Denise Greenawalt, a longtime broadside executive for Walt Disney Studios, died in her nap following a prolonged illness May 22 during Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, a association announced Tuesday. She was 52.
Hollywood’s Notable Deaths of 2013•Obituaries
During her 16-year reign with Disney, Greenawalt played a pivotal purpose in building and implementing broadside campaigns for many of a studio’s biggest charcterised hits including The Lion King, Toy Story and Toy Story 2, and Beauty and a Beast. She also helped launch such vital Touchstone Pictures/Jerry Bruckheimer Films blockbusters as Armageddon, The Rock, Con Air and Pearl Harbor.
She late from Disney for health reasons in 2002. The company’s matter announcing her genocide enclosed tributes to Greenawalt from a resources of a studio’s top execs, producers and talent, past and present.
“Denise was positively one of a kind, with her shining professionalism and adequate appetite to light an whole city,” Jerry Bruckheimer said. “We worked on many films together, and Denise done a extensive grant to their success, only effervescent over with uninformed and confidant ideas. She will be missed by all of her friends and colleagues, and positively by me.”
“All of us during Pixar and Disney, and in a animation industry, have mislaid a loyal crony and a good supporter,” pronounced John Lasseter, arch artistic officer of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. “Denise worked tirelessly and enthusiastically to ventilate a films and always went above and over a call of avocation to get a word out about a new releases. She was smart, humorous and full of good ideas when it came to publicity. Denise was an critical partial of a animation rebirth during Disney.”
Songwriter Tim Rice pronounced Greenawalt was “impossible not to adore and admire.” Thomas Schumacher, boss of Disney Theatrical Group and former conduct of Disney Animation, pronounced she “was a rarest of combinations: deeply supportive and merciful while also relentless and determined. … She carried a flame of Disney Animation with strange beauty and passion.”
Born in Philadelphia on Sept. 23, 1960, Greenawalt attended Loyola Marymount’s School of Film and Television and after perceived her MBA from UCLA. She went to work during open family organisation Rogers Cowan while posterior her dream pursuit during Disney. In 1986, she was hired as an partner for Disney Studios’ margin broadside dialect and in 1994 was named vp national publicity.
Her campaigns enclosed work for such films as Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Hercules, Mulan, Fantasia 2000, The Emperor’s New Groove, Lilo Stitch, Brother Bear, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., The Princess Diaries, Evita and Gone in 60 Seconds.
“Denise was a force to be reckoned with and as intelligent as they come,” pronounced Dick Cook, former Disney Studios chairman. “I can’t consider of any broadside executive some-more tenacious, gifted and driven than she. “
In further to her countless maestro accomplishments, she was a humanitarian. In 2003, her late Westie, Trevor, perceived his Therapy Dog Certification, and a dual would revisit Huntington Hospital patients twice a week.
Greenawalt also volunteered for Elton John‘s Aids Foundation as good as a La Canada (Calif.) Thursday Club, where she was in assign of a debutante program. Last year, she stepped down and changed into an advisory role.
“The many pleasing and bold woman,” John said. “She was an inspiration.”
Greenawalt also was a member of ASIFA (the home of a Annie Awards), Women in Film and a Publicists Guild of America, where she and a Disney PR group were respected with a Maxwell Weinberg Showmanship Award for their work on Beauty and a Beast and Aladdin. She was respected by her peers during a guild in 1997 with a special endowment of merit.
“She was tiny in stature, though that was where tiny ended,” pronounced maestro Disney animation writer and filmmaker Don Hahn. “The rest of Denise was expansive, ardent and superfluous with her spreading adore of cinema and a people who done them. She was like family to stone stars, film stars, bustling executives and geeky guys who charcterised Mermaids, Beasts and Flying Carpet rides. We were her biggest fans, and she was a sweet, tenacious, dog-loving, Hummer-driving, little sister whom we will always adore and never forget.”
“With Denise’s intractable determination, total with a bit of fitness and some assistance from a gods, she found a home during Disney,” pronounced Peter Schneider, former Disney Studios authority and longtime conduct of Disney Animation. “For over 16 years, when we suspicion of Disney broadside … we suspicion of Denise. When we suspicion about Disney duration … we suspicion of Denise. And, when we suspicion of humanity, passion and bravery … we suspicion of Denise. She was singular and irreplaceable. Animated with adore to a end, she gave her heart and essence to Disney and a studio’s artists. And a umbrella adore for her … is bound and permanent.”
Survivors embody her mom Doris “Dotty” Greenawalt, her hermit David and her 2-year-old Westie, Charlie.
A mass will be held during 10 a.m. Saturday during St. Bede a Venerable in La Canada Flintridge. Interment will follow during Forest Lawn in Glendale.
Donations can be done in her name to a Huntington Hospital Pet Assisted Therapy module during (626) 397-5208.
