15 Years Ago In Time

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Two members of the WALT DISNEY CO. board resigned last week with a call to oust CEO Michael Eisner. Long gone are the days when Eisner, a TIME cover subject in 1988, was seen solely as the company's rescuer.

Eisner's revival of Disney has made him the current king of Hollywood and the darling of Wall Street. More important, though, is that Disney fans have begun to recognize him as a corporate hero of sorts, a long-awaited, trustworthy heir to Walt. Eisner has established himself as a charismatic, young-dad figure by appearing each week as the host of the Disney Sunday Movie, where the husky-voiced executive clowns with Mickey, Minnie and other colleagues. "This job is so perfect for him," says Dawn Steel, president of Columbia Pictures and a former co-worker at Paramount. "He's childlike in terms of his enthusiasm and how he sees the world. He's eternally young." Nowadays, when the 6-ft. 3-in. chairman strolls through Disney's theme parks with his family, fans scurry up for autographs and snapshots. "I'm not exactly a movie star," Eisner says, "but I'm very popular with under-10-year-olds."

--TIME, April 25, 1988