Disney, Walter Elias

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DISNEY, WALTER ELIAS

Walt Disney (1901–1966) was a major business pioneer of the twentieth century. He created cartoons, live-action movies, imaginative theme parks, and wholesome family entertainment on a global scale. Having himself grown up almost without a childhood, Disney found a way to find the child in everyone by making cartoons and filling them with amusing characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.

Born in 1901, Walt Disney had a difficult upbringing. His father Elias, a restless and unsuccessful carpenter and farmer, was a stern religious fundamentalist who readily disciplined his children with his belt. He also denied the children toys, games, and sporting equipment. This experience may have had an impact on his son's later determination to look on the sunny side of life. As the father changed jobs, the family moved frequently: from Chicago to Marceline, Missouri, to Kansas City, Missouri, and back to Chicago. Because of the family's constant traveling and the necessity for the children to contribute to the household's income, Disney's formal education ended at the ninth grade. At age 16, hoping to become a newspaper cartoonist, he joined an art class at the Academy of Fine Arts to develop his drawing skills.

In 1919, after a stint as a driver in the Red Cross Ambulance Corps during World War I (1914–1918), Disney moved to Kansas City, Missouri. There he worked at a variety of jobs as a commercial artist and cartoonist. With another young artist, Ub Iwerks, he formed his first small cartoon-film production company in the early 1920s. Along with brief animated advertising films, the company produced a series of animated fairy tales, "Alice in Cartoonland." With Disney's brother Roy as business manager, the little film company moved to Hollywood and produced 56 "Alice" films in three years. They also introduced the "Oswald the Rabbit" series, producing 26 of these cartoons in less than two years.

Mickey Mouse came to life in 1928, first as an airplane pilot, then as an adventurer and a sort of pirate-character. After viewing the first sound movie, "The Jazz Singer," late in 1928, Disney decided to make the first talking-and-music cartoon: Mickey Mouse as "Steamboat Willie." (He used his own voice for Mickey.) Soon, Mickey was joined by a girlfriend, Minnie. Their popularity led to the invention of such familiar characters as Donald Duck, Pluto, and Goofy. By 1936, eight years after the mouse with human characteristics appeared on the scene, Mickey Mouse had become one of the most widely recognized personalities in the world. Throughout the 1930s Disney continued to make both long and short cartoon features, many of which later became classics, including "Snow White," "Pinocchio," and "Dumbo."

In the 1940s, despite his many successes, Disney produced a series of financial failures, notably "Fantasia," a very different animated film set to classical music and later regarded as a classic. Disney was devastated when "Fantasia" did poorly at the box office and when half his artists went on strike to protest his dictatorial style. The training films combining live action with cartoon characters that he made for the federal government during World War II (1939–1945), however, turned Disney in a new and very successful direction.

Following the war, Disney made many films combining live-action and cartoons, including "The Song of the South." His company also produced very popular full-length animated films, including "Cinderella," "Alice in Wonderland," and "Peter Pan." In the early 1950s Disney made a popular series of nature films. His film career was capped by "Mary Poppins" in 1964, for which he won five Academy Awards.

By the mid-1950s Disney had begun to produce such television shows as "Davy Crockett" and "The Mickey Mouse Club." At the same time, he was also developing the first of his famous Disneyland theme parks. The first Disneyland, near Los Angeles, California, opened in 1955. Disney's brilliant move was to integrate all his business ventures, using his television programs to motivate people to visit Disneyland, intending Disneyland to inspire parents and children to attend family-oriented Disney films. Disneyland was such a success that later the Disney company opened another theme park, Disney World, near Orlando, Florida.

By the 1960s Disney had created a very diversified entertainment empire, built on cartoon themes, animal icons, nostalgic sentiment, and a high level of quality control. His imagination, highly-developed merchandising skills, and uncanny ability to tap into the fantasies of children of all ages ensured that his company would thrive long after his death from lung cancer in 1966.

See also: Amusement Parks, Entertainment Industry, Movies