Roy E. Disney dies at 79

Roy Edward Disney, who despite toiling for decades in the shadow of his famous uncle put his stamp on the Walt Disney Co. through the revival of its renowned animation unit and charitable contributions, lost his battle with cancer Wednesday. He was 79.

Remembered as a shy man who favored cardigan sweaters over a power suit, Roy Disney’s presence across the region grew with time, along with his public persona, observers said.

The Roy and Patricia Disney Family Cancer Center, slated to open on the Burbank Providence St. Joseph Medical Center campus in February, received a major shot in the arm when he and ex-wife, Patty, provided a $10-million endowment to fund its construction.

Patients at the center will have access to physicians, nutritional counselors, therapists and a research library all under one roof to provide a comprehensive approach to treatment.

“It’s a wonderful idea that they’ll be able to look at cancer as a general problem and treat people differently than they are at other hospitals,” Roy Disney told The Leader at the dedication. “This will be a real resource to the community.”

The family’s donation spurred other contributions from studios, as well as an additional $1-million donation from Roy and Patricia Disney’s son and wife.

“We are saddened by Mr. Disney’s passing and offer our deepest condolences to the Disney family,” Barry A. Wolfman, chief executive of Providence St. Joseph, said in a statement. “The Disney family’s generosity will live into the future as we provide the best possible care to our patients at the cancer center they helped to build.”

Born Jan. 10, 1930, in Los Angeles, he was the only child of Roy O. and Edna Disney. A graduate of Pomona College, he initially shied away from the studio, instead working as a film editor on the television police series “Dragnet.”

His father arranged a job at the company when Roy Disney was laid off. He married Patty Daily in 1955, and the pair had two sons and two daughters. They divorced in 2007, after 52 years of marriage.

Throughout the first 20 years of his career, Roy Disney devoted his attention to nature films, a passion that carried on through his work in “The Owl That Didn’t Give A Hoot,” “Pancho, A Dog of the Plains,” and the Oscar-nominated short subject “Mysteries of the Deep.”

JP O’Connor, whose father, A. Kendall O’Connor, joined the Disney team in 1935, remembered Roy Disney as a devoted man who helped foster a sense of creativity with artists.

“I think we all felt that he was a standard-bearer of what his uncle and his dad had built,” JP O’Connor said. “The artists loved him, and he loved and admired what they did.”

Roy Disney quit the company in 1977 and remained on the board as a director.

His work in the community, always as an ambassador of the Disney brand, was evident six years ago when he donated dozens of company artifacts to the Gordon R. Howard Museum.

Standing with a life-sized Mickey Mouse, he led an entourage of studio executives from the Walt. Disney Co. in Burbank and Walt Disney Imagineering in Glendale to unveil the redesigned Disney exhibit at the Burbank Historical Society complex.

“It’s wonderful,” Roy Disney told The Leader. “It’s a nice overview of our history.”

Before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Roy Disney got a sneak peek of the exhibit conducted by Mary Jane Strickland, founder and executive director of the Burbank Historical Society.

“He let us know that he wanted to come and cut the ribbon,” Strickland said. “That was really a surprise to everybody.”

Upon his return to the company, Roy Disney persuaded a team led by Michael Eisner, Frank Wells and Jeffrey Katzenberg to invest $10 million in computer animation equipment. From there the hits mounted, including: “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King.”

After the fallout from a 2003 rebuke in which the board’s four-member nominating committee turned on him, Disney and longtime companion Stanley Gold filed a 2005 lawsuit that challenged the search process, which resulted in the appointment of Robert Iger, Eisner’s hand-picked successor, as the company’s new chief executive.

The lawsuit was eventually withdrawn, and Disney was named “director emeritus.”

Disney fulfilled a lifelong dream when he and the 12-member crew of his Pyewacket sloop won the biannual in 1999, a 2,225-mile Transpacific Yacht Race from Los Angeles to Honolulu.

He later went on to serve as honorary chairman of the biennial First Team Real Estate Invitational Regatta for the Hoag Cup. All of the proceeds benefited the Heart and Vascular Institute at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian.

“Most of the time we’re just out there because there is a cup and we go to compete, but it’s nice to do this kind of event and have it benefit a really important charity,” Roy Disney said upon winning the Class 1 division aboard Pyewacket in 2005.

That same year he donated his prize-winning racing yacht to the Orange Coast College Foundation. Doug Bennett, executive director of the college’s foundation said that the sailing school would reserve Pyewacket for advanced sailing students.

“It’s not a boat you just take out for a Sunday sail,” he said.