NEW YORK — Ron Miller, who rose through the ranks of his father-in-law’s entertainment company, Walt Disney Productions, but whose time as chief executive was tumultuous and ended with his ouster, died Saturday at his home in Napa, California. He was 85.
The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, where he had been board president, said Mr. Miller died of congestive heart failure.
When Mr. Miller became president and chief operating officer of Walt Disney Productions in 1980, his overriding mission was to reinvigorate its film division, where he had spent most of his career as a producer and executive.
Live-action movies such as “Herbie Goes Bananas’’ were not generating great business, and the studio’s new animated films were not as memorable as its classics such as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’’.
“We’ve got trouble,’’ Mr. Miller told The Los Angeles Times a few months after his appointment. “And we’re doing something about it.’’
Over four years — as president and, for 18 months, chief executive — he oversaw the creation of Disney Channel, the company’s cable network. He established Touchstone Pictures as a vehicle to release films that were targeted at adults, scoring a quick hit with “Splash’’ (1984), a romantic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah.
He also acquired a real estate company that helped Disney develop land near its Disney World complex in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., and brought the company closer to an agreement to open a Disney theme park in France.
But by May 1984, Mr. Miller was at the center of a corporate crisis.
First, Disney agreed to fend off a hostile takeover attempt by corporate raider Saul Steinberg with an extremely expensive buyback of Steinberg’s stake in the company. That led more than 20 disgruntled shareholders to sue the company for wasting corporate assets.
Then, during the summer, an activist shareholder, Irwin Jacobs, who appeared poised to launch a takeover of his own, helped force Disney to drop its proposed acquisition of Gibson Greetings, the third-ranked company in the greeting card business.
Even as the restive board was evaluating Mr. Miller’s performance in August, he was trumpeting the synergy he envisioned for its costliest animated film ever, “The Black Cauldron,’’ marketing it as a theatrical release, a videocassette, a featured Disney Channel movie and a theme-park ride. When the film was released the next year, it flopped.
Mr. Miller did not have much more time to contemplate Disney’s future. In early September, the company’s board asked him to resign.
Ronald William Miller was born April 17, 1933, in Los Angeles. His mother, Stella (Bennett) Miller, worked for a candy-maker; his father, John, was a tire builder.
Ron received a scholarship to play football at the University of Southern California, where he was a receiver for three years. He did not graduate.
While at USC he met Diane Disney, Walt Disney’s older daughter, on a blind date. They married in 1954.
After his ouster, he and his wife moved to Northern California, where he ran Silverado Vineyards and where she conceived and opened the Disney Family Museum. She died in 2013.
Mr. Miller’s survivors include his daughters, Joanna Miller, Tamara Diane Miller and Jennifer Goff; his sons, Christopher, Walter, Ronald and Patrick Miller; 13 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
