Don Iwerks, an Academy Award-winning special effects pioneer whose innovations transformed film and Disney theme parks, died peacefully Thursday at the age of 96, the Walt Disney Co. announced.
For Disney and his own studio, Iwerks Entertainment, Iwerks helped develop technologies and techniques like Circle-Vision, the 360-degree camera behind “America the Beautiful” and other early Disney attractions, and the 3-D effects used in attractions like Captain EO and the Star Tours ride.
“There was a ‘can-do’ attitude I learned from Walt and my father,” Iwerks said, according to a statement shared by the Disney Co. “Walt gave everyone a feeling that they were creating things that others had never thought of before, of being a part of history.”
Born July 24, 1929, Iwerks received his first camera at age 14 as a gift from his father, animator Ub Iwerks.
The elder Iwerks met fellow artist Walt Disney when both men were teenagers working at a Kansas City, Mo., art studio. They would go on to work together at the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, where Iwerks designed and animated “Plane Crazy,” the first Mickey Mouse cartoon.
After a stint at his own animation studio, Ub returned to Disney as a special effects engineer, pioneering techniques like the 360-degree motion-picture camera.
“He was absolutely my inspiration because he was technically minded. He made my childhood and formative years one of the greatest times of my life,” Don Iwerks told The Times in 1998.
The Iwerks family moved to the San Fernando Valley in 1936, where Don graduated from Van Nuys High School in 1947.
He served as a photographer in Germany during the Korean War and joined his father at Disney following his 1952 discharge from the U.S. Army. An allergic reaction to chemicals used to develop film led to his transfer to the company’s Studio Machine Shop, where he spent the next 34 years.
Don spent three months in the Bahamas manning underwater cameras for the 1954 Disney film “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” He then worked as the camera technician on “A Tour of the West,” an original Tomorrowland attraction at the soon-to-be opened Disneyland. The immersive 360-degree film was shot on the Circarama camera system his father invented.
Together, Don and Ub developed technologies like the “endless loop” system that enabled a single film print to run for up to 10,000 performances with minimal intervention and refinements to the photography processes used in “Mary Poppins” (his favorite of the Disney films) and other movies.
His own hands were used as the model for those of the Abraham Lincoln Audio-Animatronics figure in “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,” which opened at Disneyland in 1965. The “Iwerks Hands” now appear on similar figures at Disney parks around the world, according to his family.
In 1986, he co-founded Iwerks Entertainment, which soon became a major player in the film and theme park industries. The company specialized in large-format films and created the 3-D projection system used in the Terminator rides at Universal Studios parks in Hollywood and Florida.
His innovations were honored with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ honorary Gordon E. Sawyer Award and an Academy Scientific and Technical Award, among other prizes.
“It’s very obvious that computers are playing a big role in motion pictures today. The digital technology in film is able to put elements of scenes together on a film and have them look lifelike. It’s hard to know where that will go,” Iwerks said in a 1998 interview.
“My view is that technology should support a good story and add to it. Technology for technology’s sake?” he said with a shrug. “You still need good films.”
Iwerks is survived by his wife of 54 years, Betty; his sons, Larry and John; John’s wife, Chris; his daughter Leslie, and great-nephew,Mike, both of whom have also worked for Disney, according to an obituary shared by his family. His daughter Tamara preceded him in death.
“Like his father, he was a humble genius, a consummate problem solver, and delighted in sharing knowledge, encouraging others, and approaching every challenge with confidence and grace,” his family said in the statement from Conejo Mountain Funeral Home in Ventura.
Both Don and Ub Iwerks are commemorated in a storefront window on Main Street U.S.A. in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. Located above the Main Street Bakery, the window is a lasting tribute to a family who made some of the park’s magic possible.
“Iwerks-Iwerks Stereoscopic Cameras,” the lettering reads. “No Two Exactly Alike.”
The bass legend and superproducer Don Was didn’t expect to be covering Curtis Mayfield’s Civil Rights-era anthem “This Is My Country” on the road in 2026. But lately, the chaos in the United States made the song seem regrettably apropos.
“It wasn’t supposed to still feel potent. It was supposed to be something that served a moment,” said Was, who included the defiant single on his 2025 album “Groove In the Face of Adversity.”
“It’s shocking to be here in 2026 and, whatever distance we traveled from 1966 until now, to see it all get reset,” Was said. “That song’s a more powerful statement now than it was then. It was inconceivable that it would still be relevant — this is supposed to be the utopian age of Aquarius. This is not the way it was supposed to turn out.”
Was remembers the tumult, violence and hope that came out of that era in his hometown of Detroit. The city’s music, famed for rough-hewn virtuosity from blues to soul to techno, is the spring that waters “Adversity.” It is, remarkably, the 73-year-old’s first solo album after a career spanning the pioneering electro-pop band Was (Not Was) and deep producer relationships with the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Bonnie Raitt.
He also spent years in Bob Weir & Wolf Bros with the late Grateful Dead founder, and will play from the Dead’s landmark “Blues for Allah” on his tour that stops at Lodge Room on July 7.
With a backing band of studio killers dubbed the Pan-Detroit Ensemble, “Adversity” has an expansive modern atmosphere, yet a lived-in, filament-bulb quality in the playing that carries through funk, jazz, rock and R&B. It’s largely a covers record, but you wouldn’t know it from the depth of the revisions — veering from the Yusef Lateef standard “Nubian Lady” to Hank Williams’ “I Ain’t Got Nothin’ But Time,” closing with funk group Cameo’s “Insane.”
“I’ve been carrying it around in my head for 30 years,” Was said. “This first album to me is really a handshake, a ‘nice to meet you,’ this jambalaya of Detroit sounds.” While much of the source material comes from elsewhere, the cumulative mood is extremely personal to an artist who has spent his life helping the greats find true expression.
“I’ve come to admire artists who are willing to go in deep inside their most personal thoughts for the sake of helping the listener understand their own lives,” he said. “To help them deal with the trauma of being human — especially in these times, man.”
Tops on that list is the late Grateful Dead founder Bob Weir — who died in January at 78 — as a model for a band staying fearless and uncompromising. Was, still heartbroken about the loss of his friend and bandmate, recalled their first time on tour.
“When Bobby called asking me to play bass with the Wolf Bros, I thought at the very least, this is going to be a master class in losing self-consciousness and forgetting about fear,” Was said. “If the band stumbled, the audience wouldn’t walk out. They appreciated the fact that you were trying to do something new for them. Then there’d be a couple moments every night with an incredible exchange between the musicians and you can feel the audience becoming a member of the band.”
Playing the Dead’s “Blues for Allah” on this tour — an LP rooted in Middle Eastern scales, pirouetting time signatures and improvisational telepathy — put him in communion with his old friend.
“I used to think that songs like ‘King Solomon’s Marbles’ were just jams and conversations on the spot. But when we really got into it, there’s a form underneath and you can take tremendous liberty with that form,” Was said.
Was’ production career was built on a similar principle.
His early band Was (Not Was) remains a visionary electro-pop act with subtle, salient politics. “Out Come the Freaks” is a favorite on Pride month dance floors — “If you just wanted to do poppers and dance all night, it worked, and if you wanted to think about the government careening out of control, it worked too,” Was said of the band’s club material.
The late Ozzy Osbourne sang on the band’s international hit “Shake Your Head,” alongside a winking, very game Kim Basinger. The actor was a replacement after Madonna backed out, leaving the proto-rave tune one of the era’s most unlikely collaborations.
He recalled Ozzy fondly. “In 1975, this folk group I was in booked us to open for Black Sabbath at the Toledo Sports Arena, playing for a bunch of 14-year-old white boys on amphetamines,” Was said. “They weren’t having it. I’ve heard the tape of that show, and the drummer was bleeding from being hit by so many bottles that we had to stop playing. That was my first exposure to Ozzy, so I was a little afraid to do the session, but he was up for an adventure.”
Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble
(Gemma Corfield)
A Stones confidant and producer from 1994’s “Voodoo Lounge” up until 2023’s “Hackney Diamonds” (where Andrew Watt took the helm), Was had nothing but praise for the band, and still admits to a twinge of fandom in their presence.
“There’s never been a day in the studio with the Rolling Stones where I didn’t look around the room and go, ‘Oh my God,’” he said. “I’ve known Mick for over 30 years, but the last time they played L.A. at SoFi Stadium, Mick came walking down that stage and I was like, ‘Wow, there he is, it’s 1965 again.’”
With Dylan, he recalled the mercurial genius’ impish side. “I was producing Dylan, and George Harrison came in to play guitar. Bob was messing with him, Bob pushed the engineer aside and he ran the tape machine. George had never heard the song before, didn’t know what key it was in, and Bob just starts the tape. George played a respectable solo, but clearly it was rough. Bob, just to be funny, stopped the machine and said ‘That’s it, perfect.’ George turns to me and said, ‘What do you think, Don?’ And Bob goes, “Yeah, what do you think, Don?’ I’m looking at these two guys and time slowed down. I remembered trying to sell my car to get a ticket to go to New York to see the Concert for Bangladesh. Now they’re asking me what I think. I was paralyzed.”
“A voice appeared in my head,” he said, “Telling me, ‘He’s not paying you to be a fan.‘ So I said to George, ‘It was good, man. Let’s see if we can beat it.’ You can’t allow the iconography to dictate the outcome in the studio. You have to put that aside.”
As president of Blue Note Records, the estimable jazz label he’s led for more than a decade, Was relentlessly looks forward. He’s released restless modern records by Domi & JD Beck, Fathers, Makaya McCraven and Julian Lage (the hotshot jazz guitarist now playing with Dylan). He’s refreshingly optimistic about challenging music in streaming’s ruthless economy.
“Don’t make music for the delivery system,” Was said. “I don’t think about streaming, I think about touching people. If you do that, nothing has changed fundamentally in the music business. If your purpose is to get under people’s skin and make them feel something, that’s the same job it was for Mozart. How people listen can keep changing, but I don’t think the palette of human emotion changes, and that’s who you’re addressing.”
Was came from a working-class industrial city, making music reflective of Detroit’s technological upheaval and economic neglect. “Adversity” is a beacon to keep playing in spite of everything.
“I think that the salvation of musicians is that no matter what happens, what technological advancements come along, there’s still nothing like the experience of being in the same room as people who are playing together,” Was said. “It’s always been tough, man. It’s harder these days to buy a Ferrari as a musician, but I don’t know that that’s necessary. I have total confidence that the opportunity is there for anybody who is willing to give the audience a meaningful experience.”
Death in Paradise fans shouldn’t miss out on this “beautiful” series while the BBC hit takes a break.
Hayley Anderson Screen Time TV Reporter
22:31, 08 Jun 2026
Death in Paradise’s Commissioner Selwyn Patterson is played by actor Don Warrington. (Image: BBC)
Death in Paradise fans need to watch this “wonderful” show that’s just made its eagerly anticipated comeback.
Death in Paradise is currently on its yearly break from BBC One, leaving dedicated fans desperately searching for something to fill the void left by the beloved cosy crime drama until it returns.
While they wait, viewers could instead tune into the real-life equivalent of Death in Paradise, documentary series Policing Paradise, which returned for its second series today, Monday, June 8.
The programme follows the day-to-day workings of the Bermuda Police Service, capturing both local and British officers patrolling the tropical islands as they juggle police duties with ensuring thousands of tourists remain safe.
What makes Policing Paradise particularly thrilling for Death in Paradise enthusiasts, however, is its connection to two of the beloved drama’s prominent cast members.
The debut series of Policing Paradise, which aired in March 2025, was narrated by none other than Officer Ruby Patterson actress Shyko Amos.
Yet for this fresh second series, it is the Commissioner himself, actor Don Warrington, who has assumed narrating responsibilities.
Policing Paradise season two continues to broadcast Monday to Thursday at 2pm on BBC One, with the opening four episodes now available on BBC iPlayer.
Series one of the documentary is already accessible to stream, with the remainder of the second series anticipated to follow at a later date.
Beyond the day-to-day hurdles of tackling petty crime and managing summer festivals, Policing Paradise also shines a light on various specialist units, including marine patrols, dog handlers and drug-enforcement officers.
Ahead of its return, one enthusiastic fan praised the first series on IMDb, writing: “This show has it all; insightful access to the full range of Bermuda police duties from dog handling to diving, beautifully photographed with great skill, and narrated with tact, wit and affection by Shyko Amos (Ruby, Commissioner Pattersons’ niece from Death In Paradise).”
They continued: “This show is an informative documentary with the bonus of that lovely camerawork with Shykos’ voice-over work deftly remaining appropriate and informed across the wide-ranging situations. More of this please!”
A second viewer agreed: “Great to see all the places we love and very interesting to see how Bermuda is policed.
“Hoping there will be another series to get a bit more about it and see more on wonderful Bermuda. Island paradise in the Atlantic.”
Policing Paradise is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
Frances Tophill, one of the leading presenters on Gardeners’ World, has been heavily tipped to replace Monty Don at the head of the BBC series when he steps down
The Gardeners’ World presenting team(Image: BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine/Ja)
One of the stars of Gardeners’ World has spoken about whether she would like to replace Monty Don when he eventually decides to leave the show.
Monty, still very much a feature of the BBC programme, has been a key part of it for decades. However, following his milestone 70th birthday, questions have recently turned to who might replace him should he decided to put down his televisual trowel.
One of the people often highlighted as a potential successor is Frances Tophill, currently designing a garden for the Chelsea Flower Show alongside Alan Titchmarsh, Sir David Beckham, and King Charles III.
Frances, 36, has been on Gardeners’ World for over a decade, but has now made clear she doesn’t see herself replacing Monty.
She told The Sunday Times: “I have a huge respect for Monty – it is such a generous thing to give your garden space to the nation and he does it so well. I hope he never leaves….Broadcasting is not my day job, my day job is being a gardener.”
This isn’t the first time Frances has pushed back against the suggestion she could replace Monty. In a previous interview with the Telegraph, she said that after covering for Monty in a 2023 episode of the show, she got a glimpse of what fame might be like for him.
After she covered for him, she went to help a friend sell plants, but was shocked to see people flood towards them, not because of the plants, but because they recognised her from the show. She said: “That’s when I got a glimpse of what being Monty must be like… I don’t want that.”
Frances’ comments on the future of Gardeners’ World come as the RHS Chelsea Flower Show gets underway.
Frances has been busy working with the King, Sir David Beckham, and Alan Titchmarsh. Given the high profile nature of her royal clientele, Frances was asked, also by the Telegraph, whether she had been told anything about the monarch before she started work.
She said: “Everyone keeps saying that he’s so detail focused that he’ll notice all the tiny things.” Frances added that she had been searching the internet for the right gnome, as she was adding it in tribute to the King’s Highgrove garden. She said: “He hides it in the stumpery for the gardeners to find.”
Meanwhile, in an official statement on the King’s Foundation website about the garden, Frances went into more detail about what the experience had been like.
She said: “I’m so excited to share my first garden for RHS Chelsea Flower Show. With input from His Majesty The King, Alan Titchmarsh and Sir David Beckham, I’ve had a lot of fun incorporating elements both celebrating their involvement and ideas they have contributed.
“With sustainability front and central for His Majesty, there are no man-made materials being used in the garden, and it will be a concrete free construction.”
Monty Don says he often felt like ‘summer had arrived without me’ when spending time at boarding school as a child, a feeling he experiences now when filming a hit BBC show
14:29, 13 May 2026Updated 14:47, 15 May 2026
Monty Don admits part of him “resents” a BBC show(Image: PA / James Manning)
It came after he was sent to boarding school as a youngster and found himself feeling as though “summer had arrived without me”. Monty says that while the seasons shifted at school, home is where they “truly existed”.
It now boasts a series of lovingly crafted gardens. It is at Longmeadow that Monty often finds himself feeling like he did when he was a small child, bursting into tears as he realised the seasons had come and gone.
Writing in the Gardeners’ World magazine, he said: “I still have a moment or two like that every year in the garden, although now, 67 years later, I do my best to restrain the tears.”
Monty says a garden often has a “watershed moment” where it seems as though one season becomes the next. The star believes it can often happen with “seemingly no transition” between the two.
On the whole though, Monty explains that in gardening, things “change constantly” through “slow mergings”. He says one moment he often notices the change at Longmeadow is when he goes to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Monty presents the coverage alongside the likes of Rachel de Thame, Angellica Bell and Nikki Chapman. Monty says he leaves Herefordshire on the Sunday and returns a week later.
In that time, he jokes that his garden has “completely rearranged itself”. “Spring has toppled into summer and I was not there to see it,” he explains.
It brings a “complicated mess of emotions” for Monty, a hark back to his days as a boy at boarding school. He says he feels a sense of “betrayal” from his garden, as well as the delight at welcoming in the new season.
And in part, Monty says he blames the Chelsea Flower Show for taking him away from Longmeadow. He continued: “I do not want to miss out on the greatest garden extravaganza of the year and am delighted to and privileged to present the programme from there, and yet part of me resents being taken away from the garden at this critical moment.”
Monty will return to screens this evening from 8pm (May 15) on BBC Two with Gardeners’ World. He will be making a start on some of his amazing summer planters, including working on his leeks and making fertiliser.
Elsewhere, Frances Tophill will be in Berkshire learning about biodynamic gardening and the benefits it can bring. Adam Frost will be showing viewers around his new garden as it begins to take shape.
With President Trump continuing to tank in the polls, the parlor game we know as “2028 Republican primary speculation” is back in full swing among the chattering classes.
Vice President JD Vance — who would normally be considered the heir apparent, and who just happened to make a campaign stop in Iowa recently — now finds his “America First” brand positioning complicated by Trump’s Iran misadventure. So much for an easy glide path to the nomination.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio would seem to benefit from Vance’s stumbles, but in a political moment that fetishizes “authenticity,” Rubio risks coming across like a man who irons his blue jeans. Add to that his reputation as a foreign policy hawk in a party that increasingly wants out of “forever wars,” and he’d be the ideal presidential candidate for … 2004.
All of which has opened the door to more imaginative speculation. “If Pat Buchanan and Roger Ailes had a baby,” former “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd recently quipped, “it would be Tucker Carlson.”
Ailes, of course, was the media-savvy evil genius who took Fox News to No. 1. And while “Pitchfork Pat’s” populist presidential campaigns weren’t ultimately victorious, he is credited with paving the way for Trump’s eventual 2016 victory.
As this comparison suggests, Carlson could make a formidable Republican presidential candidate. The hitch? Carlson and Trump have recently been trading blows, which is not where any potential Republican candidate wants to be.
Even if you dismiss talk of a third Trump term as overwrought constitutional fan fiction, it’s hard to imagine a Republican nominee emerging without Trump’s blessing — let alone in defiance of it.
Which brings us to the latest theory making the rounds: Trump isn’t going to pass this torch to anyone lacking the proper surname.
In this telling, Vance is the loyal, if naive, assistant manager waiting for the boss to retire and hand him the keys to the office — only to discover it’s a family business and the ne’er-do-well son has just pulled into the parking lot in a Ferrari.
Enter Donald Trump Jr., whose chief qualification is name recognition so strong it could probably win a Republican primary on its own.
Add to that daddy’s endorsement, and as the Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last has noted about Vance and Rubio, “Challenging Don Jr. would turn them into enemies of the people.”
But that doesn’t mean this is a slam dunk for Junior.
As British-American journalist Sarah Baxter recently wrote, “like Logan Roy, the patriarch in the television drama Succession, Trump loves playing his children off against each other. He thinks it instills a healthy killer instinct in his privileged offspring.”
This is to say that Junior isn’t the only potential heir lurking in the wings.
Last year, for example, Eric Trump told a journalist: “I think I could do it. And by the way, I think other members of our family could do it too.”
Which brings us to the wildest speculation of all: Ivanka Trump.
Now, to be sure, Ivanka has kept a polite distance from politics (and her father) in recent years, and she doesn’t exactly electrify the MAGA faithful. But she was always her father’s favorite, and her aforementioned liabilities could be overcome with a sufficiently enthusiastic paternal endorsement.
And once she became the standard bearer, Ivanka could market herself as both continuity and “change” — a neat trick, if she can pull it off.
In that sense Republicans could keep the Trump brand while offering a kinder, gentler, fresher face — all while making GOP history with a female presidential nominee.
This, of course, raises the question: Why would Ivanka — or any of the Trumps — want to be part of a political dynasty?
Among the many reasons, the Trump family is raking in cash. Lots of it. And as long as the next president could conceivably be a family member — a possibility that remains operable even if a Trump family member were to lose the general election in 2028 — the spigot will remain on.
That’s one of the reasons that, although Vance would normally be Trump’s obvious successor, the smart money might actually be to bet on someone with the last name “Trump.”
Now, if this dynastic denouement sounds far-fetched, of course it is. But so was electing a thrice-married casino magnate to the presidency in 2016. And so reelecting him in 2024.
We’re living in an era when the seemingly improbable isn’t just possible — it might even be likely.
Wrexham inflicted Coventry’s first league defeat of the season when they won an exciting encounter 3-2 at Stok Cae Ras in October.
“It was a massive game and a massive performance here,” Hyam said.
“It was a great game under the lights at the stadium – I think it was one of my first opportunities to play under the lights here.
“We beat them 3-2, which was a great game and a great occasion for this club.
“They’ve got some great, talented players at the top of the pitch but so have we.”
While reaching the play-offs is the main focus for Hyam there is also the prospect of inclusion in Scotland’s World Cup squad.
Hyam won his second senior cap – three years after making his debut – in Scotland’s 1-0 friendly defeat to the Ivory Coast at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium in March.
