By Pam Burns-Clair Founding WDFM member, author and daughter of Disney Imagineering Legend Harriet Burns Tribute to Diane Disney Miller, post 10 My mom, Disney Legend Harriet Burns, always talked about Diane Disney Miller with such admiration. She knew Diane as the “real deal” — a fierce advocate for her dads legacy and vision. Diane, likewise, was quick to respond with great enthusiasm and admiration of my mom’s legacy as we (myself with Don Peri) approached her (in 2009) to endorse our tribute book about my mom, Walt Disneys First Lady of Imagineering, Harriet Burns. We are so grateful for her comments: I will always be grateful to Harriet for her support of everything Ive been trying to do to perpetuate the real image of my dad. ... She was one of the handpicked original band of those we now call Imagineers ... the only woman in that group. Diane always greeted me at The Walt Disney Family Museum with the genuine warmth and affinity my mom relayed at various events about their occasional encounters in the years following Mom’s retirement (1986). My encounters at WDFM with Diane were of course brief and in passing ... but it was clear to me she shared with my mom — as well as her dad, of course — a similar youthful vitality and effervescence. The last conversation I had with her at the September 2013 Marty Sklar book talk was more personal from the back row of the theater where she often sat at such events, not one to take the spotlight. She was delighted to discover I was expecting my first grandchild, and shared that she had just become a great-grandmother. We joked about how our Disney cohorts were encouraging ‘us’ to name the baby Harriet after my mom, and she found that amusing and tempting to chime in in favor of, but then encouraged my daughter, Chelsea, who was with me, to be true to her heart and name her what felt right to her and her husband! Just as my mom passed unexpectedly just prior to her 80th birthday, leaving behind a bucket list of dreams yet to be fulfilled, so did we lose Diane just prior to her 80th with many visions of what was yet possible. But Diane left her smile embedded in our hearts, those of us who had the good fortune of interacting with her. And the Walt Disney Family Museum bears the imprint of that smile in a way that keeps her close by.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 02:12:55 +0000
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