Diane Marie Disney

Diane Marie Disney
Born	December 18, 1933 (1933-12-18) (age 77) USA
Spouse	Ron W. Miller (b.1933-) (Married in 1954)
Children	Christopher D. Miller (b.1954) Joanna Miller (b.1956) Tamara Scheer (b.1957) Jennifer Miller-Goff (b.1960) Walter Elias Disney Miller (b.1961) Ronald Miller (b.1963) Patrick Miller (b.1967)
Parents	Walt Disney (1901–1966) Lillian Bounds Disney (1899–1997)
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Diane Disney Miller (born Diane Marie Disney on December 18, 1933) is the elder daughter of Walt Disney and his wife Lillian Bounds Disney. She had a younger sister, Sharon Mae Disney, who was adopted by the Disneys in 1936, and who died in 1993. She and her husband, Ron W. Miller, have seven children.

Ron W. Miller was CEO of The Walt Disney Company until 1984, when Diane's cousin, Roy E. Disney, supported Miller's ouster in favor of Michael Eisner and Frank Wells.

In the early-1970s, the Millers purchased a vineyard in Napa Valley, California. Their intention was to upgrade the property, replant to premium varietals, install new trellising and frost protection, but not to build or run a winery. Miller and her husband decided to construct their own winery in 1980. Since 1981, they have operated Silverado Vineyards Winery on a tract of their Napa property.

Miller was instrumental in pushing ahead with the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. The project was initiated with a $50 million gift from Lillian Disney but got bogged down in wrangling over costs. Miller ensured the original design by Frank Gehry went ahead, and Walt Disney Hall finally opened in 2004.

Miller read her father's original dedication fifty years later to the day at the birthday celebrations of Disneyland on July 17, 2005. Miller organized the development of The Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio of San Francisco. The museum opened in October, 2009.

Animation historian Michael Barrier reports that Miller, in August 2007, sent a fax to a number of executives at the Walt Disney Company, denouncing Neal Gabler's biography of Walt Disney published in 2006, titled Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, as "a monstrous piece of libelous junk. My parents were not the people he creates in this book, and I cannot understand why all of you who aided and abetted Gabler in writing this book, and who praise it and promote it, can do so without suffering serious qualms."^[1]

See also

• List of celebrities who own wineries and vineyards

References

1. ^ "Diane Disney Miller on Neal Gabler", Retrieved on 2007-08-29

External links

• Silverado Vineyards website

Persondata
Name	Disney, Diane Marie
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Date of birth	1933-12-18
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