Disney Family

Stanley Gold and the family of the late Roy Disney were reinstated to the Dodgers bidding on Monday, leaving five parties in contention to buy the team. The decision was disclosed by two people familiar with the sale process but not authorized to comment. The Gold/Disney bid had been rejected last week by a committee of Major League Baseball owners, amid concerns over the structure of an offer that included private equity financing to back the launch of a regional sports network.

KO OLINA, Hawaii - Hang around the fire-pit fire long enough, watching Uncle Ito breathe life into Hawaiian legend, and those rascally little menehune inevitably clamber into the conversation. Uncle Ito, one of the resident storytellers at Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa, is blessed with an abundant sense of humor. In a recitation of the menehune people's favorite foods (banana, sweet potato, fish, poi), he's been known to insinuate a Disney reference to Mickey ice cream bars.

Stanley Gold and the family of the late Roy Disney were reinstated to the Dodgers bidding Monday, leaving five parties in contention to buy the team. The decision was disclosed by two people familiar with the sale process but not authorized to comment. The Gold/Disney bid had been rejected last week by a committee of Major League Baseball owners, amid concerns over the structure of an offer that included private equity financing to back the launch of a regional sports network.

The event : Monday night's “L.A. Phil Gala,” celebrating Walt Disney Concert Hall's 10 th  anniversary and honoring the hall's innovative architect Frank Gehry. The performance:   Gustavo Dudamel conducted the L.A. Phil in a varied program, beginning with John Cage's "4'33,” consisting of only the hall's ambient sounds -- in other words, no music -- and ending with “When You Wish Upon a Star” in tribute to the Disney family. Bach, Tchaikovsky, Ades, Mahler and Saint-Saens came in between, with Yo-Yo Ma performing the solos and videos by artist Netia Jones showing the hall's phases of development.

Shamrock Holdings of California Inc., Burbank, with Wellington Partners, Germany, have invested $11 million in OpenMobile Corp., Scandinavia. The company is building a global platform for mobile telecommunications. Shamrock is the investment company of the Roy E. Disney family.

For the first time in the troubled history of the proposed Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Disney family is stepping forward to take control of how the family's money should be spent. The move proposes a solution to a dispute over who should complete the building's design. The dispute broke out in late May between Frank O. Gehry, the project's architect, and its lead fund-raisers, Mayor Richard Riordan and businessman Eli Broad.

Officials of the troubled Walt Disney Concert Hall project said threats by Los Angeles County to declare the Downtown project in default of a county lease agreement are premature under the terms their contract with the county. In a letter to the county, Disney family attorney Ronald E. Gother said project officials "are seriously concerned about the alarmist tone" of the county's correspondence.

Pee-Wee Herman tap-danced across cafeteria tables and Ultra Violet worked the school switchboard. Theater students rehearsed Chekhov in a cow pasture. "It was Juilliard on drugs," recalled one student. The professors were avant-garde artists who threw conventional training out the window. "No grades, no degrees, no institutional hours," a music teacher said. "I told my students, 'Why should we meet every Thursday at 9:30 in the morning?

Like the earnest young man it's named after, "Iron Will" (citywide) would blush and protest if any kind of fuss were made over it. Just doing my job, sir, this film would say if it could talk, no need to make me out to be more than I am. True enough, but it is "Iron Will's" double charm that its aspirations are humble and straightforward and that it fulfills them so completely.

It was founded by the family that built the Happiest Place on Earth. But for many executives on the opposite side of the boardroom, Shamrock Holdings Inc. has been more like a house of horrors. A few years ago, the Burbank investment company owned by Roy E. Disney led a revolt to oust Walt Disney Co.'s then-chief executive, Michael Eisner. It not only was intensely bitter but also thrust the little-known firm into the limelight. Now it's at it again, this time agitating for change at one of the nation's largest cement makers.

When plans commenced in 1987 to build Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown L.A., architect Frank Gehry was a relatively youthful 58 years old. By the time the hall was completed, after a number of delays and setbacks - not to mention some acrimonious bickering among its key players - the architect had become a 74-year-old eminence grise . Gehry, now 84, recently sat down for a conversation at Disney Hall with Times music critic Mark Swed and...

Tom Hiddleston is a big enough fan of Disney's "The Jungle Book" that he isn't afraid to perform the animated film's classic song "The Bare Necessities" in front of a room full of fellow fans bearing camera phones to immortalize the stunt online. "The Avengers" star, who plays the duplicitous Loki in Marvel's franchise, hit Disney's D23 Expo (think of it as a Disney-centric, Comic-Con lite) in Anaheim on Saturday to promote the upcoming Tinker Bell film, "The Pirate Fairy," costarring "Mad Men's" Christina Hendricks.

Disney's ABC Family has coproduced a three-part Web series promoting contraceptive use among sexually active young adults, which it plans to make available online after it airs a forthcoming episode of its comedy series "Baby Daddy. " The July 31 installment, titled "Text Anxiety," deals with a pregnancy scare involving a girl (played by guest star Lacy Chabert) who takes a pregnancy test -- then struggles to keep it a secret from her boyfriend, Danny, played by Derek Theler. A day after the show airs, the webisodes will appear on the show's website . The minute-long segments feature the show's characters talking about contraceptives in an approachable, humorous way (one features a poker game in which condoms are used as table stakes)

 A 51-year-old man who allegedly represented himself as a Disney family member was arrested in connection with stealing Disneyland passes in a felony burglary case, authorities said Wednesday evening. Stephen Urquidez allegedly had a fake driver's license identifying himself as "Stephen Disney" and false tax forms showing income from the Walt Disney Corp., according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Urquidez gave Disneyland passes to woman he knew so she could donate them for a raffle for a nonprofit where she does volunteer work, department officials said in a statement.

Walt Disney's daughter said the nation lost a consummate professional and one of the loveliest people she has ever known with the death of Mouseketeer Annette Funicello. Funicello, the longtime Disney and beach movie star, passed away Monday at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield at the age of 70.  She died peacefully from complications due to multiple sclerosis, a disease she battled for a quarter-century. "Everyone who knew Annette loved and respected her. She was one of the loveliest people I've ever known, and was always so kind to everyone.

Annette Funicello, the dark-haired darling of TV's “The Mickey Mouse Club” in the 1950s who further cemented her status as a pop-culture icon in the '60s by teaming with Frankie Avalon in a popular series of “beach” movies, died Monday. She was 70. Funicello, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1987 and became a spokeswoman for treatment of the chronic, often-debilitating disease of the central nervous system, died at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield, Walt Disney Co. spokesman Howard Green said.

In a move that could derail construction of Downtown's Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles County officials have threatened to declare project managers in default of their lease agreement within days and to seize a $10-million deposit to finish construction of a county-owned parking structure on the site. In recent letters, County Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed also called for a detailed plan for making the parking garage a stand-alone structure in light of expected delays in beginning construction on the Frank O. Gehry-designed concert hall.

When it comes to being a Disney, it's like father, like son. And like grandfather and great-uncle. Roy Patrick Disney, the 35-year-old son of Roy E. Disney and great-nephew of the late Walt Disney, is following in the footsteps of his famous relatives with his new business venture, Apogee Communications Inc. in Burbank. Apogee, which recently changed its name from Newspeak Inc., was formed in October and is now hot on the acquisition trail for media properties--specifically, radio stations.

Stanley Gold and the family of the late Roy Disney were reinstated to the Dodgers bidding Monday, leaving five parties in contention to buy the team. The decision was disclosed by two people familiar with the sale process but not authorized to comment. The Gold/Disney bid had been rejected last week by a committee of Major League Baseball owners, amid concerns over the structure of an offer that included private equity financing to back the launch of a regional sports network.