Disney Legend Jack Lindquist Dead at 89

Sad news coming in today as we learn that Former Disneyland President and Disney Legend Jack Lindquist passed away today at the age of 89 years old.

In his early years, he spent 15 years acting as an extra in films including the 1939 film, “The little Princess” starring the late Shirley Temple Black. He graduated from Hollywood High school and spent 2 years serving in the U.S Air Force. Afterwards he pursued a degree in marketing at the University of Southern California.

When he graduated he began a career in advertising working for a Los Angeles based Advertising Agency, representing Kelvinator appliances as a client. Since his client was a sponsor to Disneyland Park, Lindquist was invited was to view the park’s construction and again for the park’s opening day as part of the special televised press preview day.

Shortly after the park’s official opening Lindquist received a call from Disneyland management asking for suggestions for an available advertising manager. he suggested himself for the position and in turn he was given an offer.

As one of the initial Disneyland park employees, and as Disneyland’s first advertising manager, Lindquist assumed increasing responsibilities that aided his growth in the company as one of the lead executives overseeing the Disneyland parks. In 1965, he earned the title, Director of Marketing, and then when Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, Florida in 1972, he was named vice president of marketing for Disneyland and World Disney World.

Four years later, Lindquist assumed the role of vice president of marketing for Walt Disney Attractions. In 1982, with the addition of the park, Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris, Lindquist was again promoted to executive vice president of marketing and entertainment, overseeing not only the parks in the United States, Japan and France, but also for the company’s outdoor recreation activities.

Lindquist being the advertising executive for over 38 years started advertising and marketing promotions that were replicated industry wide. He came up with the idea of pre sale tickets  for special events thrown by amusement parks with the start of Disneyland’s first New Year’s Eve event. Grad Nite was another creation by Linquist and his co-worker Bill Schwenn in response to a high school night the preceding year, in which students were involved in a tragic automobile accident, where families can contact professionals like the ones on Bengal Law website. They met with several women from local high school Parent-Teacher Association(PTA) groups to discuss the opportunity for a safe graduate evening party within the Disneyland park.

Realizing that it would not be operationally feasible to justify opening the park only for the total of 800 students the women represented, Lindquist opened the event to additional area high school graduating classes. To fill the park so that it could afford to adequately staff and run the park for the Grad Night evening, tickets were sold to students from eight Southern California high schools, at a cost of $3,95 per ticket, from which a total of 8,500 attended on the first Grad Night party of June 15, 1961. As a result of the success of this first event, Disneyland’s Grad Night became an annual event. It became so successful that it was adopted at Walt Disney World, Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris along with other outside competitors such as Six Flags.

A popular marketing campaign that Jack Lindquist also pioneered was the anniversary tie-in. In a desire to capture some of the millions of visitors attending the 1985 Olympics that were to take place in Los Angeles, Lindquist realized that the year would also be the 30th anniversary of the Disneyland park. While 30th anniversaries are rarely a cause for celebration, it would be marketed, regardless, as a milestone year.

The marketing campaign used “presents” and “giveaways” to entice guests to visit the park. Lindquist worked with General Motors, who was a new lessee for the Epcot park in Walt Disney World, Florida, and worked out a deal where the Disneyland park gave away a total of 106 General Motors automobiles throughout the 30th Anniversary year. The success of the Anniversary giveaways drew a total of 12,040,000 people to the Disneyland park that year, around three million more than the 9.2 million who attended the park the previous year.

Commercial tie-ins with Disneyland commenced with the planning and development of the park in the 1950s. With the need to raise money to finance the park, Walt Disney entered into a production agreement with the ABC television network to provide weekly programming in exchange for a line of credit to be used to pay for the park’s development, as well as to market the park, itself, through the programming of a weekly program: Disneyland. The weekly show featured themes in keeping with the different themed areas of the namesake amusement park.^[6]

Lindquist later helped to create one of today’s most recognized commercial tag-lines, and celebratory tradition, when the New York Giants won Super Bowl XXI in 1985, and quarterback Phil Simms was the first to utter the phrase: “I’m Going to Disneyland.” while on the East coast broadcasting feed, the line was: “I’m going to Disney World.”

He is also notable for the creation of the Disney currency known as Disney Dollars, which were released at Walt Disney World and Disneyland in 1987.

He served as the First Disneyland President from 1990 until 1993 and was honored as a Disney Legend in 1994, one year after his retirement. He was also given a coveted window on Disneyland’s Main Street.

He covers his memoirs in his book , “In Service to the Mouse” covers his journey with the Walt Disney Company and Disneyland.

Our condolences go out to his friends and family and he will truly be missed by everyone.