For the last time, Walt Disney is NOT in a state of cryonic suspension or frozen and in storage. And 73-year old Diane Disney Miller is spending $112 million to put this and other rumors about her dad to rest. Diane Miller (the owner of Silverado Vineyards in Napa) is footing the bill on the new Walt Disney Family Museum, set to open in the Presidio this fall.
The New York Times had a vaguely snarky take on Mrs. Miller and her “vanity project” in the Arts section today, quoting her son as saying “anything my mother wants, she gets.”
The museum will be located in three historic buildings in the Presidio and will feature biographical exhibits, 215 video monitors, “The Lilly Belle”, (Disney’s small scale steam engine), a 120-seat screening space, a store and a cafe.
The (San Francisco international Film Festival ticket holding) public will have an early peak at the museum on April 25 at a special reception following the world premiere screening of "The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story." The documentary is about the two brilliant but often feuding siblings behind many Disney scores from the 60s and 70s including Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book. It seems one of the brother’s insisted on Julie Andrew’s singing “a demitasse-full of sugar helps the medicine go down.” (Kidding!)
