Beckham gets on his high horse for Disney campaign
Ben Hoyle





David Beckham’s latest advertising campaign suggests that he will have little difficulty fitting in with the Hollywood crowd when he joins his new club, LA Galaxy, this summer.



Two weeks after announcing his record-breaking £128 million deal with the US football club, Beckham was revealed yesterday to be one of three celebrities who are promoting Disney theme parks.

The other two are Beyoncé Knowles, the pop singer and star of the Oscar-nominated film Dreamgirls, and the actress Scarlett Johansson.

Knowles, 25, is featured as Alice in Wonderland, sitting in a whirling teacup. Johansson, 22, appears as Cinderella, wearing a custom-designed Nicoletta Santoro gown and a 62-carat diamond tiara by Harry Winston worth £165,000.

Beckham is the heroic Prince Phillip, from Sleeping Beauty. Annie Leibovitz, who took the portaits, described him as “a very determined actor”.

Beckham, 31, said during the shoot, at the Spanish resort of Burguillo Lake, near Madrid: “There were many Disney characters I liked as a kid. Now my sons love the Disney characters and it’s a big part of their lives, a big part of many children’s lives around the world. So to be part of that is an honour and very exciting.”

The campaign is promoting Disneyland and the Year of a Million Dreams campaign by Walt Disney World, in which the resorts are giving away a million prizes.

Beckham, who has sponsorship deals worth an estimated £10 million with Gillette, Pepsi, adidas, Motorola and Volkswa-gen, will have no shortage of celebrity friends in California. He said that he had taken advice from the actor Tom Cruise before agreeing the move to Los Angeles.