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Michael Dammann Eisner (born March 7, 1942)
ran the The Walt Disney Company from 1984 to 2005.
****
Early life
Eisner, born to affluence in Mt. Kisco, New
York, was raised on Park Avenue in New York. He attended the
Lawrenceville School and graduated from Denison University in 1964 with
a B.A. in English.
ABC and Paramount
After two brief stints at NBC and CBS,
Barry Diller at ABC hired Eisner as Assistant to the National
Programming Director. Eisner moved up the ranks, eventually becoming a
vice president in charge of programming and development. In 1976, Diller,
who had by then moved on to become chairman of Paramount Pictures,
plucked Eisner from ABC and made him president and COO of the movie
studio. During his tenure at Paramount, the studio turned out such hit
films as Saturday Night Fever, Grease, the Star Trek film franchise,
Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Beverly Hills Cop, and hit TV shows such as
Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Cheers and Family Ties.
Diller left Paramount in 1984, and, as his
protege, Eisner expected to assume Diller's position as studio chief.
When he was passed over for the job, though, he left to look for work
elsewhere and lobbied for the position of CEO of The Walt Disney
Company.
Disney
After Walt Disney Productions, the
world-renowned studio that had been struggling to get by since its
founder's death in 1966, narrowly survived takeover attempts by
corporate raiders, shareholders Sid Bass and Roy E. Disney brought on
Eisner and former Warner Brothers chief Frank Wells to turn the
company's dire situation around.
During the second half of the 1980s and
1990s, the studio quickly revitalised, becoming one of the department,
and the division had a "golden age" with annual box office hits with
such regularity that even their creative structure started to be known
as the "Disney formula." Disney also broadened its adult offerings in
film with Eisner's predecessor, Ron W. Miller, of Miramax Films in 1994.
Disney acquired a slew of other media sources, including ESPN.
During the early part of the 1990s, he and
his partners set out to plan "The Disney Decade" which was to feature
new parks around the world, existing park expansions, new films, and new
media investments. However while some of the proposals did follow
through, most did not. These include WestCOT, Disney's America,
Disney-MGM Studios Paris, and amongst film projects, sequels for Who
Framed Roger Rabbit.
Wells died in a helicopter crash in 1994,
ending the longstanding feud between the two men (the Lion King, which
is the most successful hand-drawn animated picture, was released over
two months later in his memory). Shortly thereafter, Jeffrey Katzenberg
resigned and formed Dreamworks SKG with partners Steven Spielberg and
David Geffen because Eisner would not appoint Katzenberg to Wells' now
available post.
The Save Disney war and Eisner's ouster
In 2003, Roy Edward Disney, also the son of
co-founder Roy Oliver Disney, resigned from his positions as Disney vice
chairman and chairman of Walt Disney Feature Animation, accusing Eisner
of micro-management, failures with the ABC television network, timidity
in the theme park business, turning the Walt Disney Company into a
"rapacious, soul-less" company, and refusing to establish a clear
succession plan, as well as a string of box-office movie failures
starting in the year 2000. (Text of resignation letter)
On March 3, 2004, at Disney's annual
shareholders' meeting, a surprising and unprecedented 43% of Disney's
shareholders, predominantly rallied by former board members Roy Disney
and Stanley Gold, voted to oppose the reelection of Eisner to the
corporate board of directors. This vigorous opposition, unusual in major
public corporations, convinced Disney's board to strip him of his
chairmanship and give that position to former U.S. Senator George
Mitchell. However, the board did not give Eisner's detractors what they
really wanted: his immediate removal as chief executive.
As criticism of Eisner intensified in the
wake of the shareholder meeting, however, his position became more and
more tenuous, and on March 13, 2005, Eisner announced that he would step
down as CEO one year before his contract expired. On September 30,
Eisner resigned both as an executive and as a member of the board of
directors, and, severing all formal ties with the company, he waived his
contractual rights to perks such as the use of a corporate jet and an
office at the company's Burbank headquarters. Eisner's replacement was
his longtime lieutenant, Bob Iger.
Eisner's struggle to maintain control of
the legendary entertainment company was the subject of journalist James
B. Stewart's bestselling book DisneyWar.
Post-Disney
On October 7, 2005, Eisner hosted The
Charlie Rose Show. His guests were John Travolta and his
ex-boss-turned-rival, Barry Diller. Months later, on January 10, 2006,
CNBC announced that Eisner would be given his own hour-long, prime-time
interview show, Conversations with Michael Eisner.
Although now the second largest majority
stockholder at the Walt Disney Company, new CEO Robert Iger has seen to
be eager by many to remove as much of Eisner's influence at the company
as possible. At the One Man's Dream attraction at the Disney-MGM Studios
park, Eisner, who previously hosted the attraction's post show biography
of Walt Disney, has been replaced as host by unofficial company mascot
Julie Andrews. Also, all corporate portraits of Eisner at all official
Walt Disney Co. offices around the world have been removed, mirroring
Eisner's step to remove all portraits of Roy E. Disney after the "Save
Disney" crisis. All this is in spite of the fact that Eisner was the
largest shareholder at Disney, until the terms of the Pixar acquisition
deal resulted in Steve Jobs holding that distinction.
This course of events was contradicted on
January 23, 2006 when the board of the Walt Disney Company, on the verge
of voting to buy Pixar Animation Studios, unanimously voted to re-name
the Team Disney building at company headquarters The Michael D. Eisner
Building.
Variety.com recently reported that Eisner
invested in an internet television company named Veoh Networks.
Portrayals in film and television
Eisner's controversial stature has resulted
in him being portrayed and/or parodied in several films and television
shows:
The character of Lord Farquaad in the film
Shrek (produced by SKG Productions) is an open parody of Eisner.
Eisner is also shown as a recurring
character in the adult cartoon series, Family Guy. His actual voice is
not used and is voiced by Gary Cole.
Personal life
His sons are Breck, Eric, Anders Eisner and
Chris Payne. Chris is a filmmaker, best known as the director of the
upcoming movie The British Invasion, starring Clive Owen and Natalie
Portman.
****
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URL of Original Article:
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Date Article Copied:
June 11, 2006
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