Machiavelli in the Magic Kingdom

The second technique was bullying and accusation. In letters to Irwin Russell, Eisner's attorney (who functioned virtually as a psychiatrist), Eisner let loose a stream-of-consciousness barrage about almost everybody else's inadequacies. When another member of the board, Andrea Van de Kamp, joined forces with the rebellious Gold, Eisner summoned her to his office in 2003 and told her she was a dreadful director. "You are so loyal to Stanley [Gold] it's like you've carried his babies," Eisner said. At another point, Eisner called Steve Jobs, the chairman of Pixar, "impossible to negotiate with" and "a Shiite Muslim." It worked, too; Eisner publicly demeaned Katzenberg in the L.A. Times by calling him "the best golden retriever I ever met" because he had become so subservient.

Finally, Eisner seems to have deliberately created a world of denial, unimaginable contradiction, suspicion and even surveillance. People were praised, then knifed. Eisner said that Ovitz was great and then decided that Ovitz was a scoundrel so many times that the reader gets dizzy. At another point, Eisner "gestured toward several thick binders on his desk, and said that he had collected every e-mail Roy [Disney] had sent and received." Eisner did not just hold grudges; he nursed them.

Stewart's painstakingly amassed detail will make readers wonder how he got it all. The answer is hard work and a willingness to go through thousands of pages of original and publicly available documents, and to interview any available source.

Eisner was also interviewed for the book, but Stewart carefully notes that Eisner and Disney itself extended only "a degree of cooperation." But even that gave Stewart a telling glimpse of the full Eisner treatment. Once, while they were riding in Eisner's chauffeured SUV, Eisner told Stewart that Sandy Litvack, Disney's former general counsel, had "told me you can't be trusted." Eisner then added that he had decided to go ahead and grant Stewart interviews anyway. "Everybody has a dark side," the Disney chief said, demonstrating his uncanny knack for finding insecurities in others. "It's just a matter of finding out what it is." The remark sent Stewart into a spasm of unsettling self-examination. "The comment gives me pause," Stewart writes, "and I find myself still thinking about it days later." This was probably Eisner's precise intent. "I've heard others repeat similar comments from Eisner about a 'dark side,' " Stewart continues, "and it was something he mentioned several times during his testimony in the Katzenberg lawsuit. I wonder: Does everyone have a 'dark side'? Do I? Even if I'm not the best judge of my own character, I don't assume that everyone else has a 'dark side.' " Stewart also realizes "that by mentioning Litvack's remark -- assuming Litvack said it -- Eisner has simultaneously positioned Litvack as someone I can't trust, and has ingratiated himself with me. He has cleverly attempted to turn me against Litvack -- exactly what so many current and former Disney executives have told me happened to them."

All of this raises a question: Why didn't Eisner's kingdom collapse sooner? How did anyone tolerate the lack of charity, or the unending intrigue, ridicule and badmouthing? The answer, obviously, was the payoff, both creative and financial. It was the high-wire life: the amped-up universe of deals, tie-ins, "packages," "event movies," "talent relations," parties, private-plane flights, gifts and money.

As the lord of this environment, Eisner was an untethered ego. While the Disney board slept, he became the highest-paid CEO in America and wound up hijacking the corporation. The story of how he did so is essential reading for anyone who serves on the board of directors of any corporation or organization.

It's also a reminder of how Hollywood can corrupt and corrode. More than 22 years ago, I interviewed Eisner twice for Wired, my book on the comedian John Belushi's death from a drug overdose. Eisner, then president and creative head of Paramount, had been trying to work out a new movie deal with Belushi when he was in his final nosedive. For his previous movie for Paramount, the studio had given Belushi $2,500 a week in cash for expenses, no questions asked.

Eisner and his wife, Jane, told me a long story about spending an evening with Belushi at a club in Los Angeles called On the Rox. Belushi was watching reruns on a big screen of some of his best "Saturday Night Live" skits, including one in which he died. Returning to their car afterward, Jane Eisner said she found Belushi incredibly sad. "I feel as though I've just seen 'Sunset Boulevard,' " she said, referring to the 1950 classic in which Gloria Swanson plays Norma Desmond, an aging, failing silent-screen star who watches reruns of herself. Eisner disagreed, telling his wife that the film was about someone whose career was over, while Belushi's was still active. He saw no connection. " 'Sunset Boulevard,' " Jane Eisner replied. "I'm telling you. We just saw it." Three days later, Belushi was dead. Some of the drugs that caused his fatal overdose were paid for with Paramount cash.

Eisner said he felt no responsibility, calling it standard practice for studios not to nursemaid their stars' spending habits. This summons an uncomfortable echo; after all, Eisner no more took responsibility for Belushi than the Disney board did for Eisner. The Norma Desmond and John Belushi stories are warnings -- vivid, wrenching tales of the failure of success. And now, thanks to Stewart, we have the Michael Eisner story -- his very own "Sunset Boulevard." •

Bob Woodward is an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post and the coauthor or author of 12 books, including, most recently, "Plan of Attack."