Disney Leisure co-chairman Dana Walden obtained the Milestone Award on the 2025 PGA Awards on Saturday. She was offered with the glory by her boss — and former recipient of the Milestone Award — Disney CEO Bob Iger.
“Over the span of Dana’s profession, she’s most likely had a hand in additional tv collection than anybody within the enterprise… which speaks volumes about her love of storytelling and creativity, her respect for creators, and the eagerness and dedication she brings to her job, to our firm, and to the trade,” Iger stated of his “colleague, buddy and neighbor” Walden. “She is a visionary with nice inventive instincts, who has performed a big position in shaping the fashionable period of tv.”
Iger spoke about giving Walden further obligations over streaming quickly after he returned as Disney CEO on the finish of 2022.
“She took to that new enterprise extraordinarily effectively, and he or she and Alan Bergman rotated our streaming efforts in methods nobody thought doable,” stated the chief govt, who is ready to step down subsequent yr, with a succession course of underway wherein Walden has been among the many lead candidates.
In her speech, Walden referred to as working for Iger “a spotlight of my profession” and spoke of his “sturdy management” over the previous month because the Hollywood neighborhood has been reeling from the devastation of the L.A. wildfires. Quite a few Disney staff have been impacted by the fires, together with a whole lot of others within the leisure enterprise.
“Such as you, I’m unsure precisely what’s coming subsequent for this metropolis we love a lot,” Walden, a lifelong Angeleno, stated. “What I’m sure of is that the individuals on this room will discover inventive, humorous, and exquisite methods to remind us of the significance of the trade on this trade city.”
Acknowledging the numerous producers she has labored with in her high roles at twentieth Tv, Fox Broadcasting and Disney, Walden singled out “the superb Ryan Murphy,” with whom she shares one of many longest and prolific executive-producer relationships that has yielded 20 collection and counting, together with Glee, the American Horror Story and 9-1-1. (Murphy reunited with Walden in 2023 when he returned to the twentieth TV fold after 5 years at Netflix.)
“He’s taught me a lot about find out how to be a very good accomplice to producers and creators,” she stated.
A spotlight reel that performed earlier than Walden’s remarks featured Murphy, who referred to as Walden “the perfect factor that occurred in my profession,” in addition to Seth MacFarlane, Dan Fogelman and Sterling Ok. Brown sharing tales about working together with her, together with an anecdote by Murphy about how Walden invited him to the primary take a look at screening of Glee, which didn’t go effectively. Murphy recalled Walden saying, “They don’t perceive it…gimmie two weeks.”
Walden was joined on the PGA Awards by her household, together with her mother Sheril Freedman, a former musical theater performer who “was the one that taught me to like an awesome story,” Walden stated.
Along with her profession {and professional} skills, in his intro, Iger spoke of Walden’s character.
“Dana is each good at what she does, and simply good,” he stated. “She is heat, beneficiant, a real pleasure to work with, and he or she cares deeply about individuals, significantly her household…virtually as a lot as she cares about all these canines of hers (together with one which’s larger than her.)”
The Milestone Award is given yearly by the PGA for extraordinary contribution to the leisure trade. Previous recipients additionally embrace Louis B. Mayer, Walt Disney, and extra not too long ago Steven Spielberg, Sherry Lansing, George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy, Clint Eastwood Donna Langley and Charles D. King.
