|
February 14, 2003
Hearst and Disney: A Comparative Study
My two preceding columns have given thumbnail sketches of these two great men of California whose gigantic monuments -the Hearst Castle and the Disneyland - stand testimony to their super-human achievements. Both were colossal human beings who were driven by an uncanny, preternatural energy to fulfil their respective dreams and carve out prominent niches in the realm of mass media and entertainment.
Hearst, at six feet two and some 250 lbs. in weight, was physically a colossus too but with a tiny voice, almost of a girlish timbre, which caused his knees to shake every time he had to address a public meeting. Apart from other more crucial factors, his high-pitched girlish voice was a bane in the way of his political ambitions.
Disney was also a tall and handsome person but not obese. And, he had full command on his voice almost like a ventriloquist. For a quarter century he himself furnished the voice of Mickey Mouse.
Both discovered their talents quite early and dropped out of school, like Bill Gates of current era, to devotedly pursue their chosen vocations. Disney was born in poverty and had to labor hard as a commercial artist to eke out a living. Hearst, on the other hand, was born to riches being the only son of a millionaire Senator. But, he refused to run his father’s mines, ranches or other established businesses. He wanted his father to give him instead the daily San Francisco Examiner, that had perennially been in the red, to show “what he could do with it.”
Hearst had discovered at Harvard the power of the written word and his own precocious mind in building and using his vocabulary to create the desired impact. He wielded a powerful pen till almost the end of his life.
Disney too continued to use his prolific vision, brush, cameras and other technical devices till his debilitating lung cancer confined him to bed. Even then he was advising on various facets of the EPCOT center and Disney World in Florida.
Both men accepted nothing as impossible. It is kind of fun, declared Disney, to do the impossible. Hearst thought that impossible was a bit more difficult than possible.
They were both willing to pay any price for hiring the best men. Hearst would go to the extent of snatching from rival papers outstanding talents. Disney didn’t have to do that but he would directly hire an accomplished person. Both were thus always surrounded by highly talented persons whose uncanny competence made it possible to help realize the visions of their chiefs.
Walt Disney won 32 personal Academy Awards - a record. By the time of his death at age 65, he had produced 21 animated feature length films, 493 short cartoon films, 47 live action films, several TV and other shows.
Hearst’s publishing empire at its peak comprised 32 dailies, 13 magazines, King Feature Syndicate, several radio and TV stations, some film and book companies.
Fourteen years ago when I first visited the Hearst Castle and the Disneyland, I had formed the view that while Disney had concentrated on purveying joy and entertainment to others, Hearst had focussed on seeking and fostering the means of his own happiness - others counted only as far as they served this purpose.
I have lived in Anaheim - the city built around Disneyland - for almost a decade now and watched the continual growth of both. I have studied two volumes on the creator of this “Happiest Place on Earth”, have also glanced through three biographies of Hearst, and seen recently the 1941 Orson Welles film ‘Citizen Kane’, a caustic and distasteful parody of Hearst. These studies have confirmed me further in my first impressions of the two great men of California - Disney lived for others, Hearst thought others lived for him.
Biographers normally develop a sympathy for their subjects. But, in the case of Hearst each one of those I have read has pointed out his ego-centric nature, his contradictory traits and his penchant to manipulate people and events to serve his aims. He built his media empire by constantly indulging in crusades - mostly spurious - to expand circulation of his papers. Sensationalism was his major tool. He aimed to startle, stupefy and amaze his readers and to convulse them with excitement.
Biographer Swanberg has remarked: “Hearst was not a newsman at all in the conventional sense. He was an inventor, a producer, an arranger. He lived in a childlike dream world, imagining wonderful stories and then going out and creating them so that the line between fact and fancy was apt to be fuzzy.” No wonder, he came to be called the “king of yellow journalism”.
When there was an insurgency in Cuba in 1895 against the Spanish rule, he sent his artist, Frederick Remington, to cover it. He cabled to Hearst, “There is no trouble here. There will be no war. Wish to return”. Hearst replied: “Please remain. You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war.” His papers carried highly exaggerated, if not totally false, stories on the maltreatment of American citizens in Cuba. He kept the emotions of his countrymen on the boil till a war did erupt in Cuba.
His critics accused him of recklessness, insatiable greed, and megalomania, suggesting that he ignited the Spanish-American War just to sell his papers.
Readers too grew wary of Hearst’s tactics, boycotting his papers in the wake of the assassination of President McKinley in 1901 as they believed that the relentless articles and editorials against the President had inspired the assassin.
Public distrust of Hearst thwarted his biggest ambition in life - to occupy the White House. He wasn’t elected even in the preliminaries. Not only that, he failed to win the votes for the Governorship of New York. Not even for the office of the Mayor of that city. He did, however, get elected to the House twice. The voters did not trust him for any higher public office. His forays into formal politics were far from success.
But, at his castle on the top of a hill in San Simeon -half way between Los Angeles and San Francisco - he was the lord of all he surveyed. He was the Caesar, Czar or Sultan of San Simeon. His castle, loaded with his collection of statues, tapestries, huge carpets, paintings and other works of art, is now an awesome museum, a living tribute to the man who thought and operated on a grand scale.
His ideas and conduct conflicted with the conventional values; he perhaps enjoyed defying them. He married a stage dancer and maintained simultaneously an actress as his mistress. There was no Howard Stern or Jerry Springer to applaud him for defying the Victorian values. But the voter was not at ease with his personal conduct and lifestyle. Hence, an otherwise highly successful person, he had to sustain a string of political defeats.
Walt Disney, in contrast, was a moral, virtuous man. He created a place where both adults and children could have fun together. His work’s moral values and optimistic perspectives have helped shape the personalities, hopes, and dreams of children who having imbibed the virtuous value at an impressionable age cherished them in their adult years too. What a service to how many millions!
Disney was not a greedy, acquisitive person: he was always willing to invest all he had on an idea. He was not a grabbing, but a giving man. “I am interested”, he said “in entertaining people, in bringing pleasure, particularly laughter to others, rather than being concerned with expressing myself with obscure creative impressions.”
The Time magazine published, after a world-wide poll, a list of 100 most prominent persons of the 20th century. Walt Disney figures on the list: Hearst doesn’t. Hearst’s empire exists in the form of corporations and foundations. But, it does not thrive, throb and expand as it did during the lifetime of the colossal man. Walt Disney’s entertainment setups keep expanding and purveying happiness to millions at home and abroad. He deserves a salute for having lived and worked for others, and for fostering virtue and healthy values through all his products. Arifhussaini@hotmail.co
| 
