Ask Will: Walt Disney's last words were ... what?

Hey Will, I heard a story the other day about how Walt Disney's last words before he died were, "Kurt Russell." Is that true? What does it mean?

Dominic Schane, Palm Springs

Urban legends and conspiracy theories are rampant in this day and age, so it's almost quaint, in a Disneyesque way, to find one that has an established basis in fact. While it's not the "Citizen Kane"-style deathbed muttering it's sometimes cracked up to be, it appears that, yes, one of the last communications Walt Disney made shortly before his death on Dec. 16, 1966 was a note he jotted down on a pad of paper in his Burbank office: "Kurt Russell." (Actually, "Kirt," according to a video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mP25cFgCxw)

According to an April 2007 "Jimmy Kimmel Live" interview, Russell himself was shown this pad from Disney's office, which had been preserved more or less intact since his death. He said he didn't know what it meant.

Now, as "last words" go, it's not quite on the level of other famous names with famous words. Take the always quotable Oscar Wilde: "Either that wallpaper goes or I do." Others become famous because of their last words, the most cited being Civil War general John Sedgwick, who is reputed to have rallied his Union men at the Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864 with, "Why are you dodging like this? They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance," before being shot dead by a Confederate bullet.

Nor is it on the same level as the persistent belief that Uncle Walt's corporeal form, with some spark of life still contained, is in cryogengic freeze, entombed, depending on which story you've heard, beneath the Matterhorn or The Pirates of the Caribbean rides at Disneyland. (Though there have been reliable reports that, at least at some time, there was a basketball court underneath the Matterhorn). For me, at least, that hoary story was my first introduction to the realm of urban legend and hidden conspiracy, and while I could not have possibly forseen the Internet-fueling industry that such mythology would become, I confess that every visit to Anaheim is intriguingly colored by the thought.

Still, maybe that's why it fascinates people so much. Disney was a living legend even during his lifetime, certainly at least on Wilde's level and much more famed than poor Sedgwick. And of course Russell has achieved fame of his own. That the two of them would be linked in such a potentially dramatic way naturally draws the contemporary imagination.

The simple answer as to why is that Russell was under the beginning of a 10-year contract with Disney studios, which would bear such rich fruit as "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" and "The Strongest Man in the World."

Disney presumably had a brainstorm about a project his company's budding star would succeed with, but that hasn't stopped some fringier elements from offering up such oddball notions that Russell was somehow Disney's son, or that he simply wanted what, as I understand it, many people wanted in the 1960s, an opportunity to meet Goldie Hawn.

I'm surprised I haven't found any evidence of a theory that combines the other famous Disney legend: That Walt froze his brain to have it implanted in Kurt Russell, presumably to go on to cultivate his "bad boy" side by doing cult films like "Escape from New York" or "Captain Ron." Given that, according to the video cited above, Disney's real last notes on the pad were "CIA Mobley," it's even more surprising that even crazier theories haven't been offered, but that's the Internet for you.

It's something of an oddity that in an age of celebrated people tweeting and posting any number of random musings that there appears to be a distinct drop-off in the "famous last word" category of portentious pronouncements. Perhaps it signals an evolution in our ideas of privacy in our final moments on Earth or maybe it just shows a lack of planning as mortality draws near for current generations.

If you have a favorite example of some "famous last words" from history or entertainment, please share via email, Twitter of Facebook, and I'll feature them in a future column.

"Jeopardy" champ and copy editor Will Toren is The Desert Sun's resident know-it-all. He defies you to stump him. Follow Will on Twitter @WillToren for his daily downloads and send him your questions at will.toren@thedesertsun