“I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing—that it was all started by a mouse.”
—Walt Disney
Walt Disney was first and foremost a fantastic storyteller. His ability to stretch our imaginations helped build a multimedia empire that changed the way the world is entertained. In fact, some historians point out that he developed an entire industry off of the idea of a “talking mouse.”
Tens of millions of people watch his movies every year, while millions more make the trek to visit his theme parks. Obviously, the last name of Disney is now synonymous with entertainment.
Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1901. He was named after his father, Elias, and his father’s good friend and minister Walter Parr. He became a Missourian when the family moved to the small town of Marceline, in north-central Missouri, when he was very young.
Disney was just nine years old when his father sold the family farm and moved the family to Kansas City. He attended the Benton Grammar School where he showed an early aptitude in the arts. Young Walt also took classes at an art school in Kansas City before the family moved back to Chicago where he graduated from high school. Disney returned to the Show Me State shortly after graduation. That is where he developed the basis of his animation.
After serving in the Red Cross during World War I, Disney moved back to Kansas City to work as an advertising cartoonist. He had hoped to work at the local paper, but was only able to find work at a commercial art studio. Walt eventually landed a job at the Kansas City Slide Company making animated commercials.
Animated art was still in its infancy, and Disney was intrigued the new industry. At the age of 19, he helped develop the basis for animated films by combining live action and animation together on the screen.
But Kansas City was not where animation’s future belonged. So Disney left the Midwest for Hollywood in 1923 where he joined his brother Roy. The two then borrowed money to construct a camera stand in their uncle’s garage, where they could try to make a new type of movie.
Walt and his brother now had the expertise, the tools, and the drive to make the Disney name famous around the world with this new form of entertainment. The first step on that quest was the release of an animated movie character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Thankfully, that small flick generated enough money for them to continue their movie-making enterprise. But his budding empire hit a bump when Universal Pictures informed Walt that they owned Oswald’s rights. So Disney knew he had to come up with something new. That’s when a mouse named Mickey was born.
Mickey Mouse made his screen debut in Steamboat Willie, the world’s first fully synchronized sound cartoon. The film premiered at the Colony Theatre in New York on November 18, 1928. By 1932, Mickey Mouse was the most popular cartoon character in the world and helped Walt win his first Academy Award. Disney used the success of Mickey Mouse to make bigger and better animations. The next step was producing films in the new Technicolor process. Technicolor made possible the first commercial films presented in true color.
His place in history as a filmmaker was already set in stone with decades of success. But Disney still had a dream of turning his creations into a different type of empire. In the late 1940s, he began drawing up plans for an amusement park for his employees where staff members could relax with their children. That idea eventually expanded into the concept that became Disneyland in California. The theme park opened in 1955 and has been one of the top tourist attractions in the world ever since.
The second Disney park, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, was to be his crowning achievement. Sadly, he never saw it to completion. Disney died in 1966, five years before it opened in 1971.
Walt Disney continues to win over new generations of fans even today. He won a record 48 Academy Awards and 7 Emmys during his lifetime. That is in addition to many posthumous awards. His legend is cemented with the chain of Disney theme parks, movies, and cartoon characters that are famous all over this small, small world.
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