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Last Disney family member booted off company's board

Walt Disney Co said on Sunday it was forcing Roy Disney off the board due to its mandatory retirement age policy, removing the last Disney family member from the board and a prominent critic of chairman and chief executive Michael Eisner.

Clearly stung, Roy Disney, the nephew of company founder Walt Disney, said he would go and said Eisner should step down, a letter obtained by the Wall Street Journal showed.

The move may be the last act of a showdown between Eisner, who has led the company for nearly 20 years, and the man who recruited him and then became a chief critic.

"It is my sincere belief that it is you who should be leaving and not me," Roy Disney told Eisner in the letter dated Nov. 30, announcing he was stepping down from the board and his job as head of animation.

George Mitchell, presiding director of the board, said in a statement that Roy Disney and two other directors, Thomas Murphy and Raymond Watson, would have to leave because of the mandatory retirement age, which is 72.

Disney will by 74 by January, when the board is expected to pick a new slate of directors.

The board's nominating committee, which had waived the retirement age cap in the past, had decided to apply the rule, Mitchell said.

"It is unfortunate that the Committee's judgment to apply these unanimously adopted governance rules has become an occasion to raise again criticisms of the direction of the Company, and calls for change of management, that have been previously rejected by the Board," Mitchell said.

Roy Disney, who led a 1984 restructuring and recruitment of Eisner, cited complaints about Eisner's leadership, including the performance of Disney's ABC television networks and its theme parks in the letter.

Disney said company performance had failed under Eisner's leadership.

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