Former Disney Chief Michael Eisner: A Woman Who Is Funny and Beautiful Is "Impossible to Find"

Since he left The Walt Disney Co. in 2005 after 21 years as its top executive, Michael Eisner has invested mostly in new media and digital entertainment. On Nov. 13, however, Eisner, 70, signaled his plan to return to film with a multiyear global distribution deal with Universal Pictures.

"In the history of the motion-picture business, the number of beautiful, really beautiful women — a Lucille Ball — that are funny, is impossible to find."

Michael Eisner thinks that funny, beautiful women are hard to find.

That's what the former Disney CEO told an audience Thursday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, according to The Atlantic.

During an onstage conversation with Goldie Hawn, he theorized on why she'd been so successful: "From my position, the hardest artist to find is a beautiful, funny woman. By far. They usually — boy am I going to get in trouble, I know this goes online — but usually, unbelievably beautiful women, you being an exception, are not funny."

For her part, Hawn replied that she might owe her comedic talents to the fact that she thought of herself as an "ugly duckling" when she was young.

"You didn't think you were beautiful," Eisner said. "I know women who have been told they're beautiful, they win Miss Arkansas, they don't ever have to get attention other than with their looks. So they don't tell a joke. In the history of the motion-picture business, the number of beautiful, really beautiful women — a Lucille Ball — that are funny, is impossible to find."

Eisner, who served as CEO at Disney from 1984-2005, also held senior posts at ABC and Paramount Pictures.