The following stuff is trivial but may cheer up some of you:
A Brief Chat with Diane Disney Miller
In about two and a half years, there are going to be two museums about Walt Disney: the web-based one you’re visiting now
http://disney.go.com/disneyatoz/familymuseum/index.htmland a real bricks and mortar museum in San Francisco. Beginning this month, the virtual museum will be bringing you periodic reports about the development of the tangible one. It seemed only appropriate to begin this series with some brief comments from Walt’s daughter, Diane – whose vision and energy have infused the effort thus far.
Q: With all that’s been written about Walt Disney, why is a Museum to tell his life story important?
Diane: Because there’s been so much said about him that’s vicious and malicious and wrong. It feels like he’s been attacked more viciously and in a more outlandish way than almost everybody. Crazy things have been said about him that have no truth. A fifth grade girl was doing a report about Walt Disney and she had taken a book out of the library and the first question she asked me was ''Did your Dad wash his hands compulsively?''
Q: And the Museum will help to get rid of that kind of nonsense?
Diane: What we will aim to do that with the Museum is what Richard and Katherine Greene have done with our Web site for years. Early on they got all these letters saying, ''This is fine, but where’s the real Museum?'' We had things that needed a place like the Academy Awards®. We thought we could have a small museum, and then the idea grew larger. We saw that we had to do it in a manner he’d be pleased with. It had to have a certain amount of theatricality and artistic presentation and be as accurate and complete as possible.
Q: What’s the most important artifact visitors will find there?
Diane: His voice. When they hear his voice, they will immediately know him better. We’re using his voice, the voice of my Uncle Roy, and interviews with a great number of other people. That will be our chief artifact.
Q: Who do you envision as the audience?
Diane: The audience will be people who are interested in him, of all ages. And maybe some who didn’t know they were interested until they stumbled in.
Q: When is it due to open?
Diane: We hope to open in the fall of 2009.
Q: If there’s one message you hope that people will come out with, what would that be?
Diane: I hope they come out liking him. But even if they don’t like him, I hope they take away a message from his life. Love of people. Curiosity about things. He wanted to entertain, families in particular. That was a big thrust, the importance of families and the things that families do together. He wanted to bring in all the things that interested him so. History, and not just of our country that he loved so much, but all kinds of history and nature and science and all the wonders of the world.
