Word: geisel
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...Lately, though, Dr. Seuss is getting out more - a lot more. Since Geisel's death at age 87 in 1991, his widow has taken control of an empire long considered a sleeping giant in the licensing realm, shaken it awake and issued strict marching orders. And oh, the places Seuss is going! Even as we speak, the Cat in the Hat is ushering children through an elaborate ride at Seuss Landing, the 110-acre theme park that opened last year at Universal's Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Fla. The great green spoilsport comes to life in Ron Howard...
...this Seuss all of a sudden? For the answer, go to the top of the mountain, to the petite, 79-year-old blond, blue-eyed widow. When she met Ted Geisel in the mid-1960s, she was still married to physician Grey Dimond, with whom she had two daughters. After her divorce, and after Ted's first wife, Helen, committed suicide in 1967, Audrey and Ted were married. Until the end of his life, Audrey devoted herself to his care. "The idea was to keep the body there so it could take that mind as far as it wanted...
...anything," she says, speaking of the avalanche of adaptations and licensing. "It all comes to me." She volunteers this information to avoid the rap that she's exploiting Seuss and explains that by creating trademarks in various media, she's protecting her husband's creations. Yet some of Geisel's decisions, notably to publish some material that her notoriously perfectionist husband left unpublished, are difficult even for her to explain. "Because everyone out there wanted it," she says, "and because Random House wanted...
...call Geisel greedy or a pawn of corporate interests would be a mistake. Much of her income is earmarked for philanthropy, and she's driven the same gray Cadillac, with a GRINCH license plate, since 1985. And truth be told, Dr. Seuss himself wasn't averse to seeing his art in other forms. He issued some licenses when he was living. In the early 1980s, he expressed interest in seeing his work turned into video games, and at the time of his death he was writing the screen adaptation of "Oh, the Places...
...Geisel says she gave the go-ahead for the Grinch movie because the material "had been tried and tested for decades on television," but she left nothing to chance. In July 1998, Geisel's agents notified producers by letter that "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" was up for auction. In order to pitch their ideas to Geisel, the suitors ultimately had to be willing to pay $5 million for the material and hand over 4 percent of the box-office gross, 50 percent of the merchandising revenue and music-related material, and 70 percent of the income from book...