Michael Eisner
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Michael Dammann Eisner (born March 7, 1942) ran the The Walt Disney Company from 1984 to 2005.
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Early life
Eisner, born in Mt. Kisco, New York to affluent Jewish parents, 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 world's largest media companies. Under Eisner and Wells's leadership, Disney rebuilt its once legendary animation 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 its ventures in Touchstone Pictures (created by Eisner's predecessor, Ron W. Miller), and a noted acquisition of Miramax Films in 1994. This tremendous run culminated with a surprise announcement by Eisner of Disney's takeover of Capital Cities/ABC - a stunning move involving the second largest corporate takeover in history up until that point, the largest in the field of media, with no leaks to the very same media which was involved in the deal. Along with ABC (the number one network at the time), Disney acquired a slew of other media sources, including ESPN.
Eisner's role in this turnaround, and Disney's growth into one of the leading media firms, is the subject of passionate debate by many historians and Disney fans, though he is generally given the bulk of the credit for transforming Disney into a provider of entertainment. As the years went on, Eisner would gain further controversy through a rapid consolidation of authority.
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 [1], 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 [2] that Eisner invested in a internet television company named Veoh Networks [3].
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. The character bears a facial resemblance to Eisner, and is abnormally short (in contrast to Eisner, who is rather tall).
- 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 Chris Payne, Breck, Eric, and Anders Eisner. Breck is a filmmaker, best known as the director of Sahara.
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