We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Diane Disney Miller, daughter of the legendary Walt Disney as she shared with us some information on the recently released DVD, Walt - The Man Behind the Myth. Here's what she had to say.

DIANE: Well, my name is Diane Disney Miller, the daughter of Walt Disney, and I believe we're here to talk about the DVD we're putting out.

DIANE: Yeah - when he left his failed business in Kansas City, he was 21 years old and he came to Hollywood to become a director. No one seemed to need him. He tried to get into the studios and he couldn't get beyond the front gates so he decided, 'I guess I better go back to being an animator.' But he always had dreams of being a director and early on, an actor.

DIANE: Yeah - with the mustache.

DIANE: No, I think it was just all the way it grew. He had mild success with a character called Oswald, but the way Mickey grabbed the public was really just a wonderful thing. Who could have predicted it? I don't think he did. I don't know.

DIANE: Yeah - well he was kind of interested in just about everything. But there were a few pioneers ahead of him like Max Fleischer, but I think that Dad just happened to be in the right place. You know he was the first to add color and sound to his cartoons.

His ideas came to him as he lived, like after taking my sister and me to the park on Sundays, he saw the merry-go-round and sat around as we went around and around. It gave him the idea for a family amusement park. A place where there was something for everyone, not just kid rides, and that became a consuming thing and near the end of his life he began construction of what would become Walt Disney World in Florida. He was always thinking of other things. He was going beyond pure entertainment and the concept of EPCOT was really what excited him. It was going to be built down in that area of Florida and really was the city of the future, but it would be like the name says, an Experimental Prototype City Of Tomorrow. It was going to be ever changing. It would be a place where big companies like GE could develop new ideas for cities, for transportation, like auto companies - all of them. He felt it could be like their showplace for their progress and the future. He had a place to try it out, and it really worked. He was really excited about that. He even said to my husband, and I'm sure he said it to others, 'You guys have got to take care of running things on a day to day basis, but I have to concentrate on EPCOT.'

DIANE: Well, there were some that weren't very dear to him. I remember he never was happy with having done Alice - although I enjoyed the film. You know I don't know what his favorites would have been. I know Mary Poppins was something he was very excited about doing. And having done it with Julie Andrews and the rest of that wonderful cast. It was a really, really good movie.

DIANE: [laugh] But she was nice. I was always scared of the wicked witch in Snow White.

DIANE: When he was younger, he had heroes. When he was a younger man, like 16 or older, when he was driving an ambulance at the beginning of WWI, General Pershing was one of his heroes. He admired many people in the film business; he was very fond of Sam Goldwyn. I remember we were watching the film,'To Kill a Mocking Bird' in the projection room in mother and dad's home, and at the end of the film the lights went on and dad said, 'I wish I could make a picture like that' and I think that enabled him to get away from using gimmicks to something that was more of a serious nature like that film, which was something he wanted to do so he could get away. Not that he didn't like doing what he did, but he would have liked to make a serious film.

DIANE: I think he'd be pretty excited about where animation is. At the end of his life, no one was very excited about it. You know, it was 'Oh, another Disney animated film'. When he put it in Mary Poppins, the guys who were working on the film didn't really expect it, and were really surprised. It was live action combined with animation, and when the guys walked out, they were saying 'You want to put animation in Mary Poppins?' And he did. Of course he loved it.

DIANE: I think so, given the context. He always wanted an amusement park that wasn't typical of what was available then and it would have been a neat way to get into the game arcade using his films. He would have done that today, but I know he would have found a use for a lot of the technology available.

DIANE: Well, the DVD was really our family effort - the Walt Disney Family Foundation. It was something that I wanted to do very much and I thought the time was right. This had nothing to do with the 100th anniversary of his birth, but I thought I wanted to start doing this now before a lot of these people, including myself, are gone.

DIANE: I want them to know him, I want them to feel like they knew him. That was the purpose of making it, to show them all the aspects of his life and I think we covered it very well. There were a few things we couldn't go into - he had a big dream about building a ski resort. I think that was touched on, but there were many, many things that he wanted to do, but couldn't do. But I just want people to really know him, and I want them to like him, but they don't have to, I just want them to know this is honest.

DIANE: Well it was wonderful to talk to you, I really appreciate that. Thank you.