The announcement late Saturday that Michael Eisner, the chairman of Walt Disney Co., had undergone emergency quadruple heart bypass surgery stunned Hollywood and the financial community, and raised immediate questions about the management of one of the world's most successful - and, up to now, stable - entertainment companies.
Eisner, 52, underwent the three-hour surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles earlier Saturday.His surgeon, Dr. Alfredo Trento, said, "The operation was a normal bypass procedure without any complications."
Trento said he expected Eisner to leave the hospital in several days. Disney officials said Eisner was expected to return to work in several weeks.
Eisner's illness came at an especially troubled time in terms of the company's management, lawyers, financial experts and rival studio executives said Sunday morning.
The death of Frank Wells, the president of the company and Eisner's closest associate, in a helicopter crash April 3, left a major void that has not been filled.
Studio executives said that Eisner had especially felt the loss of Wells in recent weeks as he confronted decisions alone about whether to enter negotiations to buy - or have a partnership with - CBS Inc.
Adding to the stressful mood at Disney, the company has been locked in a highly public conflict with some prominent historians over plans to develop a park, called Disney America, on a 3,000-acre Civil War site in Prince William County, Va. Such matters were the domain of Wells.
What complicates the situation for Eisner, executives said, is that his heart surgery places serious pressure on him now to fill the No. 2 job and even groom a successor.