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HOLLYWOOD (AP) — A Walt Disney interview was ritualistic in form, but never in content.

The procedure was always the same. The reporter went with Disney's public relations man to the award-packed office on the third floor of the animation building at the noon hour. A secretary served tomato juice to Walt and the visitors, and Walt began talking.

He sat at a low table laden with scripts and reports; there was no desk in the Disney office. All about were mementoes of past triumphs: ceramic busts of Mickey Mouse, the Dwarfs, etc. But Walt had scant interest in the past. Very often he would talk about projects that would not reach the public for three, four, five years.

"Let's go eat," Walt would say after he had expounded on his work in progress. He walked down the corridor and along Dopey Drive — the streets are named after the studio's stars — to the commissary. Along the way he said hello to employes; virtually all called him "Walt," but the casualness was not to be mistaken for intimacy. There was always a respectful distance between employes and the boss.
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