Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901,
in Chicago, Illinois, to the parents of Elias and Flora
Disney. He is famously known for being a pioneer
of cartoon films, with characters Donald Duck and
Mickey Mouse, and planned and built Disneyland in
1995, and massive amusement park located around
Los Angeles, California. Just before his death in
1966 of lung cancer, Walt Disney started planning
another amusement park down near Orlando,
Florida. After his death, his amusement park was
finished in 1971 and respectfully named Walt
Disney World. Walt Disney is responsible for
starting one of the world’s largest entertainment
conglomerates, Disney.
Childhood
Walt Disney was born to Elias Disney, a farmer, carpenter, and building contractor, and his wife
Flora Call (Maiden Name), a public school teacher on December 5, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois. A little
while after Walt’s birth, the Disney family of Elias, Flora, and their 5 kids moved to a small farm in
Marceline, Missouri. It is here that Walt starting school and first demonstrated an interest in drawing
and painting. He actually sold his drawings and sketches to his neighbor for some spending money.
After his father discarded his efforts at farming, Walt and his family moved again to Kansas City,
Missouri, where Walt’s dad purchased a morning newspaper route. Forced to help his dad with the
newly acquired route, Walt became tired of it really quickly and convinced his father to let him go back
to school. Walter then began to study cartooning at the Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design.
In 1917, the Disney family moved back to Chicago, where Walt started high school at McKinley High
School. In high school, he still studied cartooning by attending the Academy of Fine Arts while also
taking photographs and made drawings for his school’s newspaper, optimistic about acquiring a job as a
newspaper cartoonist. This dream was never accomplished, as Walt enlisted in World War 1 as an
ambulance driver for the American Red Cross in France and Germany. He returned to Kansas City in
1919 and found employment in commercial art studios as a draftsman and inker. Here he met a young
artist, Ub Iwerks as the two of them started a small studio in 1922 in which they produced one to two
minute advertisements for local movie theatres.
A Career Begins
After becoming displeased as a
draftsman and inker in the small Kansas
City art studios, Iwerks and Disney started
creating films of their own. Starting small
with a few series of animated cartoon
sketches called Laugh-O-grams, Disney
and Iwerks developed the first episode of
a short series which combined both live
action and animation. This seven-minute
fairy tale series was called Alice in
Cartoonland and got Disney and Iwerks noticed by a New York film distributor. Later the distributor
cheated young Disney and Iwerks, which forced Walt to declare bankruptcy in 1923 and moved to
California to chase a career in cinematography. After arriving in California, Disney was shocked by the
success of the first Alice in Cartoonland film. This compelled Disney to reopen his studio in Hollywood
with the help of his brother Roy Disney. Now with Roy as his business manager, Disney continued the
Alice series by persuading Iwerks to rejoin the studio to help with the drawing of the cartoons. In 1927,
as Disney planned to add music into his motion pictures, Disney and Iwerks created a new character,
Mickey Mouse. Mickey’s talents were first portrayed in a silent film called Plane Crazy, although this
cartoon was unable to be released right away because sound was introduced into the motion picture
industry. In 1928, Mickey Mouse made his big screen debut in Steamboat Willie, the first synchronized
sound cartoon, at the Colony Theater in New York. Steamboat Willie was a big hit and the popularity of
Mickey grew, resulting in Disney to introduce other animal cartoon characters, such as Donald Duck and
dogs Pluto and Goofy. In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, Disney produced another short
film, The Three Little Pigs, which took the country by
storm. In the early 1930’s, Technicolor was established
for animation films and Disney held the patent for such
innovation. This allowed Walt to make the only color
cartoons at the time, first seen in his Silly Symphonies
Cartoon Features. In 1932, Walt Disney won his first
Academy Award for his production of Flowers and Trees.
With his brother, Roy, starting a sales division which
included such items as watches, dolls, shirts and tops of
Walt cartoon character, Walt focus on his short films and
produced The Grasshopper and the Ants in 1934 and The
Tortoise and the Hare in 1935. The many short films that
Walt Disney had produced inspired him to start creating
feature-length cartoons.
The Career Expands
Walt always had aspirations of producing feature-length animated films and in 1934 he started
his work on a classical fairytale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This massive task while finally
finished in 1937, and Snow White became known as one of the greatest feats during the Great
Depression, an entertaining and sentimental romance. In 1940, Disney relocated his company to a new
studio in Burbank, California and starting producing more feature-length films. While Disney did not
stop making his short films, he began to produce
an assortment of full-length films, including
Pinocchio in 1940, Dumbo in 1941, and Bambi in
1942. Disney also produced a unique film called
Fantasia in 1940, which contain cartoon
characters with color animated to the music of
popular artists at the time, such as Igor
Stravinsky and Paul Dukas. While a Disney
animators strike in 1941 was a big setback for
Disney, they manage to work it out and with the
help of the federal government during World
War II began a method of combining live-action
and animation. The studio produced The Reluctant Dragon in 1941, Saludos Amigos in 1942, The Three
Caballeros in 1945, and Make Mine Music and Song of the South in 1946 under this new method. The
Disney studio is now starting to be established as a big-business enterprise and started to produce many
more films, such as Seal Island in 1948 and Beaver Valley in 1950. Along with short films, Disney studios
created more animated romances, such as Cinderella in 1950, Alice in Wonderland in 1951, and Peter
Pan in 1953.
Disneyland
In the early 1950s, Walt Disney had dreams of opening an amusement park near Los Angeles,
California. In 1955, Walt’s dream came alive when Disneyland was opened to the public. With Disney’s
sentiment of fantasy and magic relevant in Disneyland’s design and construction, it no doubt became a
massive tourist attraction. The huge success of Disneyland spouted Walt’s desire to construct another
Disney park, Walt Disney World, near Orlando, Florida. In 1966, Walt Disney World began construction
in Orlando, Florida, although Walt Disney died of lung cancer before the park opened in 1971.
Conclusion
Disney’s creativeness and drive, his personality inspired him to create well-loved amusements
for children of all ages all over the world. His achievements as a producer of entertainment films and
merchandiser of his ideas can be considered one of the most successful of anyone in history. Walt
Disney’s dream continues to this day to provide entertainment to people of all ages.