Waking Sleeping Beauty Page #9

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and a lot of the guys

that worked for him

and watched watch them be outshone

by so much

and not given the kind of credit

that they thought they deserved

and certainly and in fact that they did.

It is easy to get out there

on the stage of life

and have people

shining flashlights at you,

and you're going,"Wow, yeah,

I'm pretty good, aren't I?"

MAN:

And, action.

Hi, I'm Jeffrey Katzenberg,

chairman of the Walt Disney Studios.

At Disney, when we set out

to make an animated feature,

the first thing we look for

is a very special story

and unforgettable characters.

And that's just

what Beauty and the Beast is,

a great story

with unforgettable characters.

MAN:

Cut.

ElSNER:
I didn't care about credit.

I didn't care about any of that.

I had plenty of my own adulation

from places I didn't even want it.

The more Jeffrey promoted himself,

as long as he promoted himself

around an animated movie, I let it happen.

Roy went nuts.

Hello, my name is Roy Disney

and it's my pleasure

to introduce the home-video debut

of one of the greatest triumphs

of my uncle Walt's filmmaking career:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

SCHNElDER:
There's always been

that question, ever since Walt died:

Who's the next Walt Disney?

The media demands a central

charismatic figure.

And we demand it to sell our product.

Hello, I'm Michael Eisner,

chairman of The Walt Disney Company.

All of us here at Disney

hope you enjoyed the tour

and that it gave you new insight

into the magic of motion-picture

and television production.

We hope you come back

and see us real soon.

Whoa, whoa, what is now going on

in the studio?

KATZENBERG:
Frank, of all of us,

was the most selfless,

and so he was able

to navigate a course

between strong

and growing personalities and egos.

And I always found Frank

the peacemaker, you know,

that he was like a marriage counselor.

ROY:

He was very much of a mediator.

SCHNElDER:
He was the person

you ran to when you had problems.

ElSNER:
Interesting thing about Frank,

he carried in his wallet

a piece of paper that said,

"Humility is the ultimate virtue."

You get it from the top

and you get it from the bottom

and are often left floating

somewhere in the middle

trying to establish a sense of direction

and purpose.

It was a delicate balancing act

that began to wobble

on the night of

the Beauty and the Beast premiere.

But I am delighted to be the first,

because I am so enormously proud

of all of you

and what you pulled off,

not just Beauty and the Beast,

but over the last seven years.

It is absolutely a fabulous change

from 200 frightened people,

seven years ago,

wondering if they were gonna

have a job tomorrow.

SCHNElDER:

At the cast-and-crew screening,

there's tradition of everybody

getting up and speaking

and saying how great everything is.

It's now been seven years

since I was converted to the faith

and I've been preaching the gospel

of animation ever since.

SCHNElDER:
Until that night, I don't think

I was aware to the extent of the animosity

between Michael, Roy and Jeffrey.

Then about 1983, I got a call.

I was in Middlebury, Vermont,

at my son's camp.

I got a call from Roy Disney, who said,

"Would you be interested in coming

to The Walt Disney Company,

because I'd like to keep it together.

It seems

that it's gonna be broken apart."

And I said,"Well, yeah,

that sounds like a good idea."

ROY:
Yeah, and I was sitting right

in the very first row in the corner seat,

looking up at him, saying,

"Announce it, Michael."

SCHNElDER:

And Michael stood up and said,

"As part of the reward

of this extraordinary growth,

the amazing things you've all done,

Frank and I have agreed to build a new

Animation Building on the Disney lot."

It was the first time Jeffrey

had ever heard that.

KATZENBERG:
In the moment,

I was enraged by it, because I felt,

"Wow, what are these guys

doing here?"

It was inappropriate.

And the subtext to that

was much, much deeper

than just the faux pas

of announcing a building,

you know, without having ever

even discussed it with me.

And it just showed

very deep-seated unhappiness

and competitiveness and ego.

It was all about respect.

That night, Jeffrey was looking

for the respect

he thought he'd earned from

Roy and Michael,

and it just wasn't there.

Lightning has struck twice with Disney's

Beauty and the Beast.

I'm hard-pressed,

had to go to the thesaurus

to find all the applicable adjectives:

Enchanting, bewitching,

captivating, charming...

Beauty and the Beast

opened to huge box office

and probably the most glowing reviews of

any animated feature since Snow White.

I've seen Beauty and the Beast twice

with my children.

I'm going to be back for more very soon.

It's a winner.

I was amazed

how much I enjoyed this movie.

I had heard reports that it played

at the New York Film Festival

to a standing ovation

Right.

and I questioned those reports.

I did too.

I said,"l can't see

the New York Film Festival standing up

and applauding anything."

Yeah.

Then I saw this movie and I heard it

interrupted by applause again.

And the winner is:

Before the Oscar nominations

came the Golden Globes.

Beauty and the Beast,

Walt Disney Pictures,

Buena Vista Pictures Distribution.

When they announced our name,

I was sitting at what had to have been

the furthest table from the stage,

back with the busboys

and the valet-parking guys.

But this was a validation from Hollywood

that we'd never really seen before.

And maybe, just maybe,

this meant that animation was no longer

at the kids' card table in the kitchen.

We'd won the Bank of America award

for Jeffrey

and now the Golden Globe

for the artists.

The icing on the cake was yet to come.

Oh, thank you very much.

A lot of animators just tossed their

hot dogs and popcorn in the air at home.

So you've made some people

very, very happy.

I'm pleased to announce

Good.

that the motion pictures selected

as the Best Picture nominee

of 1991 are:

Beauty and the Beast,

Don Hahn, producer.

Beauty and the Beast got six nominations,

including a nomination for Best Picture.

Now that really sets a record here,

because in the history of Disney,

Disney has only

had Best Picture nominees twice,

once for Mary Poppins

and once for the Dead Poets Society.

So that was a great honor for

Beauty and the Beast.

COOK:
When we first heard

that Beauty was nominated,

it was like an electrical charge

that went through the entire studio.

WlSE:

I just came unglued.

I did a dance around the house

in my underwear.

And my phone just rang

for the rest of the day.

Congratulatory messages

and telegrams

and boxes of candy

were showing up at my door.

It was nuts.

I was queen for a day.

We came to the Oscars in

our rented tuxedos and fancy ball gowns

and all I could think of was,

"How did we get here?"

And the Oscar goes to:

The Silence of the Lambs.

Well, we didn't win that night,

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