Who knew that famously cold-blooded Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner has a warm and cuddly side?
For more than a year, the embattled media and entertainment mogul who in recent years has watched Disney stock slide while detractors have howled for his head has been toiling on a heartwarming narrative of his summers at Camp Keewaydin in Salisbury, Vt., and the important life lessons he drew from them.
Warner Books plans to publish the 61-year-old Eisner's book, titled simply "Camp," as its major selection for next Father's Day, with an initial printing of 75,000 to 100,000.
"This is going to be a very big book," Warner Books Chairman Larry Kirshbaum predicted never mind that Eisner's ghostwritten 1998 autobiography, "Work in Progress," had tepid sales.
"It's really a wonderful personal coming-of-age story," said Kirshbaum, who accompanied Eisner this summer on a pilgrimage to Keewaydin and even went canoeing with him.
The fictional Charles Foster Kane might have had his "Rosebud," but Eisner has Keewaydin where, as a privileged son of a New York financier, he spent summers from ages 7 to 22 (shifting from camper to counselor in the process).
"Michael's whole family has gone to Keewaydin going back to the 1920s," Kirschbaum said. "Michael is as passionate about Camp Keewaydin as he is about anything else in life or business."
I'm told that Eisner, who in his autobiography credited the camp with shaping "my core values," initially tried to write his latest book unaided. He consulted such publishing pros as Bob Miller, head of the Disney subsidiary Hyperion, and New York literary agent Alice Martell.
"He wrote a lot of it himself, and I heard it was pretty awful," a publishing source told me. "Eisner is not a writer."
But Martell, who was briefly Eisner's agent, defended her former client: "I don't think it would be fair to describe it as 'very bad.' "
Eisner, however, now has a collaborator, "Bob Costas Show" producer Aaron Cohen, who is busily whipping "Camp" into shape.
For more than a year, the embattled media and entertainment mogul who in recent years has watched Disney stock slide while detractors have howled for his head has been toiling on a heartwarming narrative of his summers at Camp Keewaydin in Salisbury, Vt., and the important life lessons he drew from them.
Warner Books plans to publish the 61-year-old Eisner's book, titled simply "Camp," as its major selection for next Father's Day, with an initial printing of 75,000 to 100,000.
"This is going to be a very big book," Warner Books Chairman Larry Kirshbaum predicted never mind that Eisner's ghostwritten 1998 autobiography, "Work in Progress," had tepid sales.
"It's really a wonderful personal coming-of-age story," said Kirshbaum, who accompanied Eisner this summer on a pilgrimage to Keewaydin and even went canoeing with him.
The fictional Charles Foster Kane might have had his "Rosebud," but Eisner has Keewaydin where, as a privileged son of a New York financier, he spent summers from ages 7 to 22 (shifting from camper to counselor in the process).
"Michael's whole family has gone to Keewaydin going back to the 1920s," Kirschbaum said. "Michael is as passionate about Camp Keewaydin as he is about anything else in life or business."
I'm told that Eisner, who in his autobiography credited the camp with shaping "my core values," initially tried to write his latest book unaided. He consulted such publishing pros as Bob Miller, head of the Disney subsidiary Hyperion, and New York literary agent Alice Martell.
"He wrote a lot of it himself, and I heard it was pretty awful," a publishing source told me. "Eisner is not a writer."
But Martell, who was briefly Eisner's agent, defended her former client: "I don't think it would be fair to describe it as 'very bad.' "
Eisner, however, now has a collaborator, "Bob Costas Show" producer Aaron Cohen, who is busily whipping "Camp" into shape.
