How Disney's Bob Iger went from underrated CEO to Hollywood royalty

Fifteen years ago, Bob Iger was typecast.

"A loyal drone," recalled Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, an associate dean at the Yale School of Management.

Iger had scaled the ranks at ABC, but few thought he was up to the challenge of running the entire Walt Disney Co. Critics dismissed him as a former TV weatherman who lacked the spark and vision to follow his larger-than-life boss, Michael Eisner, not to mention the company's founder, Walt Disney.

Then-directors Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold, who led a shareholder revolt against Eisner, considered Iger - formerly Disney's No. 2 executive - an Eisner loyalist, not to be trusted with the top job. "There are stronger candidates out there," Gold told the Los Angeles Times in 2004.

Years earlier, even Eisner had offered tepid support of Iger, writing in a 1996 memo to directors: "He is not an enlightened or brilliantly creative man, but with a strong board he absolutely could do the job." (Eisner later would champion Iger's candidacy for CEO.)

"The expectations were so low for Bob," Sonnenfeld said. "But no mogul in traditional entertainment has accomplished what he has."

So how did Iger, who announced last