onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Books_about_Disneys_Corporate_Mishegoss/Keys_to_the_Kingdom_The_Rise_of_Michael_Eisner_and_the_Fall_of_Everybody_Else');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0066621097'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">Keys to the Kingdom: The Rise of Michael Eisner and the Fall of Everybody Else

by Kim Masters

Amazon says:
Like one of the movie moguls of old, Michael Eisner is a titan -- feared, powerful, and almost magically successful. After rising through ABC television and Paramount Pictures, he awoke the sleeping giant of Disney and sent it stomping across the entertainment landscape. But since the tragic death of Frank Wells in a helicopter crash in 1994, he has lacked -- for the first time in his career -- a colleague who could temper his personality.

The result, writes Kim Masters, has been a slide into a Nixonian paranoia and isolation. In The Keys to the Kingdom, Masters crafts a gripping account of this larger-than-life story of larger-than-life hubris, combining an insightful analysis of power in Hollywood with a vivid, deeply researched narrative that brings the personalities, the enmities, and the corporate mayhem to life.

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Books_about_Disneys_Corporate_Mishegoss/Keys_to_the_Kingdom_The_Rise_of_Michael_Eisner_and_the_Fall_of_Everybody_Else');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0066621097'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">more on Amazon onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Books_about_Disneys_Corporate_Mishegoss/Keys_to_the_Kingdom_The_Rise_of_Michael_Eisner_and_the_Fall_of_Everybody_Else');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0066621097'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow"> 512 page paperback |$12.80 |22 reviews

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Books_about_Disneys_Corporate_Mishegoss/Work_in_Progress_Risking_Failure_Surviving_Success');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0786885076'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">Work in Progress: Risking Failure, Surviving Success

by Michael D. Eisner, Tony Schwartz

Amazon says:
In 1964, NBC clerk Michael Eisner made $65 a week. Though he only took one business course in his life -- accounting -- he did have a head for business: as CEO of Disney, he earned over half a billion bucks in 1997. Though he had no foundation in finance, he averted the bloody dismemberment of Disney by takeover sharks when he took over in 1984, and by May 1998 he earned over $80 billion for Disney stockholders. Not bad for a guy who, on his first day in Walt's old office, met a manager of the film division BVD (Buena Vista Distribution) and innocently asked whether "Disney made underwear." In his memoir, Eisner doesn't air quite as much dirty laundry as we could hope he'd be dopey enough to do. Still, it is revealing, and since it's unheard-of for Hollywood potentates to spill any beans at all, this book is required reading for anyone interested in America's major export, popular culture.

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Books_about_Disneys_Corporate_Mishegoss/Work_in_Progress_Risking_Failure_Surviving_Success');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0786885076'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">more on Amazon onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Books_about_Disneys_Corporate_Mishegoss/Work_in_Progress_Risking_Failure_Surviving_Success');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0786885076'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow"> 464 page paperback |$11.21 |44 reviews

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Books_about_Disneys_Corporate_Mishegoss/DisneyWar');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0743267095'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">DisneyWar

by James B. Stewart

Amazon says:
DisneyWar takes readers through a wild up-and-down ride as it describes Eisner's regime as CEO. The tale begins with Eisner's early successes rejuvenating Disney's live-action movie franchise and theme parks, the kickoff of the modern animation era with blockbuster hits like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, and the cultivation of a highly talented cadre of lieutenants. James Stewart makes clear that Eisner has had a major eye for strong creative content himself, both as a young executive in his pre-Disney years at ABC and at Paramount Pictures and more recently in building partnerships like Disney's extremely lucrative one with Pixar.

Just as he credits Eisner for various Disney successes, though, Stewart assigns blame for the failures, too. Much of the book describes detailed and specific interactions between Eisner and his rivals. Readers interested in the entertainment industry or in the personalities which drive it will not be disappointed. The blow-by-blow accounts of Eisner's feuds with Dreamworks SKG founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was his chief aide for nearly two decades, and Michael Ovitz, the superagent from CAA who had been friends with Eisner for even longer than that, are amazingly detailed. They show Eisner to be creative, funny, and charming when he wants to be -- and devious, dishonest, and horribly Machiavellian when he doesn't.

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Books_about_Disneys_Corporate_Mishegoss/DisneyWar');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0743267095'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">more on Amazon onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Books_about_Disneys_Corporate_Mishegoss/DisneyWar');" onMouseOver="window.status='http://amazon.com/dp/0743267095'; return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow"> 608 page paperback |$10.88 |102 reviews