Walt Disney – An American entrepreneur

Walt Disney, an American entrepreneur, is so well known that hardly anyone the world over has not been affected in some way or another by his existence. His role in the entertainment industry is nothing short of legendary.

walt disney quote
Born Walter Elias Disney on December 5, 1901, he has been an animator, voice actor, film producer, director, screenwriter, international icon, and philanthropist. As a film producer, Walt Disney has received 22 Academy Awards with 59 nominations, receiving four awards in one year! Disney also received seven Emmy awards. He gave his name to the popular theme park resorts, in locations both domestically and internationally: Disneyland, Walt Disney World Resort (and EPCOT Center) in the U.S., and Disneyland Paris, Disneyland Hong Kong and Tokyo Disney.
Disney was born in Chicago from his Irish father Elias and German-American mother Flora. His great-grandfather was born in 1801, an Irish immigrant from Kilkenny, Ireland. Their unusual surname is descended from a Frenchman named d’Isigny who had traveled to England with William the Conqueror in 1066, later settling in K….
Disney’s father Elias had traveled to California in search of gold, later returning to his parents’ farm in Ellis, Kansas. He later gained employment at Union Pacific Railroad, married Flora Call and settled in Chicago, IL in 1890. When Walt was four years old, the family moved to Marceline, Missouri, where young Disney discovered his love and talent for drawing. There, Walt Disney received his first paid job to animate a neighbor’s dog for a sketch. He also developed an interest in trains, since Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad passed through Marceline, clearly evident in his Disneyland theme parks. After four years in Marceline, the family moved to Kansas City, where he befriended Walter Pfeiffer, whose family worked in vaudeville and motion pictures. Walt, with brother Roy and sister Ruth, attended Electric Park near their home, which is an early influence of his later design of Disneyland. He also attended the Kansas City Art Institute on Saturdays, perfecting his drawing technique.
Elias Disney moved the family back to Chicago, where Walt attended McKinley High and night courses at the Chicago Art Institute. He was the high school newspaper cartoonist. He left high school early to join the army, but was only sixteen and was rejected for being underage. Not giving up, he and his friend joined the Red Cross and were sent to France for a year, but by this time the November 1918 armistice had been signed.
After the war, he returned to Kansas City to begin his artistic career. Not finding work at first, his brother Roy found him a temporary job at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio creating advertisements for movie theaters, newspapers and magazines. There he met Ubbe Iwerks, and they decided to go into business together.
While their firm was short of work, Walt Disney freelanced at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, making commercials from cutout animations. The owner allowed Walt to borrow a camera and practice at home. Disney later decided that he preferred cel animation (celluloid). He again opened his own business, hiring Kansas City Film Ad Company coworker Fred Harman, and sold cartoons to Frank Newman, a popular showman in Kansas City. Newman owned his own theater, drew in a good crowd, and Disney sold him his cartoon shorts which were called Laugh-O-Grams. These cartoons became widely popular. He was able to acquire his own studio (also called Laugh-o-Grams) and hired a staff, including Harman’s brother Hugh and close friend Ubbe Iwerks. The profits were insufficient to keep the business afloat, and Disney became debt-ridden, finally declaring bankruptcy. Instead of becoming discouraged, Walt decided to move to Hollywood CA where the movie industry was headquartered.
In Hollywood, Walt and Roy opened a new studio looking to sell the undistributed Alice Comedies based on Alice in Wonderland. A New York distributor Margaret Winkler was interested. She loved Walt’s collection and wanted to create more animated shorts.
Disney requested that the star of Alice move to Hollywood, as well as Iwerks and his family. In 1925, he met and hired a young woman at the studio named Lillian Bounds, who he married the same year.
Together, they created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an immediately successful cartoon character which was drawn by Iworks. With an expanded staff and new opportunities, Walt went to New York. There, he intended to negotiate a better rate with Charles Mintz, Margaret Winkler’s husband and business manager. As it happened, Mintz double crossed Disney by recruiting his staff to work for Mintz out from under him, insisting that Disney take a cut in pay. Only Iworks, who refused to leave Disney, remained. Again, Walt Disney had to start from the beginning, without his staff and without his star character, Oswald. Mickey Mouse was the result of Walt Disney’s frustration in losing Oswald, which he finally regained the rights to in 2006, 78 years later.
Mickey Mouse was the next character, which was drawn by Ub, but his voice and soul emitted from Walt himself. Originally named Mortimer, Lillian Disney renamed him Mickey because “Mortimer did not fit“. Mickey’s first films were silent cartoons called Plane Crazy and Galloping Gaucho. The first sound movie was Steamboat Willie, an instant success, and subsequent movies were re-released with soundtracks. Mickey overtook Felix the Cat in cartoon ratings, skyrocketing in popularity by the early 1930s. Iwork left Disney to work for another filmmaker, Powers, but returned in 1940 to help pioneer new filmmaking techniques and processes.
Meanwhile Betty Boop had overshadowed Mickey Mouse for a spell, and Herbert Kalmus approached Disney to produce Flowers and Trees in a Technicolor version. The film won the 1932 Academy Award for Best Short Subject – Cartoons and his earlier, less successful Silly Symphonies was re-released in color. In 1933 he produced the very successful, months long running The Three Little Pigs with the newfound anthem of the Great Depression “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf“.
Disney received a special Academy Award for creating Mickey Mouse, and soon began creating support characters – Donald Duck, Goofy and so on. In 1933, the Disneys gave birth to a daughter, Diane Marie Disney, and in 1936, adopted another Sharon Mae Disney.
In 1934, Disney began production on a highly technically advanced new film concept called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. When the production had run out of money, Disney arranged a special screening of the film to Bank of America executives who agreed to lend him money. On its premier December 21, 1937, the film was so well received that it brought the audience to their feet for a standing ovation. The first full-length animated color film feature, it became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and earned the equivalent of over $122 million in modern day revenue equivalency.
Nearly two years to the date since the opening of Snow White, Disney opened his new Burbank Studios. The Golden Age of Animation had begun. Pinocchio, Fantasia and Bambi were produced as well as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Wind in the Willows. Compared to Snow White, these animated films were financial disappointments. Some of Disney’s staff went on strike, causing tension between the cartoon artists and their mentor.
World War II began, and Disney produced training films for the US Army. These were non-revenue producing. He also produced Der Fuhrer’s Face and The Three Caballeros during the course of the war. Snow White was re-released, starting a seven year cycle of re-releasing films after their initial release date.
After the war ended, Disney experimented with films combining animation with live film footage, like Song of the South.
In the late 1940s, Disney began sketching an idea for a park where his employees could enjoy after hours fun with their families. He may have gotten the idea from a visit to the Oakland, CA Children’s Fairyland or from Republic of the Children in La Plata, Argentina. He told his friend and financier, “I want it to look like nothing else in the world. And I want it to be surrounded by a train.”
Disney spent five years developing Disneyland. The park finally opened on July 18, 1955 and was very well received, with Ronald Reagan, Art Linkletter and the mayor of Anaheim in attendance. That day, there was a problem with water so Disneyland provided its waiting guests in the hot sun free refreshment.
After Disneyland, the studio began to expand into other areas, like the production of Treasure Island which was its first ever live action feature. The Shaggy Dog, Pollyanna, Swiss Family Robinson and other wholesome American classic films were made, as well as the Davy Crockett miniseries which spurred a great response from the youth. In 1955, the Mickey Mouse Club, debuted, which remained a popular TV show both domestically and internationally for more than a generation.
Headed up by Buena Vista Distribution, Walt’s group continued to produce full length animated films, like Sleeping Beauty, Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, and the Sword in the Stone.
Disney’s Sunday night TV show was called The Wonderful World of Disney and offered family type entertainment. It aired from the 1950s until 1981 when CBS bought the series. Now it airs for special broadcast deals on various channels. The opening of the show began with Jiminy Cricket’s song “When you wish upon a Star“, with Tinker bell lighting an explosion of fireworks over Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disneyland.
In 1964, Disney announced a new theme park slated for Orlando, Florida, but its primary attraction would be the EPCOT center. The initials stand for Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow and was an expanded version of Disneyland’s Tomorrow land.
Walt Disney died on December 15, 1966 of lung cancer – he was 65 years old. He had created an empire that continues to expand. A few years after his death, Roy Disney began heading up operations. The film studio produced countless feature films under the Touchstone label. On a commercial level, the popular Disney Store was introduced to the American public, where children of all ages can buy their favorite character or animal. With Disneyland in Hong Kong, Paris and Tokyo, the cultural and commercial effect of his dream truly affected the world.

Incoming Search Terms: