Disney Legend Dick Nunis, the former Chairman of Walt Disney Attractions and “Walt's Apprentice” leading the theme parks, has passed away at 91 years old.
Nunis was the Disney leader that helped to deliver on Walt Disney's dream to deliver an incredible guest experience for visitors to Disneyland and to grow the parks business to a global scale. After Walt Disney's passing, Nunis led the efforts to deliver Walt Disney World Resort and the other international expansions. He worked for Disney for 44 years before retiring from his final roles at the company as a member of the board of directors of Disney and Chairman of Walt Disney Attractions.
Nunis played football at USC with Ron Miller, Walt Disney's future son-in-law and future CEO of Disney, who told him about Disneyland. Nunis applied for a summer job helping with the training of new Disneyland employees and ended up working directly for Van Arsdale France who created the original Disney orientation and training program. Working with France, Nunis helped to craft an approach to guest service that is still felt around the world today at the Disney Parks.
“Today, we mourn the passing of Dick Nunis, a true Disney Legend whose contributions to The Walt Disney Company have touched the lives of millions of people all over the world,” said Disney CEO Bob Iger. “What started as a summer job training future Disneyland employees would ultimately become a storied 44-year career at Disney. Dick took the values and philosophies he learned directly from Walt and incorporated them into everything he did at Disney. We are grateful for his many achievements and we extend our deepest sympathies to his family and loved ones.”
The current head of Disney Parks, Josh D'Amaro also commented. “On behalf of every Cast Member, Crew Member, Imagineer and employee of Disney Experiences, I want to express my gratitude to Disney Legend Dick Nunis… and my condolences to his family following the sad news of his passing,” said Josh D’Amaro, Chairman of Disney Experiences. “Dick’s impact on our theme parks business is everlasting. Along with our founder, Walt Disney, Dick helped shape our business, create happiness for millions of families around the world… and set a standard that an entire industry must now live up to.”
Scroll down for an excerpt from his book that demonstrates how we hope Disney continues to lead today and a story from a favorite Disney Imagineer talking about pitching a project to Nunis.
Planning a Disneyland Vacation?
Get exclusive access to prices on hotel & tickets just for Mickey Visit subscribers. Don't miss our travel hacks newsletter!
Dick Nunis Disney Remembrance
Disney released the below further piece on the death of Dick Nunis that I think is worth reading.
Born May 30, 1932, in Cedartown, Georgia, Nunis received a football scholarship to the University of Southern California (USC). His ambition to become a professional football player and coach was cut short, however, when he suffered a broken neck while playing ball. In 1955, he graduated from USC with a Bachelor of Science in Education.
“Walt believed strongly that what would make Disneyland different was the people—he wanted them to feel that they were part of the organization,” Nunis once said. “That’s why he established the first-name policy—he was Walt, I was Dick, and so on. From an overall operations point of view, the most important thing is to work together to make sure that when guests come, they have a wonderful experience.”
Nunis coined a phrase in his work as a trainer that embodied Walt’s philosophy, as he shared during a Q&A with Disney twenty-three in 2022. “One of the phrases we used a lot in training—‘the magic mirror of your smile’—that was my phrase.” The expression, his wife, Mary, explained, meant “you smile and ‘the mirror’—in this case another person—smiles back.”
Nunis soon worked his way up to attractions supervisor, developing standard operating procedures for the park’s attractions. Many of these are still in use today. In 1961, he became director of park operations and helped develop Walt Disney World Resort.
In his address to the cast members on the occasion of the Tencennial of Disneyland in 1965, Walt recounted a conversation he had with Nunis about the future of the park. “You know,” Nunis told Walt Disney, “We’ve got to take care of these people. Honestly Walt, we’ve got to expand Fantasyland. We’ve got to expand this (park).” Walt said that Nunis had him working harder than he’d ever worked before to expand Disneyland in order to accommodate the millions of additional guests he knew would visit every year.
From 1967–74, Nunis also served as chairman of the Park Operations Committee, and, in 1968, was bumped up to vice president of operations. By 1971, the year Magic Kingdom opened at Walt Disney World, he was named executive vice president of Walt Disney World and Disneyland.
In 1980, a month after his 25th anniversary with Disney, he was named president of the Outdoor Recreation Division, additionally overseeing EPCOT Center and, later, the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park (now Disney’s Hollywood Studios). Nunis also consulted on plans for Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris while serving on the Walt Disney Productions Board of Directors.
Nunis once said in an interview with France, “Disney is successful because we are dealing with people. And the words ‘quality’ and ‘pride,’ that is really what it is all about. As long as we design, build, engineer, maintain, and market with quality, that’s going to give our people great pride, and I’ve always said—and I believe it very strongly—that if you don’t have the quality, then you can’t have the pride, and if you ever lose the pride, you certainly will never have quality. And that’s what we should build on for the future.”
On May 26, 1999, exactly 44 years to the day after he joined the company, Nunis retired as chairman of Walt Disney Attractions. That same year, he was honored with a window on Main Street, U.S.A., at Disneyland and was named a Disney Legend. Nunis’ window, located above Disney Showcase, reads: “Coast to Coast Peoplemoving, World Leader in Leisure Management, Dick Nunis, Proprietor, Founded 1955, Offices Anaheim, Orlando, Tokyo, Wave Machines a Specialty.” The “Coast to Coast Peoplemoving” refers to Nunis’ role in convincing hundreds of Disneyland cast members to move from California to Florida to help open and operate the Walt Disney World in 1971.
The “wave machine” reference is an inside joke. In 1971, Nunis pushed for the installation of a wave machine in the Seven Seas Lagoon at Walt Disney World. Although the machine provided the desired waves, it produced unforeseen complications and was quickly removed. However, Nunis remained an advocate of providing surfing at the resort and finally got his wish when an updated version of the wave machine opened in 1989 at Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon Water Park.
Upon receiving his window at Disneyland Park, Nunis stated, “This is really quite an honor and a privilege to have my name up on Main Street with so many great people that have dedicated their lives to making Disneyland what it is today.”
In 2022, Nunis released the memoir Walt’s Apprentice: Keeping the Disney Dream Alive, which follows Disney’s highlights, including the development and opening of Disneyland, Walt Disney World, EPCOT, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris, in addition to the pageantry for the 1960 Winter Olympics and the Disney attractions at the 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair. He also shared anecdotes about learning directly from Walt and championing his vision as Disney expanded worldwide.
Nunis is survived by his wife Mary, his children, Rich, Lisa and Corey, and his grandchildren, Richie, Dean, Madison, Landon, Annabelle, and Greyton.
Walt's Apprentice Dick Nunis Excerpt
I recently finished reading Dick Nunis' book “Walt's Apprentice” which tells his story developing the standards to grow the Walt Disney Attractions groups to a global scale. The book gives a look into the hard-driving leader that was relentless in his pursuit of quality and an incredible guest experience. Amazingly in the book Nunis mentioned a weekend at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco in 2010 that I personally had the opportunity to attend. Nunis and Marty Sklar pulled together an incredible weekend celebrating the leaders and creatives that built the Disney Parks around the world to celebrate the 55th anniversary of Disneyland. I'll never forget the energy and passion that Nunis had as he signed my Disneyland map and joked with his peers. So full of life (and unabashed opinion) even then.
That weekend was one that helped to demonstrate to me the importance of the decisions from the people behind the scenes. It was also a great reminder that though Imagineers are often heralded as the great forces behind the Disney Parks, the operators create the framework and need for that creativity. Dick Nunis is very much an unsung hero that helped to create the Disney experience.
In the book there there is one chapter in particular that I want to quote for you here to demonstrate the level of leadership that led to the creation of the theme parks that we all love today. It is difficult to imagine that any story like the one below is happening out there today. Below is an excerpt from Walt's Apprentice from a chapter title “Keeping Quality on the Menu”.
Begin Excerpt written by Dick Nunis:
I cared about the total guest experience, not just what they felt when they were on an attraction or watching a show. When I realized guests faced long lines and wait times for dinner at the restaurants on the fourth floor of Disney's Contemporary Resort, I asked financial planner Gene Lemoine to investigate and come back to me with solutions. (Anyone who reported to me knew when I asked them to look into things, I expected their feedback to start with solutions.) The popularity of the fourth-floor restaurants was no mystery. Guests assumed these spots would be convenient because if they were exiting the Magic Kingdom, they were doing it via the fourth-floor Monorail station. That's why restaurants nearby became overloaded with day guests.
My challenge to Gene was to figure out how to turn what seemed to be a problem into an opportunity. I also wanted to encourage him to approach the problem from a guest's point of view, not as a “sharp pencil guy,” as Roy O. Disney used to call the financial people. The obvious answer was to build a new restaurant. The numbers looked good, and we had the space because the restaurants on the fourth floor were concentrated on one side of the building.
Hotel management was asking for a new dishwasher in the new space, and Gene reported to me this was an unnecessary luxury. I knew it wasn't, but I wanted him to understand why. I asked Gene to spend a week working a swing shift as a busboy. He was a big, athletic guy who was in great shape. I was pretty sure that a few days of carrying trays of dirty dishes might change his point of view without hurting his back. He agreed.
After Gene's last night shift as a busboy, I gave him a call. I was genuinely curious to hear how a financial planner adjusted to such hands-on manual labor. He now understood my position completely. Carrying those heavy trays past guests, an unnecessarily long distance, created a moving eyesore. It also placed an unreasonable demand on busboys, plus was a safety concern. Gene told me later, “You patiently explained that Disney's goal was to provide a quality experience and the glow from that experience would allow Disney to add many additional and profitable hotels in the future. We both saw that happen.”
We went ahead with construction of the new restaurant, but I was not quite through with Gene's crash course in quality. I called to ask him if we had a construction wall separating the work area from guests in place? Was there a model for the expansion on display where guests could see it? He admitted he had not been to the fourth floor in several days and didn't know. I said, “Young man, in your position you should know that …”
I insisted —emphatically, to use a polite term-that “finance guys” needed to walk their areas constantly and talk with guests and employees and know what was going on. Walt did that. I remember that he vetoed construction of an administration building and air-conditioning for offices on Main Street in Disneyland because he didn't want managers to spend too much time away from guests. Regardless of my title, I made my presence known throughout the parks and I encouraged the next generation of leaders to do the same.
End Excerpt.
As you can see from the chapter above, Dick Nunis was a hardcore leader that pushed all of his reports out of their comfort zone but did it with kindness and a self-assured confidence in them. There's not much commentary needed on the chapter excerpt above other than to say that I hope leaders at the Disney Parks and Resorts today are pushed to deliver this same style of guest experience. I highly recommend his book for more of a look into the operational efforts completed to deliver a great experience.
Dick Nunis' Support of Animal Kingdom
I'll end this reflection on Dick Nunis' life with a very fun story from Walt Disney Imagineer Joe Rohde. Famous for his work leading the creation of Animal Kingdom, Rohde maintains a relaxed fit wardrobe and an ear that droops with multiple earings pierced through it. He is pure Imaginer while Dick Nunis was known as pure corporate. The below is a wonderful story that Rohde shared on Instagram.
Rohde started off saying that Nunis “is one of the main reasons that Disney’s Animal Kingdom came to be. Dick was the Chairman of Walt Disney Attractions back then, and a fierce opponent of the project, because he thought it would be a zoo. If he didn’t want it to happen, it was NOT HAPPENING…because he was…the chairman..and because he was him. He did not play chess. He played for keeps.”
Rohde then went into a story about how that support came to be.
Begin Instagram excerpt
Dick was like a fairy tale figure at WDI, like a dragon in a cave…a tough, conservative, top-down, take-orders kind of guy. I was…a hippie…had hair down to my waist and big earrings. Every cultural cue within the company should have had us in direct conflict. But I liked him anyway. I was like..”He’s never done me any wrong, what’s to lose?!”
So I called him and arranged to go to Florida and present the one-page idea for the park. This was in the first year of development so there wasn’t much else to show. I flew cross-country. I put my hair back. I wore a suit and tie.
When I walked into Dick’s office, he was sitting there wearing a Hawaiian shirt, white Bermuda shorts, sandals, and a huge dangling clip-on earring. There’s not many people left who know just how unexpected that would be. I pointed to my suit, “Dude! I did this for YOU!” He replied, “I did this for you!” I set up my boards and did my presentation. Nunis said, “Well. You’ve addressed all my concerns. This isn’t what I thought it was. It’s new. It’s great. It’s feasible. You have my support 100%.” And we did. Because he was a man of integrity. That is rare. And that is why I liked him. Make no mistake, without his support, nobody would have given us the time of day. Now that he is gone, a vast chapter in the history of the Disney Company exists only in the form of remembrances. And mine is one of them
End Excerpt.
The above two stories are just some of the ones that we could share reflecting on the incredible life of this individual that helped to create an environment that rewarded hard work developing next-level guest experiences. Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and the Disney parks around the world would not be held in their high regard today if it weren't for Dick Nunis. Rest in Peace.
Thank you, Dick! Your guidance and passion for the parks will be missed.
Planning a Disney Vacation?
Be sure to join our FREE Mickey Visit newsletter to get the latest discounts and tips.
Planning a Disney Vacation? Get Exclusive Discounts + Free Bonuses
In addition to exclusive discounts for Mickey Visit subscribers, get our free planning printable and guide to make your life SO much easier.
