June 13, 2008

Hearst and Disney: A Comparative Study

My two preceding write-ups 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 their respective realms of work.
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. It handicapped him in 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.
Disney was born in poverty and had for years 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 just the daily San Francisco Examiner, an insignificant paper 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.
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.
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.
Several years back when I first visited the Hearst Castle and the Disneyland, I had formed the view that while Disney had concentrated on purveying happiness to others, Hearst had focused on 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 some 15 years now and have 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 have seen recently the 1941 Orson Wells film ‘Citizen Kane’, a caustic and distasteful parody of Hearst. These studies have confirmed me further in my first impressions of these 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 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 circulations of his papers. His constant aim was 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. Remington 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.
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 his estate. His castle, loaded with his collection of statues, tapestries, huge carpets, paintings and other works of art, has managed to survive as a museum maintained by the state. It couldn’t survive of its own momentum, like the Disneyland.
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.
Walt Disney in contrast was a virtuous man. 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 and to how many millions!
Disney was not a greedy person: he was always willing to invest all he had on an idea. He was not a grabbing, but a giving man.
The Time magazine published, after a worldwide 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.