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.2, fortreatment and preliminary examination of an old polo injury.During the pre-liminary examination a lesion was discovered on the left lung.Surgery was de-cided upon by the doctors in charge and was performed the next week.A tu-mor was found to have caused an abscess which in the opinion of the doctorsrequired a pneumonectomy [removal of the lung].Within four to six weeksMr.Disney should be back on a full schedule and there is no reason to predictany recurrence of the problem or curtailment of Mr.Disney s future activities.52An unidentified studio spokesman would not tell the Los Angeles Times ifthere was a malignancy.53 But Disney s surgeon had told his family that thelung was cancerous and Disney had only two years at most to live.Ron Miller spoke of his father-in-law s state of mind after his lung was re-moved:  Scared.Couldn t believe that it could happen to him.[But he]thought he had it licked.He was full of confidence.I think the thing thatreally helped him a great deal was a telegram that John Wayne had sent himdreami ng of a ni ghtmare ci ty, 1 965 1 966 3 1 5when he heard that Walt had had his lung removed, saying,  Welcome to theclub.The only problem is height [that is, altitude].That really meant alot to him.It really did.Even when he was deathly ill, Disney s mind was on work, Miller said. Up there [in the hospital after his surgery] he said,  Okay, I think you guys[the film producers, including Miller, who answered directly to him] can workas a team,  cause you ve shown it in the past three years. He said,  I m gonnastick with Disney World and EPCOT.I ll read the scripts, and I ll just tellyou whether to go or not.I just can t become as active as I used to be.  54When Disney was back at the studio on the three days before Thanks-giving, his precarious health was unmistakably visible to his employees.Mil-ton Gray, a Disney inbetweener, remembered walking rapidly down the cen-tral hall on the third floor of the Disney animation building the floor thathoused Disney s office when he passed  some real old man, walking slowlynorthward (with his back to me), all slouched over, wearing a blue sweater.I had no idea who that would be, and it was quite unusual to see someonelooking that decrepit in the studio.I just went around this old man atmy brisk pace.Just as I did, though, a couple other men in the hallway aheadof me turned toward the old man and said,  Oh, hi, Walt.  55Disney had Thanksgiving dinner with the Millers and watched film thatRon Miller had taken on the Vancouver trip.The next day, he flew to PalmSprings.Kelvin Bailey, Disney s pilot, remembered his boss s last visit to hisweekend home:While flying to Palm Springs, which took only twenty minutes, he came upto the cockpit and said,  Kel, I ve been at old Saint Joe s Hospital for sometime.I m a sick boy.But I m going to Palm Springs and stay there until I getbetter.I ll call you then.I don t know when, but stand by for the call.I assumed it would be weeks or months.Two or three days later, the phonerang. Kel? This is Wa-a-a-l-t. His voice was so fragile, so dilapidated, I hardlyrecognized him. Come and get me. At Palm Springs airport, the car droveup.Lilly got out and had to help Walt out.He couldn t do it alone.There wasa stairway leading up to the plane and he had to put his hands on both rails.He went straight to Saint Joseph s from the Burbank airport.56Disney turned sixty-five in room 529 at the hospital.Private nurses assignedto  Mr.John Smith were staying with him around the clock.57 In his last days,his daughter Diane told Richard Hubler,  when he had moments of great painor felt something happen that he couldn t control, he d get very upset and youknew that he d rather be alone then.So we would just come and go. 583 1 6 he drove hi ms elf ri ght up to the endDisney died at Saint Joseph s the morning of December 15, 1966.Lillianand the Millers arrived at the hospital minutes after his death. As we got oªthe elevator on the floor, Diane Miller said in an interview for a book andfilm about her father,  I turned and saw Ron go striding right into Dad sroom and then come out with his arms up as though someone had pushedhim back.When we went into the room Dad s hands were on his chest andhe was gone.Uncle Roy was standing at the foot of his bed, massaging oneof Dad s feet.Just kind of caressing it.And he was talking to him.It soundedsomething like,  Well, kid, this is the end, I guess. You know, that sort ofthing.And I saw his love as I d never seen it before. 59As word spread at the studio, which had been so personal an instrumentfor Walt Disney, some of his employees wept as if they had lost a parent.Thestudio closed for the day, but Disneyland remained open.Disney s body wascremated, and only his immediate family attended a brief memorial serviceat Forest Lawn on December 16 [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]