walt disney graphic biography

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Walt Disney, Graphic Biography

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Fast-paced and easy-to-read, these softcover 32-page graphic biographies teach students about historical figures: those who lead us into new territory, pursued scientific discoveries; battled injustice and prejudice; and broke down creative and artistic barriers. These biographies offer a variety of rich primary and secondary source material to support teaching to standards. Using the graphics, students can activate prior knowledge—bridge what they already know with what they have yet to learn. Graphically illustrated biographies also teach inference skills, character development, dialogue, transitions, and drawing conclusions. Graphic biographies in the classroom provide an intervention with proven success for the struggling reader. Features: Full-color drawings engage the reader. Each biography is complete in 32-pages. Speech bubbles and nonfiction text on every page. Powerful graphics capture and hold student interest. Highlights: Fast-paced nonfiction stories. Strong characters and powerful role models.

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Read more stories about Walt Disney here .

During a 43-year Hollywood career, which spanned the development of the motion picture medium as a modern American art, Walter Elias Disney, a modern Aesop, established himself and his product as a genuine part of Americana.

David Low, the late British political cartoonist, called Disney “the most significant figure in graphic arts since Leonardo.” A pioneer and innovator, and the possessor of one of the most fertile imaginations the world has ever known, Walt Disney, along with members of his staff, received more than 950 honors and citations from throughout the world, including 48 Academy Awards® and 7 Emmys® in his lifetime.

Walt Disney’s personal awards included honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California, and UCLA; the Presidential Medal of Freedom; France’s Legion of Honor and Officer d’Academie decorations; Thailand’s Order of the Crown; Brazil’s Order of the Southern Cross; Mexico’s Order of the Aztec Eagle; and the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners.

The creator of Mickey Mouse and founder of Disneyland and Walt Disney World was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1901. His father, Elias Disney, was an Irish-Canadian. His mother, Flora Call Disney, was of German-American descent. Walt was one of five children, four boys and a girl.

Raised on a farm near Marceline, Missouri, Walt early became interested in drawing, selling his first sketches to neighbors when he was only seven years old. At McKinley High School in Chicago, Disney divided his attention between drawing and photography, contributing both to the school paper. At night he attended the Academy of Fine Arts.

During the fall of 1918, Disney attempted to enlist for military service. Rejected because he was only 16 years of age, Walt joined the Red Cross and was sent overseas, where he spent a year driving an ambulance and chauffeuring Red Cross officials. His ambulance was covered from stem to stern, not with stock camouflage, but with drawings and cartoons.

After the war, Walt returned to Kansas City, where he began his career as an advertising cartoonist. Here, in 1920, he created and marketed his first original animated cartoons, and later perfected a new method for combining live-action and animation.

In August of 1923, Walt Disney left Kansas City for Hollywood with nothing but a few drawing materials, $40 in his pocket and a completed animated and live-action film. Walt’s brother Roy O. Disney was already in California, with an immense amount of sympathy and encouragement, and $250. Pooling their resources, they borrowed an additional $500 and constructed a camera stand in their uncle’s garage. Soon, they received an order from New York for the first “Alice Comedy” short, and the brothers began their production operation in the rear of a Hollywood real estate office two blocks away.

On July 13, 1925, Walt married one of his first employees, Lillian Bounds, in Lewiston, Idaho. They were blessed with two daughters — Diane, married to Ron Miller, former president and chief executive officer of Walt Disney Productions; and Sharon Disney Lund, formerly a member of Disney’s Board of Directors. The Millers have seven children and Mrs. Lund had three. Mrs. Lund passed away in 1993.

Mickey Mouse was created in 1928, and his talents were first used in a silent cartoon entitled Plane Crazy . However, before the cartoon could be released, sound burst upon the motion picture screen. Thus Mickey made his screen debut in Steamboat Willie , the world’s first fully synchronized sound cartoon, which premiered at the Colony Theatre in New York on November 18, 1928.

Walt’s drive to perfect the art of animation was endless. Technicolor® was introduced to animation during the production of his “Silly Symphonies.” In 1932, the film entitled Flowers and Trees won Walt the first of his 32 personal Academy Awards®. In 1937, he released The Old Mill , the first short subject to utilize the multiplane camera technique.

On December 21 of that same year, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , the first full-length animated musical feature, premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. Produced at the unheard of cost of $1,499,000 during the depths of the Great Depression, the film is still accounted as one of the great feats and imperishable monuments of the motion picture industry. During the next five years, Walt completed such other full-length animated classics as Pinocchio , Fantasia , Dumbo and Bambi .

In 1940, construction was completed on Disney’s Burbank studio, and the staff swelled to more than 1,000 artists, animators, story men and technicians. During World War II, 94 percent of the Disney facilities were engaged in special government work including the production of training and propaganda films for the armed services, as well as health films which are still shown throughout the world by the U.S. State Department. The remainder of his efforts were devoted to the production of comedy short subjects, deemed highly essential to civilian and military morale.

Disney’s 1945 feature, the musical The Three Caballeros , combined live action with the cartoon medium, a process he used successfully in such other features as Song of the South and the highly acclaimed Mary Poppins . In all, 81 features were released by the studio during his lifetime.

Walt’s inquisitive mind and keen sense for education through entertainment resulted in the award-winning “True-Life Adventure” series. Through such films as The Living Desert , The Vanishing Prairie , The African Lion and White Wilderness , Disney brought fascinating insights into the world of wild animals and taught the importance of conserving our nation’s outdoor heritage.

Disneyland, launched in 1955 as a fabulous $17 million Magic Kingdom, soon increased its investment tenfold and entertained, by its fourth decade, more than 400 million people, including presidents, kings and queens and royalty from all over the globe.

A pioneer in the field of television programming, Disney began production in 1954, and was among the first to present full-color programming with his Wonderful World of Color in 1961. The Mickey Mouse Club and Zorro were popular favorites in the 1950s.

But that was only the beginning. In 1965, Walt Disney turned his attention toward the problem of improving the quality of urban life in America. He personally directed the design on an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or EPCOT, planned as a living showcase for the creativity of American industry.

Said Disney, “I don’t believe there is a challenge anywhere in the world that is more important to people everywhere than finding the solution to the problems of our cities. But where do we begin? Well, we’re convinced we must start with the public need. And the need is not just for curing the old ills of old cities. We think the need is for starting from scratch on virgin land and building a community that will become a prototype for the future.”

Thus, Disney directed the purchase of 43 square miles of virgin land — twice the size of Manhattan Island — in the center of the state of Florida. Here, he master planned a whole new Disney world of entertainment to include a new amusement theme park, motel-hotel resort vacation center and his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. After more than seven years of master planning and preparation, including 52 months of actual construction, Walt Disney World opened to the public as scheduled on October 1, 1971. Epcot Center opened on October 1, 1982.

Prior to his death on December 15, 1966, Walt Disney took a deep interest in the establishment of California Institute of the Arts, a college level, professional school of all the creative and performing arts. Of Cal Arts, Walt once said, “It’s the principal thing I hope to leave when I move on to greener pastures. If I can help provide a place to develop the talent of the future, I think I will have accomplished something.”

California Institute of the Arts was founded in 1961 with the amalgamation of two schools, the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and Chouinard Art Institute. The campus is located in the city of Valencia, 32 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Walt Disney conceived the new school as a place where all the performing and creative arts would be taught under one roof in a “community of the arts” as a completely new approach to professional arts training.

Walt Disney is a legend, a folk hero of the 20th century. His worldwide popularity was based upon the ideas which his name represents: imagination, optimism and self-made success in the American tradition. Walt Disney did more to touch the hearts, minds and emotions of millions of Americans than any other man in the past century. Through his work, he brought joy, happiness and a universal means of communication to the people of every nation. Certainly, our world shall know but one Walt Disney.

How Walt Disney Went From Ambitious Cartoonist to Running His Own Studio

In late 1919, Walt Disney returned from his voluntary Red Cross service in post-World War I France. An independent eighteen-year-old, he’d resettled in Kansas City, Missouri and attempted to establish a career in illustration, graphic design, and cartooning. However, within a year’s time, a different art form caught his attention. 

The First Disney Cartoon Drawing

“I started, actually, to make my first animated cartoon in 1920,” Walt later explained. “Of course they were very crude things then and I used sort of little puppet things.” These earliest experiences were during Walt’s employment at the Kansas City Slide Company, soon to be re-christened as the Kansas City Film Ad Service. The firm licensed illustrated advertisements for local movie theaters, and produced short promotional animated segments.

Walt had already been trying his hand as an entrepreneur in commercial illustration and graphic design, along with his new friend and business partner Ubbe Iwwerks (later: Ub Iwerks ). But their business struggled. Walt was the first to make the jump to the Slide Company and Iwerks soon followed.

The Slow Emergence of Animation and First Animated Film

By the early 1920s, animation—which, at least commercially speaking, was centered around New York City at the time—wasn’t new, but it was certainly still novel, and animators still had the freedom to experiment in different styles and techniques to see what resonated with audiences. An early master was cartoonist Winsor McCay, whose 1914 short subject  Gertie the Dinosaur  proved to be an achievement in personality animation. Later, as the United States became fully enmeshed in World War I, McCay produced an animated propaganda film  The Sinking of the Lusitania*  (1918). The short highlighted animation’s unique journalistic potential, giving vision and movement to an event where no photographers were present. “Winsor McCay’s Gertie  and other animation novelties stimulated a great public interest and created a demand for this new medium,” Walt explained. “This in turn encouraged other pioneers to creative efforts that in time led to the establishment of the animated cartoon as an industry.”

Practice Makes Perfect: Disney Cartoon Drawings Start Simple

At the Kansas City Film Ad Service, Walt, Ub, and other young artists were entering a rapidly developing art form. Their first creations were rudimentary, stop-motion films far behind the latest advancements of the day. In their pictures, cut-out figures with riveted joints were animated frame-by-frame beneath a camera. Despite the rudimentary elements, each assignment was a new lesson. For some advertisements, Walt manipulated cut-out letters, animating them in reverse to appear as if they were flying into sequence. “If I wanted to emphasize a telephone number,” Walt said. “I’d have that number march on the screen on little legs, one numeral at a time. Then one number would land in the wrong place and it would have to scurry around until it found its rightful position in relation to the other numbers.”

Walt and Ub conducted research at the Kansas City Public Library. The former would joke that “any book that offered information on drawing was likely to be found listed on my card.” In particular, E.G. Lutz’s 1920 book  Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Development  was a significant influence. In 1920, animation was an elusive art form and few understood its actual techniques. Lutz’s book was among the first publications to elucidate “the mysteries of their manufacture,” as one Illinois newspaper described it. 

The Lutz Book on Cartoons

The Lutz book was pragmatic and emphasized efficient techniques that saved time and money in cartoon production. John Randolph Bray, another New York animator, was among the first to establish an industrial workflow of this kind in animation. Lutz also foresaw a sophisticated future for animation, claiming the medium would transcend “the comic cartoon” and embrace “serious and worthwhile themes.”  Most importantly, the book convinced Walt that animation’s greatest potential was with hand-drawn techniques rather than cut-outs. Inspired by Lutz’s writing, he started to incorporate “new tricks and phases of action” into his work at the Film Ad Service. 

Home Experimentation and Exploring Technical Styles of Animation

As a “Show Card and Title Man” at Film Ad, Walt was entranced by the medium. “The trick of making things move is what got to me,” he’d later say. His aspirations quickly grew beyond his day job and he entertained ideas of making his own motion pictures independently. In 1921, using a borrowed camera from his boss at Film Ad, Walt began “home experimenting” in the Disney family garage. His earliest attempts were topical fragments caricaturing social life and political news in Kansas City. Subjects ranged from women’s fashion to streetcar service to political patronage in the city police department. 

Walt applied different technical styles in these experiments, including so-called “lightning sketching,” which was an evolved version of a technique with origins in 19th century speed-drawing performances. The concept of “wowing” audiences with rapid and illusory illustration was transmuted into some of the earliest motion picture cartoons. James Stuart Blackton’s  Humorous Phases of Funny Faces  (1906) remains a standard example: Blackton’s own hand is seen drawing in real-time beneath the camera, and the sketches soon take on a life of their own as the artist’s hand disappears and animated expressions ensue.

Compared to  Humorous Phases , Walt’s lightning sketches were less refined. In fact, they weren’t even animated, save for the artist’s hand. “It wasn’t really my hand [on screen] ... I couldn’t get my hand under the camera,” Walt later explained. “But I had a photograph of my hand holding a pen, and I re-photographed [it] so that on the screen there was an illusion of my hand doing the sketching.” The animated figure of Walt’s hand-crafted static drawings, and each movement added continued layers of detail and humor.

A final component of Walt’s first experiments, however, would prove to be a fully-animated cartoon short subject. The brief piece of footage lampooned the reorganization of the Kansas City Police Department, showing new officers marching into a city jail and promptly being kicked out. At the end, a lone man hangs a sign out front, which reads “Cops Wanted.” Walt utilized cycle animation and other common techniques—some of which are exemplified in Lutz’s book—to create the film single-handedly. It premiered, along with the lightning sketches, at Kansas City’s prestigious Newman Theater on March 21, 1921. Billed as  Newman Laugh-O-grams , they earned Walt $150—and a request for more.

Walt continued to develop cartoons on his own, co-founding Kaycee Studios later in 1921 with another young artist Fred Harman, all the while maintaining his day job. But his desire for creative and financial independence led him to end his tenure at the Kansas City Film Ad Service and incorporate his own business, Laugh-O-gram Films in the spring of 1922.

Walt Disney Starts His Own Business

With generous investments from friendly neighbors, Walt was fully on his own and would attract a young cohort of employees. Among them were Ub, Rudolph Ising, and Hugh Harman (younger brother of Fred), all of whom later played significant roles in the establishment of Hollywood animation. The Laugh-O-gram productions were fully hand-drawn animated short subjects and depicted fairy-tales all updated with Jazz Age gags, including  Little Red Riding Hood  (1922) , Puss in Boots  (1922) ,  and  Cinderella  (1922) . 

These ambitious films were influenced both in presentation and technique by Paul Terry’s  Aesop’s Fables .  A review of the Terry cartoons from June 1921 reads like a description of Disney’s own output ten or fifteen years later. “[ Aesop’s Fables ] are superior to anything of the kind heretofore produced. The comic action of the animal and bird characters is said to be so realistic as to cause the beholder to forget that it is all obtained by the animated cartoon process.” The review also pointed out that Terry was at the forefront of reducing workflow “to a minimum of time and labor.”

Nadine Simpson, a Laugh-O-gram employee with film distribution connections, would trade for old prints of Terry cartoons, among others. Walt and the artists would then cut the footage apart to review time and again. Hugh Harman later recalled to historians Michael Barrier and Milton Gray that “we learned a lot from Terry.” Even before Laugh-O-grams’ official incorporation, Harman remembered that Walt and his older brother Fred were “determined...to become their own Paul Terrys.” 

Some scholars, such as Russell Merritt, speculate that the proclivity of mice in Terry cartoons may have had a specific influence on later Disney fare of the silent era, and perhaps even on Walt’s most famous cartoon creation. Visions of Mickey Mouse aside, it’s clear that Walt took the idea of developing a full-fledged series of animated fairy tale worlds populated by caricatured animal characters quite seriously—and the Laugh-O-grams were his first serious attempts. 

In a 1917 publication, James Stuart Blackton would write, “Camera tricks are still all right, but they have reached a point where they must interpret, not divert.” At a time when Walt Disney was still in high school, Blackton could see where animation was heading, and where Walt himself would ultimately help lead it. 

–Lucas Seastrom

Lucas O. Seastrom  is a writer, filmmaker, and contracting historian for The Walt Disney Family Museum.

Image sources (listed in order of appearance):

• Art Department at Kansas City Film Ad Service, c. 1920; courtesy of the Walt Disney Archives Photo Library
• Walt Disney and Fred Harmon standing behind camera, c. 1920; courtesy of the Walt Disney Archives Photo Library
• Laugh-O-gram Films title card, c. 1920; courtesy of the Walt Disney Archives Photo Library

FOOTNOTES: * An original production drawing from this cartoon is retained in the museum’s collection. 

• Saddleback Educational
• Digital Series

Walt Disney Graphic Biography

Description

Series Name: Graphic Biographies: Nonfiction Graphic Novels

Theme: Hi-Lo, graphic novels, illustrated, biography

Using the graphics, students can activate prior knowledge--bridge what they already know with what they have yet to learn. Graphically illustrated biographies also teach inference skills, character development, dialogue, transitions, and drawing conclusions. Graphic biographies in the classroom provide an intervention with proven success for the struggling reader.

ISBN-13: 9781599052304

Format: Paperback

Grade Level: 4 to 12, Teen and YA

Approximate Grade-Level Equivalent for Series: 2.5 to 4.5

Lexile Level: HL760L

Key Words/ Themes: Graphic Novels, Illustrated, Biography, Nonfiction, Tween, Teen, Young Adult, Hi-Lo, Hi-Lo Books, Hi-Lo Solutions, High-Low Books, Hi-Low Books, ELL, EL, ESL, Struggling Learner, Struggling Reader, Special Education, SPED, Newcomers, Reading, Learning, Education, Educational, Educational Books

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Walt Disney

• Born December 5 , 1901 · Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Died December 15 , 1966 · Los Angeles, California, USA (complications from lung cancer)
• Birth name Walter Elias Disney
• Height 5′ 10″ (1.78 m)
• Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Flora Disney (née Call) and Elias Disney , a Canadian-born farmer and businessperson. He had Irish, German, and English ancestry. Walt moved with his parents to Kansas City at age seven, where he spent the majority of his childhood. At age 16, during World War I, he faked his age to join the American Red Cross. He soon returned home, where he won a scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute. There, he met a fellow animator, Ub Iwerks . The two soon set up their own company. In the early 1920s, they made a series of animated shorts for the Newman theater chain, entitled "Newman's Laugh-O-Grams". Their company soon went bankrupt, however. The two then went to Hollywood in 1923. They started work on a new series, about a live-action little girl who journeys to a world of animated characters. Entitled the "Alice Comedies", they were distributed by M.J. Winkler (Margaret). Walt was backed up financially only by Winkler and his older brother Roy O. Disney , who remained his business partner for the rest of his life. Hundreds of "Alice Comedies" were produced between 1923 and 1927, before they lost popularity. Walt then started work on a series around a new animated character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. This series was successful, but in 1928, Walt discovered that M.J. Winkler and her husband, Charles Mintz , had stolen the rights to the character away from him. They had also stolen all his animators, except for Ub Iwerks . While taking the train home, Walt started doodling on a piece of paper. The result of these doodles was a mouse named Mickey. With only Walt and Ub to animate, and Walt's wife Lillian Disney (Lilly) and Roy's wife Edna Disney to ink in the animation cells, three Mickey Mouse cartoons were quickly produced. The first two didn't sell, so Walt added synchronized sound to the last one, Steamboat Willie (1928) , and it was immediately picked up. With Walt as the voice of Mickey, it premiered to great success. Many more cartoons followed. Walt was now in the big time, but he didn't stop creating new ideas. In 1929, he created the 'Silly Symphonies', a cartoon series that didn't have a continuous character. They were another success. One of them, Flowers and Trees (1932) , was the first cartoon to be produced in color and the first cartoon to win an Oscar; another, Three Little Pigs (1933) , was so popular it was often billed above the feature films it accompanied. The Silly Symphonies stopped coming out in 1939, but Mickey and friends, (including Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and plenty more), were still going strong and still very popular. In 1934, Walt started work on another new idea: a cartoon that ran the length of a feature film. Everyone in Hollywood was calling it "Disney's Folly", but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was anything but, winning critical raves, the adoration of the public, and one big and seven little special Oscars for Walt. Now Walt listed animated features among his ever-growing list of accomplishments. While continuing to produce cartoon shorts, he also started producing more of the animated features. Pinocchio (1940) , Dumbo (1941) , and Bambi (1942) were all successes; not even a flop like Fantasia (1940) and a studio animators' strike in 1941 could stop Disney now. In the mid 1940s, he began producing "packaged features", essentially a group of shorts put together to run feature length, but by 1950 he was back with animated features that stuck to one story, with Cinderella (1950) , Alice in Wonderland (1951) , and Peter Pan (1953) . In 1950, he also started producing live-action films, with Treasure Island (1950) . These began taking on greater importance throughout the 50s and 60s, but Walt continued to produce animated features, including Lady and the Tramp (1955) , Sleeping Beauty (1959) , and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) . In 1955 he opened a theme park in southern California: Disneyland. It was a place where children and their parents could take rides, just explore, and meet the familiar animated characters, all in a clean, safe environment. It was another great success. Walt also became one of the first producers of films to venture into television, with his series The Magical World of Disney (1954) which he began in 1954 to promote his theme park. He also produced The Mickey Mouse Club (1955) and Zorro (1957) . To top it all off, Walt came out with the lavish musical fantasy Mary Poppins (1964) , which mixed live-action with animation. It is considered by many to be his magnum opus. Even after that, Walt continued to forge onward, with plans to build a new theme park and an experimental prototype city in Florida. He did not live to see the culmination of those plans, however; in 1966, he developed lung cancer brought on by his lifelong chain-smoking. He died of a heart attack following cancer surgery on December 15, 1966 at age 65. But not even his death, it seemed, could stop him. Roy carried on plans to build the Florida theme park, and it premiered in 1971 under the name Walt Disney World. His company continues to flourish, still producing animated and live-action films and overseeing the still-growing empire started by one man: Walt Disney, who will never be forgotten. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Tommy Peter
• Spouse Lillian Disney (July 13, 1925 - December 15, 1966) (his death, 2 children)
• Children Diane Disney
• Parents Flora Disney Elias Disney
• Relatives Robert Disney (Aunt or Uncle) Christopher Disney Miller (Grandchild) Tamara Scheer (Grandchild) Walter Elias Disney Miller (Grandchild) Joanna Miller (Grandchild) Ronald Miller (Grandchild) Abigail Disney (Niece or Nephew) Roy P. Disney (Niece or Nephew) Tim Disney (Niece or Nephew) Marjorie Sewell (Niece or Nephew) Roy O. Disney (Sibling) Herbert Disney (Sibling) Ruth Disney (Sibling) Raymond Disney (Sibling) Roy Edward Disney (Niece or Nephew) Victoria Brown (Grandchild) Jennifer Miller-Goff (Grandchild)
• Happy endings on all pictures produced by himself (also posthumous and actual works).
• Main characters using big white gloves (Example: Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Peter Pete, Jiminy Cricket, etc.)
• His moustache
• Animated Films
• Distinctive, deep voice
• Personally disliked Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953) because of the lack of "heart" and "warmth" in their main characters. Was very sad about the unfavorable reception of Fantasia (1940) as he was proud of the film. Ironically, the first re-issue of Fantasia (1940) after his death was the first time it turned a profit.
• Reports surfaced that shortly after his death, Disney Company executive board members were shown a short film that Disney had made before his death, where he addressed the board members by name, telling each of them what was expected of them. The film ended with Disney saying, "I'll be seeing you."
• Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, an Army draft notice, addressed to Mr. Donald Duck, was delivered to the Disney studios.
• Has a record of 59 Oscar-nominations.
• Before his 35th birthday, his brother Roy encouraged employees to throw the boss a surprise party. Two of the animators thought it would be hilarious to make a short movie of Mickey and Minnie Mouse "consummating their relationship." When Disney saw the animation at the party, he feigned laughter and playfully asked who made the film. As soon as the two animators came forward, he fired them on the spot and left.
• I don't make pictures just to make money. I make money to make more pictures.
• I'd rather entertain and hope that people learn, than teach and hope that people are entertained.
• I'm not interested in pleasing the critics. I'll take my chances pleasing the audiences.
• I hope we'll never lose sight of one thing--that it was all started by a mouse.
• I happen to be an inquisitive guy and when I see things I don't like, I start thinking why do they have to be like this and how can I improve them.
• One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) - $5,166 /week
• Swiss Family Robinson (1960) - $3,000 /week

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Biography Online

Walt Disney Biography

Early Life – Walt Disney

Walt Disney was born on 5 December 1901, in Chicago. His parents were of German/English and Irish descent. As a child, the Disney family moved between Marceline in Missouri, Kansas City and back to Chicago. The young Walt Disney developed an interest in art and took lessons at the Kansas City Institute and later Chicago Art Institute. He became the cartoonist for the school magazine.

When America joined the First World War, Walt dropped out of school and tried to enlist in the army. He was rejected for being underage, but he was later able to join in the Red Cross and in late 1918 was sent to France to drive an ambulance.

In 1919, he moved back to Kansas City where he got a series of jobs, before finding employment in his area of greatest interest – the film industry. It was working for the Kansas City Film Ad company that he gained the opportunity to begin working in the relatively new field of animation. Walt used his talent as a cartoonist to start his first work.

The success of his early cartoons enabled him to set up his own studio called Laugh-O-Gram. However, the popularity of his cartoons was not matched by his ability to run a profitable business. With high labour costs, the firm went bankrupt. After his first failure, he decided to move to Hollywood, California which was home to the growing film industry in America. This ability to overcome adversity was a standard feature of Disney’s career.

“All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”

– The Story of Walt Disney (1957)

With his brother, Roy, Walt set up another company and sought to find a distributor for his new film – Alice Comedies – based on the adventures of Alice in Wonderland.

Mickey Mouse

In 1927, the Disney studio was involved in the successful production of ‘Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’, distributed by Universal Pictures. However, with Universal Pictures controlling the rights to ‘Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’, Walt was not able to profit from this success. He rejected an offer from Universal and went back to working on his own.

The Mickey Mouse cartoons with soundtracks became very popular and cemented the growing reputation and strength of Disney Productions. The skill of Walt Disney was to give his cartoons believable real-life characteristics. They were skillfully depicted and captured the imagination of the audience through his pioneering use of uplifting stories and moral characteristics.

In 1932, he received his first Academy Award for the Best Short Subject: Cartoons for the three coloured ‘Flowers and Trees’ He also won a special Academy Award for Mickey Mouse.

In 1933, he developed his most successful cartoon of all time ‘The Three Little Pigs’ (1933) with the famous song ‘Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.”

In 1924, Walt Disney began his most ambitious project to date. He wished to make a full length animated feature film of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Many expected it to be a commercial failure. But, using new techniques of filming, the production was met with glowing reviews. It took nearly three years to film – coming out in 1937 after Disney had run out of money. But, the movie’s strong critical reception, made it the most successful film of 1938, earning $8 million on its first release. The film had very high production values but also captured the essence of a fairy tale on film for the first time. Walt Disney would later write that he never produced films for the critic, but the general public. Replying to criticism that his productions were somewhat corny, he replied:

“All right. I’m corny. But I think there’s just about a-hundred-and-forty-million people in this country that are just as corny as I am.” – Walt Disney

Disney always had a great ability to know what the public loved to see.

After the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the studio produced several other successful animations, such as ‘Pinocchio’, ‘Peter Pan’, ‘Bambi’ and ‘The Wind in the Willows’. After America’s entry into the Second World War in 1941, this ‘golden age’ of animation faded and the studio struggled as it made unprofitable propaganda films.

Political and religious views

In 1941, Disney also had to deal with a major strike by his writers and animators. This strike left a strong impression on Disney. He would later become a leading member of the anti-Communist organisation ‘Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals’ (the right-wing organisation was also considered to be anti-semitic.) At one point, he (unsuccessfully) tried to brand his labour union organisers as Communist agitators.

However, in the 1950s, Disney distanced himself from the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. However, by associating with the organisation, he was often associated with the anti-labour and anti-semitic philosophy it expressed. Disney was a Republican, though was not particularly involved in politics. It is often asked whether Walt Disney was anti-semitic.

His biographer, Neal Gabler stated:

“…And though Walt himself, in my estimation, was not anti-semitic, nevertheless, he willingly allied himself with people who were anti-semitic, and that reputation stuck. He was never really able to expunge it throughout his life.”

Walt Disney believed in the benefits of a religious approach to life, though he never went to church and disliked sanctimonious teachers.

“I believe firmly in the efficacy of religion, in its powerful influence on a person’s whole life. It helps immeasurably to meet the storms and stress of life and keep you attuned to the Divine inspiration. Without inspiration, we would perish.”

Ch. 15: Walt Lives!, p. 379

He respected other religions and retained a firm faith in God.

Post-war success

During the war, there was much less demand for cartoon animation. It took until the late 1940s, for Disney to recover some of its lustre and success. Disney finished production of Cinderella and also Peter Pan (which had been shelved during the war) In the 1950s, Walt Disney Productions also began expanding its operations into popular action films. They produced several successful films, such as ‘Treasure Island’ (1950), ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ (1954) and ‘Pollyanna’ (1960)

In another innovation, the studio created one of the first specifically children’s shows – The Mickey Mouse Club. Walt Disney even returned to the studio to provide the voice. In the 1960s, the Disney Empire continued to successfully expand. In 1964, they produced their most successful ever film ‘Mary Poppins.’

In the late 1940s, Walt Disney began building up plans for a massive Theme Park. Walt Disney wished the Theme Park to be like nothing ever created on earth. In particular, he wanted it to be a magical world for children and surrounded by a train. Disney had a great love of trains since his childhood when he regularly saw trains pass near his home. It was characteristic of Walt Disney that he was willing to take risks in trying something new.

“Courage is the main quality of leadership, in my opinion, no matter where it is exercised. Usually, it implies some risk, especially in new undertakings. Courage to initiate something and to keep it going, pioneering and adventurous spirit to blaze new ways, often, in our land of opportunity.”

– The Disney Way Fieldbook (2000) by Bill Capodagli

After several years in the planning and building, Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955. Disney spoke at the address.

“To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past …. and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America … with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”

The success of Disneyland encouraged Walt to consider another park in Orlando, Florida. In 1965, another theme park was planned.

Walt Disney died of lung cancer on December 15, 1966. He had been a chain smoker all his life. An internet myth suggested Walt Disney had his body cryonically frozen, but this is untrue. It seems to have been spread by his employers, looking for one last joke at the expense of their boss.

After his death, his brother Roy returned to lead The Disney Company, but the company missed the direction and genius of Walt Disney. The 1970s were a relatively fallow period for the company, before a renaissance in the 1980s, with a new generation of films, such as ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ (1988) and ‘The Lion King’ (1994)

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of Walt Disney”, Oxford, UK.  www.biographyonline.net , 8th August 2014. Last updated 1st March 2019.

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Walt Disney: 7 Things You Didn't Know About the Man and the Magic

For almost 100 years, the name Walt Disney has been so synonymous with animated films, television channels and child-friendly theme parks that it’s easy to forget that, at one time, the moniker referred to an actual person. Born in 1901, Walter Elias “Walt” Disney grew to be one of America’s most preeminent business tycoons by the time he died in 1966. Within this short time, he also became a beloved animator, producer, director, screenwriter and voice actor. Not too bad for a cartoonist from Chicago. Although Walt Disney died almost 40 years ago, the mass media stronghold of his eponymous company remains as strong as ever. The voluminous canon of Walt Disney Studios, not to mention the work of all of its subsidiaries, often overshadows the life of its founder.

Here are seven facts you may not have known about both the man and the studio he created.

Mickey was almost named Mortimer

On a train ride following a less than fruitful business meeting in 1928, Disney, then only 27 years old, sketched a mouse. This mouse would eventually become the official mascot of a multinational corporation worth tens of billions of dollars, but Walt, of course, didn’t know this at the time. He called the sketch “Mortimer Mouse” and showed it to his wife, Lily. After deeming the name Mortimer much too pompous, Lily suggested giving the mouse a cuter name, such as Mickey. Thankfully, Walt agreed with her, and a star was born.

Disney was anti facial hair with one exception

It took almost 60 years, but, as of this year, employees at Walt Disney’s two U.S. theme parks can finally show up at work with a stylish beard or goatee (but only if they are “neat, polished, and professional,” according to the official memo). However, at Disneyland in the 50s and 60s, even guests with facial hair, not to mention longhaired hippies, were turned away, as they were told they unfortunately failed to meet the standards of Disneyland’s dress code. Even Jim McGuinn, the future frontman of The Byrds, was once denied admittance for sporting a provocative Beatle cut. The company eventually relented on this policy, though, and allowed all hirsute patrons to enjoy “The Happiest Place on Earth.” Now, the peculiar double standard: Think of any picture of Walt Disney that you have ever seen. What exists in almost all of them? A mustache.

The final words ever written by Disney were “Kurt Russell”

In 1966, as Disney was suffering from lung cancer and nearing the end of his life, he scrawled the name “ Kurt Russell ” on a piece of paper and died soon after. At the time, Russell was a child actor for the studio and had just signed a lengthy contract. To this day, no one knows what Disney meant or intended, including Russell himself.

Disney still has a home at Disneyland

During the construction of Disneyland in the 1950s, Disney moved into a one-bedroom apartment above the theme park’s Fire Station on Main Street in order to work and watch his dream come to life. The apartment still exists and has been left largely untouched. During his stay there, Disney lit a lamp in the window to alert the staff of his presence. This lamp is now permanently ablaze in his honor.

Don’t be surprised if you experience Disney déjà vu

When you first watched Disney’s Robin Hood , did you wonder if you had seen it all before? If so, there’s no need to worry. In 1915, an animation technique called rotoscoping was invented. This technique involves drawing over film footage of live actors, which allows animators to capture realistic human movement. It also lets animators recycle animated movements for use on characters in different films. So, the next time you watch Disney’s Robin Hood , just remember that large parts of it were, thanks to the studio’s use of rotoscoping, gathered from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , The Jungle Book , and The Aristocats .

Mickey and Minnie Mouse actually got married

Wayne Allwine and Russi Taylor are not well-known names, even among Disney aficionados, but their animated personas are seared into most people’s minds. In 1991, Allwine, who was the voice of Mickey Mouse for 32 years, married Taylor, the voice of Minnie Mouse, and the couple remained happily married until Allwine’s death in 2009.

Nobody, including Walt Disney, is perfect

While Disney was an innovative and successful man, he was also the subject of many controversies, most of which involved rumors that he was anti-Semitic and racist. These rumors were, and still are, hard to dispel. In the 1930s, Disney attended meetings of a pro-Nazi organization, the German American Bund. He also hosted a known Nazi propagandist and filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, and gave her a tour of Disney Studios. To make matters worse, Disney was also accused of perpetuating black stereotypes in his films. But, for all of his critics, Disney also had scores of supporters who claimed he was far from being either anti-Semitic or racist. The debate on Disney’s alleged discrimination and racism continues to this day.

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Biography of Walt Disney, Animator and Film Producer

Love of drawing, laugh-o-gram films, mickey mouse, sound and color, feature-length cartoons, union strikes, world war ii, more movies, plans for disneyland, disneyland opens, plans for walt disney world, florida.

• B.A. in History, University of California at Davis

Walt Disney (born Walter Elias Disney; December 5, 1901–December 15, 1966) was a cartoonist and entrepreneur who developed a multibillion-dollar family entertainment empire. Disney was the renowned creator of Mickey Mouse, the first sound cartoon, the first Technicolor cartoon, and the first feature-length cartoon. In addition to winning 22 Academy Awards in his lifetime, Disney also created the first major theme park: Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

Fast Facts: Walt Disney

• Known For: Disney was a pioneering animator and film producer who won 22 Academy Awards and built one of the largest media empires in the world.
• Born: December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois
• Parents: Elias and Flora Disney
• Died: December 15, 1966 in Burbank, California
• Awards and Honors: 22 Academy Awards, Cecil B. DeMille Award, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Congressional Gold Medal
• Spouse: Lillian Bounds (m. 1925-1966)
• Children: Diane, Sharon

Walt Disney was born the fourth son of Elias Disney and Flora Disney (née Call) in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1901. By 1903, Elias, a handyman and carpenter, had grown weary of crime in Chicago; thus, he moved his family to a 45-acre farm he purchased in Marceline, Missouri. Elias was a stern man who administered “corrective” beatings to his five children; Flora soothed the children with nightly readings of fairy tales.

After the two eldest sons grew up and left home, Walt Disney and his older brother Roy worked on the farm with their father. In his free time, Disney made up games and sketched the farm animals. In 1909, Elias sold the farm and purchased an established newspaper route in Kansas City, where he moved his remaining family.

It was in Kansas City that Disney developed a love for an amusement park called Electric Park, which featured 100,000 electric lights illuminating a roller coaster, a dime museum, penny arcade, swimming pool, and a colorful fountain light show.

Rising at 3:30 a.m. seven days a week, 8-year-old Walt Disney and brother Roy delivered the newspapers, taking quick naps in alleyways before heading to Benton Grammar School. In school, Disney excelled in reading; his favorite authors were Mark Twain and Charles Dickens.

In art class, Disney surprised his teacher with original sketches of flowers with human hands and faces. After stepping on a nail on his newspaper route, Disney had to spend two weeks in bed recuperating. He spent his time reading and drawing newspaper-style cartoons.

Elias sold the newspaper route in 1917 and bought a partnership in the O-Zell Jelly factory in Chicago, moving Flora and Walt with him (Roy had enlisted in the U.S. Navy). Sixteen-year-old Walt Disney attended McKinley High School, where he became the school newspaper’s junior art editor. To pay for evening art classes at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, he washed jars in his father’s jelly factory.

Wanting to join Roy, who was fighting in World War I, Disney tried to join the Army but at age 16 he was too young. Undeterred, he joined the Red Cross’ Ambulance Corps, which took him to France and Germany.

After spending 10 months in Europe, Disney returned to the U.S. In October 1919, he got a job as a commercial artist at the Pressman-Rubin Studio in Kansas City. Disney met and became friends with fellow artist Ub Iwerks at the studio.

When Disney and Iwerks were laid off in January 1920, they formed Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists. Due to a lack of clients, however, the duo only survived for about a month. After getting jobs at the Kansas City Film Ad Company as cartoonists, Disney and Iwerks began making commercials for movie theaters.

Disney borrowed a camera from the studio and began experimenting with stop-action animation in his garage. He shot footage of his animal drawings using different techniques until the pictures actually “moved” in fast and slow motion. His cartoons (which he called Laugh-O-Grams) eventually became superior to the ones he was working on at the studio; he even figured out a way to merge live action with animation. Disney suggested to his boss that they make cartoons, but his boss flatly turned down the idea, content with making commercials.

In 1922, Disney quit the Kansas City Film Ad Company and opened a studio in Kansas City called Laugh-O-Gram Films. He hired a few employees, including Iwerks, and sold a series of fairy tale cartoons to Pictorial Films in Tennessee.

Disney and his staff began work on six cartoons, each one a seven-minute fairy tale that combined live action and animation. Unfortunately, Pictorial Films went bankrupt in July 1923; as a result, so did Laugh-O-Gram Films.

Next, Disney decided he would try his luck at working in a Hollywood studio as a director and joined his brother Roy in Los Angeles, where Roy was recovering from tuberculosis.

Having no luck getting a job at any of the studios, Disney sent a letter to Margaret J. Winkler, a New York cartoon distributor, to see if she had any interest in distributing his Laugh-O-Grams. After Winkler viewed the cartoons, she and Disney signed a contract.

On October 16, 1923, Disney and Roy rented a room at the back of a real estate office in Hollywood. Roy took on the role of accountant and cameraman of the live action; a little girl was hired to act in the cartoons; two women were hired to ink and paint the celluloid, and Disney wrote the stories and drew and filmed the animation.

By February 1924, Disney had hired his first animator, Rollin Hamilton, and moved into a small storefront with a window bearing the sign “Disney Bros. Studio.” Disney’s "Alice in Cartoonland" reached theaters in June 1924.

In early 1925, Disney moved his growing staff to a one-story, stucco building and renamed his business “Walt Disney Studio.” Disney hired Lillian Bounds, an ink artist, and began dating her. On July 13, 1925, the couple married in her hometown of Spalding, Idaho. Disney was 24; Lillian was 26.

Meanwhile, Margaret Winkler also married, and her new husband, Charles Mintz, took over her cartoon distribution business. In 1927, Mintz asked Disney to rival the popular “Felix the Cat” series. Mintz suggested the name “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit” and Disney created the character and made the series.

In 1928, when costs became increasingly high, Disney and Lillian took a train trip to New York to renegotiate the contract for the popular Oswald series. Mintz countered with even less money than he was currently paying, informing Disney that he owned the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and that he had lured most of Disney’s animators to come work for him.

Shocked, shaken, and saddened, Disney boarded the train for the long ride back. In a depressed state, he sketched a character and named him Mortimer Mouse. Lillian suggested the name Mickey Mouse instead.

Back in Los Angeles, Disney copyrighted Mickey Mouse and, along with Iwerks, created new cartoons with Mickey Mouse as the star. Without a distributor, though, Disney could not sell the silent Mickey Mouse cartoons.

In 1928, sound became the latest in film technology. Disney pursued several New York film companies to record his cartoons with this new novelty. He struck a deal with Pat Powers of Cinephone. Disney provided the voice of Mickey Mouse and Powers added sound effects and music.

Powers became the distributor of the cartoons and on November 18, 1928, "Steamboat Willie" opened at the Colon Theater in New York. It was Disney’s (and the world’s) first cartoon with sound. "Steamboat Willie" received rave reviews and audiences everywhere adored Mickey Mouse.

In 1929, Disney began making “Silly Symphonies,” a series of cartoons that included dancing skeletons, the Three Little Pigs, and characters other than Mickey Mouse, including Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto.

In 1931, a new film-coloring technique known as Technicolor became the latest in film technology. Until then, everything had been filmed in black and white. To hold off the competition, Disney paid to hold the rights to Technicolor for two years. He filmed a Silly Symphony titled "Flowers and Trees" in Technicolor, showing colorful nature with human faces, and the film won the Academy Award for Best Cartoon of 1932.

On December 18, 1933, Lillian gave birth to Diane Marie Disney, and on December 21, 1936, Lillian and Walt Disney adopted Sharon Mae Disney.

Disney decided to add dramatic storytelling to his cartoons, but making a feature-length cartoon had everyone (including Roy and Lillian) saying it would never work; they believed audiences just wouldn’t sit that long through a dramatic cartoon.

Despite the naysayers, Disney, ever the experimenter, went to work on the feature-length fairy tale "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Production of the cartoon cost $1.4 million (a massive sum in 1937) and was soon dubbed “Disney’s Folly.”

When it premiered in theaters on December 21, 1937, though, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was a box office sensation. Despite the Great Depression, it earned $416 million.

A notable achievement in cinema, the movie won Disney an Honorary Academy Award. The citation read, "For 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field."

After the success of "Snow White," Disney constructed his state-of-the-art Burbank Studio, deemed a worker’s paradise for a staff of about 1,000 workers. The studio, with animation buildings, sound stages, and recording rooms, produced "Pinocchio" (1940), "Fantasia" (1940), "Dumbo" (1941), and "Bambi" (1942).

Unfortunately, these feature-length cartoons lost money worldwide due to the start of World War II. Along with the cost of the new studio, Disney found himself in debt. He offered 600,000 shares of common stock, sold at five dollars apiece. The stock offerings sold out quickly and erased the debt.

Between 1940 and 1941, movie studios began unionizing; it wasn’t long before Disney’s workers wanted to unionize as well. While his workers demanded better pay and working conditions, Disney believed that his company had been infiltrated by communists.

After numerous and heated meetings, strikes, and lengthy negotiations, Disney finally became unionized. However, the whole process left Disney feeling disillusioned and discouraged.

With the union question finally settled, Disney was able to turn his attention back to his cartoons; this time for the U.S. government. The United States had joined World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and it was sending millions of young men overseas to fight.

The U.S. government wanted Disney to produce training films using his popular characters ; Disney obliged, creating more than 400,000 feet of film (about 68 hours).

After the war, Disney returned to his own agenda and made "Song of the South" (1946), a movie that was 30 percent animation and 70 percent live action. "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" was named the best movie song of 1946 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, while James Baskett, who played the character of Uncle Remus in the movie, won an Oscar.

In 1947, Disney decided to make a documentary about Alaskan seals titled "Seal Island" (1948). It won an Academy Award for best two-reel documentary. Disney then assigned his top talent to make "Cinderella" (1950), "Alice in Wonderland" (1951), and "Peter Pan" (1953).

After building a train to ride his two daughters around his new home in Holmby Hills, California, Disney began formulating a dream in 1948 to build Mickey Mouse Amusement Park across the street from his studio. He visited fairs, carnivals, and parks around the world to study the choreography of people and attractions.

Disney borrowed on his life insurance policy and created WED Enterprises to organize his amusement park idea, which he was now referring to as Disneyland. Disney and Herb Ryman drew out the plans for the park in one weekend. The plan included an entrance gate to "Main Street" that would lead to Cinderella’s Castle and off to different lands of interest, including Frontier Land, Fantasy Land, Tomorrow Land, and Adventure Land.

The park would be clean and innovative, a place where parents and children could have fun together on rides and attractions; they would be entertained by Disney characters in the “happiest place on earth.”

Roy visited New York to seek a contract with a television network. Roy and Leonard Goldman reached an agreement where ABC would give Disney a $500,000 investment in Disneyland in exchange for a weekly Disney television series.

ABC became a 35 percent owner of Disneyland and guaranteed loans up to $4.5 million. In July 1953, Disney commissioned the Stanford Research Institute to find a location for his (and the world’s) first major theme park. Anaheim, California, was selected since it could easily be reached by freeway from Los Angeles.

Previous movie profits were not enough to cover the cost of building Disneyland, which took about a year to build at a cost of $17 million. Roy made numerous visits to the Bank of America's headquarters to secure more funding.

On July 13, 1955, Disney sent out 6,000 exclusive guest invitations, including to Hollywood movie stars, to enjoy the opening of Disneyland. ABC sent cameramen to film the opening. However, many tickets were counterfeited and 28,000 people showed up.

Rides broke down, food stands ran out of food, a heat wave caused freshly poured asphalt to capture shoes, and a gas leak caused temporary closings in a few themed areas.

Despite the newspapers referring to this cartoon-ish day as "Black Sunday," guests from all over the world loved it and the park became a major success. Ninety days later, the one-millionth guest passed through the park's turnstile.

In 1964, Disney’s "Mary Poppins" premiered; the film was nominated for 13 Academy Awards. With this success, Disney sent Roy and a few other Disney executives to Florida in 1965 to purchase land for another theme park.

In October 1966, Disney gave a press conference to describe his plans for building an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) in Florida. The new park would be five times the size of Disneyland, and it would include shopping, entertainment venues, and hotels.

The new Disney World development would not be completed, however, until five years after Disney’s death. The new Magic Kingdom (which included Main Street USA; Cinderella's Castle leading to Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland) opened on October 1, 1971, along with Disney's Contemporary Resort, Disney's Polynesian Resort, and Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground. EPCOT, Walt Disney’s second theme park vision, which featured a future world of innovation and a showcase of other countries, opened in 1982.

In 1966, doctors informed Disney that he had lung cancer. After having a lung removed and several chemotherapy sessions, Disney collapsed in his home and was admitted to St. Joseph’s Hospital on December 15, 1966. He died at 9:35 a.m. from an acute circulatory collapse and was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Disney left behind one of the largest media empires in the world. Since his death, the Walt Disney Company has only grown; today, it employs more than 200,000 people and generates billions in revenue each year. For his artistic achievements, Disney amassed 22 Oscars and numerous other honors. In 1960, he was given two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one for his film and one for his television work).

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Disney’s imagination and energy, his whimsical humor, and his gift for being attuned to the vagaries of popular taste inspired him to develop well-loved amusements for “children of all ages” throughout the world. Although some criticized his frequently saccharine subject matter and accused him of creating a virtual stylistic monopoly in American animation that discouraged experimentation, there is no denying his ground-breaking accomplishments. His achievement as a creator of entertainment for an almost unlimited public and as a highly ingenious merchandiser of his wares can rightly be compared to the most successful industrialists in history.