# In 1964, Walt Disney screwed over a hospital for sick children and cost Audrey Hepburn an iconic role: “I find his behaviour unconscionable”

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/in-1964-walt-disney-screwed-over-a-hospital-for-sick-children-and-cost-audrey-hepburn-an-iconic-role-i-find-his-behaviour-unconscionable/
- Published: 2026-10-28T22:29:39+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-29T02:06:44+00:00
- Original publisher: Far Out
- Original article: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/walt-disney-screwed-over-sick-children-cost-audrey-hepburn-iconic-role/
- Topics: Health, Medicine

## Key points

- Disney’s Peter Pan rights dispute derailed a planned Hepburn film.
- Great Ormond Street Hospital received £14,000 in compensation.
- Cukor criticised Disney’s conduct in a 1964 letter.

## Summary

Great Ormond Street Hospital’s dispute with Walt Disney’s company over the rights to Peter Pan helped derail a planned live-action film starring Audrey Hepburn. The proposed adaptation might have raised money for the hospital, which held rights to the original stage production, but Disney’s opposition prevented the project from going ahead.

In 1964, director George Cukor was preparing the film with Hepburn as Peter Pan and Laurence Olivier considered for Captain Hook; its proposed budget was $10 million. Disney had acquired rights to make an animated version in 1939, and its film was released in 1953. The hospital’s legal action was settled in 1969, bringing £14,000 in compensation and £30,000 towards costs, but Cukor and Hepburn had moved on.

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