delanceyplace.com 01/06/06 - stress at disney

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In today's excerpt - the success and rapid growth of the company circa 1931 creates enormous stress for Walt Disney:

"There was always something obsessive about Walt Disney's personality. His single-minded concentration on his career, his possessiveness about his business, his unwillingness to share its management with any outsiders ... all these qualities now began to be noted as the organization started growing and Disney necessarily grew more remote. He became something of a sneak in his own studio prowling the corridors at night and on weekends, trying to get a glimpse of story ideas and sketches before his writers and editors were ready to show them ...

"... he was beginning to pay the price. 'I kept expecting more from my artists than they were giving me, and all I did all day long was pound, pound, pound,' he said later. 'Costs were going up. Somehow, each new picture we finished cost more to make than we figured it would earn; so I cracked up ... I became irritable ... and I couldn't sleep. I got to the point where I couldn't talk over the telephone because I'd begin to cry ...' "