Today in Disney Parks & Resorts History - Walt Disney Passes Away

December 15, 1966 - Burbank, California - St. Joseph's Hospital

Walter Elias Disney:  Dec 5, 1901 - Dec 15, 1966

Just 10 days following his 65th birthday, Walter Elias Disney passes away at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank, California - across the street from the Walt Disney Studios. His death comes from acute circulatory collapse, as a result of lung cancer.  Walt's older brother Roy immediately postpones his imminent retirement.

When the news of Walt's death reaches Disneyland in Anaheim, consideration is given to closing the park for the day, but just as Walt would have wanted, the park remains open and the flags on Main Street USA are lowered to half-mast.  That evening Disneyland's Fantasy on Parade, the park's Christmas parade, steps off for the first time of the season.  Being an unusually cold night for Anaheim, a very light snow falls over a somber Disneyland.

On the "CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite" that evening, commentator Eric Sevareid states this about Mr. Disney:

"It would take more time than anybody has around the daily news shops to think of the right thing to say about Walt Disney.

He was an original; not just an American original, but an original, period. He was a happy accident; one of the happiest this century has experienced; and judging by the way it's been behaving in spite of all Disney tried to tell it about laughter, love, children, puppies and sunrises, the century hardly deserved him.

He probably did more to heal or at least to soothe troubled human spirits than all the psychiatrists in the world. There can't be many adults in the allegedly civilized parts of the globe who did not inhabit Disney's mind and imagination at least for a few hours and feel better for the visitation.

It may be true, as somebody said, that while there is no highbrow in a lowbrow, there is some lowbrow in every highbrow.

But what Walt Disney seemed to know was that while there is very little grown-up in a child, there is a lot of child in every grown-up. To a child this weary world is brand new, gift wrapped; Disney tried to keep it that way for adults.

By the conventional wisdom, mighty mice, flying elephants, Snow White and Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy and Dopey - all these were fantasy, escapism from reality. It's a question of whether they are any less real, any more fantastic than intercontinental missiles, poisoned air, defoliated forests, and scraps from the moon. This is the age of fantasy, however you look at it, but Disney's fantasy wasn't lethal.  People are saying we'll never see his like again."