HOLLYWOOD URBAN LEGEND: WALT DISNEY

URBAN LEGEND: Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen.

STATUS: 100% Not True

Beloved animator and theme park-founder Walt Disney passed away in 1966, at the age of 65. The movie legend had been a heavy smoker all of his life, and eventually contracted lung cancer, dying in hospital of circulatory collapse only a month after his diagnosis. His remains were cremated two days later, and his ashes scattered at Forest Lawn Memorial Lake in Glendale, California.

Although that’s the official story, there is a persistent rumor that Disney decided to try and extend his life by having his body cryogenically frozen, in the hope that he could be revived sometime in the future. However, this rumor is definitely false.

The urban legend came about because Bob Nelson, head of the California Cryogenics Society, said that Disney wanted to be frozen, but as he didn’t state it in writing his family opted to cremate him instead.

The first instance of a corpse being cryogenically frozen was performed in 1967, after a year after Disney’s death, meaning if he had gone ahead with it he would have been the first person to ever do so...