Lillian Disney, the widow of Walt Disney and a leading patron of the arts, has died at 98 from complications following a stroke.

The former Lillian Bounds was married to Walt Disney for 41 years.

She was her husband's primary sounding board. He would run his revolutionary ideas, from Snow White to Disneyland, by her for approval.

She often served as a counterbalance, refusing to go along with some of his more daring ideas until he had thought them through.

Later in her life, Mrs Disney raised money for the much-delayed Disney Concert Hall, the future home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She began the effort with a $50m contribution a decade ago.

But she did not live to see it completed as construction funding remains short of its target and all that sits on the downtown site today is a concrete foundation and a car park. The 2,350-seat hall is now scheduled to open in 2001.

She met Disney after landing a job as a $15 a week "inker" of film frames at the Disney studio. They were married in 1925. Walt Disney died in 1966.

The publicity-shy Mrs Disney avoided the Hollywood social scene. After her husband's death, she helped found the California Institute of the Arts, a school that has produced many of the film industry's best animators. She also operated a charitable foundation.

One of her rare public comments in recent years concerned the Marc Eliot book "Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince." Among other things, the book portrayed Disney as a political reactionary, an anti-Semite and a Hollywood informant for the FBI.

In a statement, she said: "We shared a wonderful, exciting life, and we loved every minute of it. He was a wonderful husband to me and wonderful and joyful father and grandfather. I am distressed to learn of a new book about Walt that actually invents incidents that never happened."

A daughter Walt and Lillian adopted, Sharon, died in 1993. She is survived by her daughter, Diane Disney Miller.
 

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