Walt Disney's health had been deteriorating for many months before he finally agreed to enter St. Joseph hospital in California on November 2, 1966, for tests concerning the pain in his leg and neck. Doctors discovered a walnut-sized spot on the x-ray of his left lung and advised immediate surgery.

Disney left the hospital to attend to studio business for a few days, then re-entered St. Joseph on Sunday, November 6, for surgery the next day. During Monday morning's operation, doctors found his left lung to be cancerous and removed it. His oversized lymph nodes were an indication that Disney hadn't much longer to live. Brrrrrrr!

After two weeks of post-operative care, Disney was released from the hospital. He crossed the street to his studios and spent another ten days tending to studio business and visiting relatives before he grew too weak and had to return to St. Joseph on November 30. His health started to fail even more rapidly than expected, and drugs and cobalt treatments sapped what little strength he had left. Walt Disney died two weeks later when his circulatory system collapsed on the morning of December 15, 1966.

In the decades since Walt Disney's death, the claim that he arranged for his body to be frozen has become ubiquitous. Nearly everyone familiar with the name 'Walt Disney' has heard the story that Disney's corpse is stored in a deep-freeze chamber somewhere -- directly under Disneyland's "Pirates of the Caribbean" attraction is the most frequently mentioned site -- awaiting the day when science can repair the damage to his body and bring 'Uncle Walt' back to life.

PHOENIX (AP) -- A new book by a former employee of Alcor, the company that froze Ted Williams' remains, alleges the baseball Hall of Famer's body was mistreated by the company.

Larry Johnson says in the book "Frozen: My Journey Into the World of Cryonics, Deception and Death" that he watched an Alcor official swing a monkey wrench at Williams' frozen severed head to try to remove a tuna can stuck to it. The first swing accidentally struck the head, Johnson contends, and the second knocked the tuna can loose.

Alcor Life Extension Foundation of Scottsdale, Ariz., issued a statement on its Web site denying the allegations and promising legal action.

"Alcor denies allegations reported in the press that there was mistreatment of the remains of Ted Williams at Alcor," the company said. "Alcor will be litigating this and any other false allegations to the maximum extent of the law."

Johnson says he worked for Alcor for eight months in 2003, first as clinical director then as chief operating officer. He included several photographs in the book, including one of an upside down severed head, not Williams', that had what appeared to be a tuna can attached to it.

Johnson says Alcor used the cans, from a cat that lived on the premises, as pedestals for the heads.

Williams' head was being transferred from one container to another when the monkey wrench incident took place, Johnson said in the book. When the head was removed from the first container, Johnson described it.

"The disembodied face set in that awful, frozen scream looked nothing like any picture of Ted Williams I've ever seen," he wrote.

Johnson said that an Alcor employee tried in vain to remove the tuna can.

"Then he grabbed a monkey wrench, heaved a mighty swing, missing the tuna can completely but hitting the head dead center,' Johnson wrote. "Tiny pieces of frozen head sprayed around the room."

The next swing, Johnson wrote, knocked the can loose.

Johnson also contends that there was a significant crack in Williams' head. He also repeated an allegation he had made earlier that samples of Williams' DNA are missing from the facility.

Johnson, who says he wired himself surreptitiously the last few months of his employment, was the source for a story in Sports Illustrated in August, 2003, that said Williams' head had been severed and damaged.

At that time, Alcor officials said there never was mistreatment of any of those frozen at the facility. The company said that severing heads is a common practice in its preservation, and that cracking has been noted as a problem in the procedure and is not the result of any mishandling.