Meryll Frost, the collegiate football star and WWII hero, once said in 1946: “They say behind every great man there’s a woman. While I’m not a great man, there’s a great woman behind me.”
We know Mickey Mouse as the longtime character which turnedaround a serious business setback - The Walt Disney Company -,but we have no idea about the intuition Lillian Marie Disney hadon its name, replacing it to “Mortimer”.
Throughout the years, amazing women have been represented as “wives of great men” and so many of their accomplishments have been overshadowed, mostly because of the influence traditional gender roles - still - have on our perception of success.
Given the examples above, we will now delve into the story of Lillian Marie Disney – remembered as the “wife of Walt Disney”for over 40 years.
To begin with, she was born on February 15th, 1899 in Spalding, Idaho. Next, she moved to Los Angeles in 1923 where, starting from the position of secretary and inker of animated cels (Plane Crazy film has her work), she managed to significantly influence Walt Disney’s ideas, either big or small they were. Though “behind the curtains” she privately contributed to the growth of the Company while raising their two daughters. Some may argue that she was a warm woman approaching modern perspectives, yet never letting go her traditional roots; what we claim is that – surely – her personality was compatible with her husband’s.
Within the following years, new characters and stories were created, thus the Disney empire kept growing. Up to 1966, Lilly and Walt’s love story seemed like one of the fairytales they provided to the whole world. Then a tragic struck occurred: the well-recognized animator, producer and entrepreneur died. Some would have expected Lilly’s light and brightness would have been over as well.
Incorrect.
The next 31 years slipped away and her attitude to life had radically changed. It might be that the tragedy made her venturingeven more into the Disney community, since she began acting to support causes for young people and dedicating herself to arts. Interestingly, she helped other family members in creating the California Institute of Arts and operated for the distribution of charitable gifts.
Moreover, on May 12th, 1987, Lillian announced a gift of $50 million to build a new symphony hall designed by architect Frank Gehry in Los Angeles, representing her ultimate gift to the community and to the love of her life. The Walt Disney Concert Hall, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, would have been debuted in the following years, in October 2003.
Then it came the time for recognition: in 1990 Lilly received the Governor’s Award for the Arts for her contributions throughout California. It might be that the thing fueling her the most was the goal of keeping Walt’s dreams - so hers, theirs - alive even after his death.
To sum up with her words about Walt: “We shared a wonderful, exciting life, and we loved every minute of it. He was a wonderful husband to me, and a wonderful and joyful father and grandfather”. - she said in the 1990s - to remember her 41 years of marriage with him.
I’ll leave you with a question: Isn’t it incredible how her worthand pure soul got to many hearts, even if she acted in the “backstage” for such a long time?
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