George Hightower

**George Hightower** is a character from the *Haunted Mansion* who is connected to *Tower of Terror*'s backstory via the Hightower family.

## History

### Biography

George Hightower was a wealthy man living in Newport Beach, California during the 19th century. He was known for travelling the world and bringing back exotic souvenirs. Between 1875 and 1877, George met a Californian woman named Constance Hatchaway. In 1877, the two married and would move to an antebellum mansion overlooking the Mississippi River in New Orleans, Louisiana which Hightower obtained through unknown circumstances.

Unknown to George, Constance was a prolific serial-killer whose *modus operandi* was seducing wealthy men and killing them with an axe before keeping their heads in hatboxes as her own souvenirs. Constance killed George with an axe-blow to the skull, making him her fifth and final known husband-turned-victim. George was buried in a tomb with a bust of himself desecrated by Constance with an axe while his head and other belongings were kept in Hatchaway's attic. When Constance herself died in 1927, her ghost occupied the attic where it was the most dominant power and still blood-thirsty.

## Tower of Terror connections

### Tower of Terror

George Hightower shares his surname with Harrison Hightower III, the owner of the *Hotel Hightower*. Furthermore, both were wealthy American men in the latter-end of the 19th century and in the meta of things, both were added in 2006, globe-trotting collectors turned ghosts, and played by Disney imagineers (Rick Rothschild and Joe Rohde respectively).

## Appearances

### Haunted Mansion

George makes two notable appearances in the Haunted Mansion. In the Stretching Room, the portrait of an elderly Constance stretches to reveal her sitting atop George's tombstone which has an axe in its bust. Later in the attic, a photograph of George and Constance from their wedding appears with George's head disappearing from its shoulders. Amongst other items relating to George are his hat on a hat-rack and a hatbox inferred to contain his head, in Disneyland found in the possession of the Hatbox Ghost.

### Main Street Penny Arcade

The fortune-teller Esmeralda holds tarot-cards with the stretching-room portraits on them.

## Behind the scenes

George and Constance were in the Haunted Mansion since its opening via their portrait in the stretching-room designed by Marc Davis but were not yet given names, identities, or a connection to the bride story. An unused script by X. Atencio did identify Constance as, "Abigail Patecleaver". In 2006, a refurbishment revealed the attic bride to be serial-killer Constance Hatchaway and George to have been the final of her known victims.

## Trivia

* Harrison Hightower III would have been 42 when George and Constance married.
* In a popular feminist-theory reading of the Haunted Mansion, Constance's murders represent acts of combatting and de-throning the patriarchy, connecting to Hightower's wealth, status, and possible capitalist and colonial motifs.
* George is somewhat similar to Lord Henry Mystic from Mystic Manor in being wealthy globe-trotters who were the past owners of Haunted Mansion franchise estates and who are connected to Tower of Terror's backstory.