The drawn faces filed into the plush ballroom. Robert Jess Roth could almost hear the grinding teeth above the hammering of his own heart. Lighting up another Merit, he escaped back into the garden. Just five days earlier, in an Aspen hotel room, Roth had persuaded Disney’s chairman and CEO, Michael Eisner, and studio chairman, Jeffrey Katzenberg, to green-light his pet project. That was the easy part.
Now, on this warm August evening, the 30-year-old Roth was gathering his nerve, fingering the tiny bullet-like charm on his good-luck necklace. Over the next six months, as Roth pursued his dream of turning Beauty and the Beast into a Broadway musical, the pendant would prove symbolic. […]
