Roy Disney 1930-2009

Sadly, Roy Disney passed away today of stomach cancer at the age of 79.

I had the great pleasure of meeting Roy and presenting him with an image I painted in honor of Walt's 100th Birthday. It was a thrill to meet him in his office on the Studio lot in the old animation building where the classic Disney films were produced (his office was his Uncle Walt's office incidentally, so another great thrill for me to say the least-the people that must have passed through there, WOW!). We discussed the stamp images I was working on for the USPS and he told me how much he liked my work and how beautiful he thought the stamps were going to be. Gracious and kind and all too eager to commemorate the day for us with a photo I have to say this is one of the greatest experiences I had working at The Walt Disney Co.

The folks in the picture with Roy and (a beardless) me are the account executive for the job (the lady in pink), the man who designed the pin in the bottom half of the frame (between said lady in pink and Roy-both of their names escape me) and Jared-who was not really there for the moment.

This is what happened....a Senior VP who I never met before and who had no idea of what we had done was called in at the last minute to present the framed lithograph to Roy because company brass thought it would be best to have a person in management give him our gift. She made believe she knew all of us (none of us had met her until 5 minutes before the presentation) and took credit for the entire project. I told Jared all about this and how silly I thought the whole thing was and he had a photoshop savvy colleague take her out of the image and replace her with himself. I don't think I even have a copy of the original image anymore- I like this one better anyway!

Godspeed Roy.