lunch, I asked him what new gear he'd added that year. He was telling me the list when his wife Patty broke in and said "If I'd had as many facelifts as that boat, I'd be a movie star!"

Also from that article:

In his spare time he bought a castle in Ireland and indulged his passion for yacht racing, setting several speed records. For years he was a fixture at the Transpacific Yacht Race between California and Hawaii.

True, but not the whole story. Roy and his wife Patty are both very very Irish and proud of it. It was Patty who wanted to buy a castle in Ireland, and since she never pestered Roy about the money he spent on his sailboats, he bought her the castle. We all named the castle "Patty's Pyewacket." She never knew.
Roy told me that another reason he didn't mind buying it was that he'd always wanted to belong to the oldest yacht club in the world, which is The Royal Cork Yacht Club in, of course, Ireland. Buying the castle and technically being a resident of Ireland, he was allowed to join.
By the way, the accident that broke his leg happened in Ireland. He was driving into town from the castle in his older model Mini Cooper, pulled up to a stop sign on a two-lane country road, looked both ways, pulled out, and some drunken idiot came around a curve at high speed and T-boned the Mini, shattering Roy's leg. Took a long time to heal. At the TransPac awards banquet, several of us hoisted him in his wheelchair onto the stage in the banquet room of the Ilikai Hotel to accept the Barn Door Trophy. Patty was terrified that we were going to drop him. We didn't.

After graduating from Pomona College in 1951, he briefly worked at NBC as an assistant editor on the "Dragnet" TV series.
After joining Disney, he worked on a series of live action short features, including "The Living Desert" and "The Vanishing Prairie."
Disney was also an active philanthropist, supporting the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, a school founded by his father and uncle.
In 1999, he matched a gift from The Walt Disney Co. to establish an experimental theater space as part of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The theater was named the Roy and Edna Disney-CalArts Theater or Redcat.
In 2005, he pledged $10 million to establish the Roy and Patricia Disney Cancer Center at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.

He made far more contributions to charities than just those, including many here in Hawaii.

Thanks for letting me reminisce.

[LikaNui]

Re: RIP: Roy Disney

PS: you don't look anything like your profile pic

Only because I wasn't smoking in those racing photos!
Not that we couldn't. Roy was a smoker too, up until a few years ago. Many's the time we'd be at sea, leaning against the lifelines watching the sunset and having a beer and a smoke and counting our blessings.

[leashlaws]

Re: RIP: Roy Disney

Great pictures Lika - I have always loved "Bell Book & Candle" great stars in that movie! What great memories you have! Thanks for sharing! Leash

[LikaNui]

Re: RIP: Roy Disney

Some of us who raced with Roy have been asked to write some memories that will be used later, so I'm using HT to write them, then I'll compile them and send 'em off. Here's another one.
It was after a race from Los Angeles to Cabo San Lucas (at the tip of the Baja Peninsula in Mexico, for those who don't know).
First of all, let me explain about racing on these 70-foot screaming machines. Weight is the all-important consideration. Food on the races was all freeze-dried, kinda similar to military MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat). No regular food; it's too heavy. (And definitely no bananas on board; they're considered bad luck to sailors.) Also, each member of the crew can only bring one small duffel bag of personal gear. Clothes were used things we bought at places like Salvation Army stores; that way, when they got dirty and smelly we'd just throw them into the ocean, rather than carry the extra weight to the finish line. Showers were on deck, with salt water. We used Joy dish detergent as shampoo; it's the only thing that will suds up with saltwater. Get the picture? Racing a 70-footer is no pleasure cruise.
So you can imagine that once the race is over, the very first thing we all want is a nice hot shower and a big hot meal.
So it was that Roy and the crew of Pyewacket were in the famous Giggling Marlin restaurant in Cabo San Lucas.
The restaurant's world-famous logo is this:

They actual have that painted as a lifesize mural on the wall inside the restaurant. There's a rope that they'll tie around your feet and haul you up into the air, so you get a photo of yourself being held up by the marlin. Very cool!
Well, there we were loving our first hot meal in days and, um, perhaps loving some margaritas too. One of the restaurant's young Mexican busboys was getting tourists to come up, then he'd haul them into the air and they could get their photos. He came to our table and asked if anyone wanted to do it. We all pointed to a crew member we called Tiny, who was slouched down in his chair. Tiny started to stand up... and up... and UP. The guy was about 6'8" and built like a weightlifter! The little busboy took one look at Tiny, then turned and ran into the kitchen, refusing to come back out.
But that's not really the point of this story.
A little later I had to go to the restroom. As I passed the front desk I noticed that they had a few emerald green t-shirts that said "Shamrock At The Giggling Marlin" that they'd sold a few weeks earlier for St. Patrick's Day. You'll recall from an earlier post that Roy had a cruising boat named Shamrock, so I decided to buy one of the shirts for him. I told the restaurant owner it was for Mr. Disney's boat. The owner said "Disney? THE Disney man?!?" Yep. That is he.
The owner dashed into the kitchen, told all the staff who was out there, and they all came out to our table together with looks of amazement and calling Roy "the father of Mickey Mouse" (in Spanish). They were sooooo excited, some were even crying. (I'm getting a little misty just remembering.) It was a very touching moment in time. And yes, Roy got his t-shirt.
When we got back to Los Angeles, Roy quietly sent a whole shipment of Disney gifts. Each person on the staff of the Giggling Marlin got free gifts of Mickey Mouse t-shirts, watches, etc., and big stuffed toys for each of their kids.
That's the Roy Disney I knew, bless his heart.

[Kalihiboy]

Re: RIP: Roy Disney

Believe it was KITV that Roy owned as part of Shamrock Broadcasting, Dick Grimm was GM back in those days, 1979-87 timeframe?

Aj

[LikaNui]

Re: RIP: Roy Disney

You're right, AJ. Erika e-mailed that to me yesterday (thanks, Erika!), but I didn't see it until I was heading out the door late afternoon and didn't get home until after 1am.
Check out her column in today's paper [url=http://www.starbulletin.com/business/20091217_disney_raced_yachts_owned_tv_station_in_i sles.html]at this link.