Ron W. Miller, ex-Disney CEO, son-in-law of Walt

LOS ANGELES — Ron W. Miller, a former University of Southern California football star who married a daughter of Walt Disney and later became CEO of the Burbank entertainment giant, died Saturday. He was 85.

Mr. Miller died in Napa, where he owned Silverado Vineyards. He served as president and later chief executive of Disney from 1978 until 1984, when he was pushed out in a power struggle that left Frank Wells and Michael Eisner in charge of the company.

The company in a statement credited him as being a driving force behind such initiatives as Epcot Center, Touchstone Pictures and the Disney Channel.

Mr. Miller married into the Disney clan in 1954 after meeting Walt Disney’s daughter, Diane, on a blind date when she was 20 and he was 21 and a member of the USC football team, according to a company blog post. He later played for the Los Angeles Rams before he came to work at Walt Disney Studios in 1957. His first job was serving as an assistant on the classic movie “Old Yeller.”

After leaving the company, he and his wife went to the Napa Valley to run Silverado Vineyards. Later, the couple helped establish the Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio area of San Francisco. He served on its board of directors and became president in 2013.