Walt Disney
- For the company founded by Disney, see The Walt Disney Company. For other uses, see Walt Disney (disambiguation)
| Walt Disney |
|---|
 Walt Disney
|
| Born |
| December 5, 1901 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died |
| December 15, 1966 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966), was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, visionary, and philanthropist. As the co-founder (with his brother Roy O. Disney) of Walt Disney Productions, Walt became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world.
Walt Disney is particularly noted for being a film producer, and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He was nominated for 48 Academy awards and 7 Emmys, holding the record for most Oscar nominations. He and his staff created a number of the world's most famous productions, including the one many consider Disney's alter ego, Mickey Mouse. He is also well-known as the namesake of the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States.
1901-1937: Early Life
He was the son of Flora and Elias Disney, and had three brothers and one sister.
Walt Disney's ancestors had emigrated from Gowran, County Kilkenny in Ireland. His father Elias Disney had moved to the United States after his parents failed at farming in Canada. After a number of failed ventures Elias moved to Chicago in the late 1800s soon after his marriage to Flora Call where their children were born.
In April, 1906 Elias moved his family to Marceline, Missouri where his brother owned property. There he bought a house and 45 acres of farmland. The young Walt learned here to love trains and drawing. The Disneys remained in Marceline for four years, moving to Kansas City in 1910.
THe family was to experience several moves as Elias Disney pursued various ways to earn money for the family. They moved back to Chicago]] in 1917 where Disney attended McKinley High School began taking night courses at the Chicago Art Institute.[1]Disney was the cartoonist for the school newspaper. His cartoons were very patriotic, focusing on World War I. Disney dropped out of high school at 16 so he could join the Army, but the army would not accept him because he was too young.
Instead, Walt and one of his friends decided to join the Red Cross. They were supposed to be 17 years old to join but, against his father's will, his mother forged Walt's birth certificate saying he was born in 1900 instead of 1901. The Red Cross sent him to France for a year. During that year, he drove an ambulance covered from top to bottom with his imaginative Disney characters.
He moved to Kansas City to begin his artistic career. His brother Roy worked at a bank in the area and got a job for him through a friend at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio. At Pesmen-Rubin, Disney made ads for newspapers, magazines, and movie theaters. It was also there that he met a shy cartoonist named Ubbe Iwwerks. The two respected each other's work so much, they became fast friends and decided to start their own art business. Disney and Iwerks formed a company called "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists" in January 1920.
Hollywood
When Disney arrived in Los Angeles, he had $40 in his pocket and an unfinished cartoon in his suitcase. Interestingly, he first wanted to break away from animation, thinking he could not compete with the studios in New York City. Disney said that his first ambition was to be a film director. He went to every studio in town looking for directing work; they all promptly turned him down.
Because of the lack of success in live-action film, Disney turned back to animation. His first Hollywood cartoon studio was a garage in his uncle Robert's house. Disney sent an unfinished print to New York distributor Margaret Winkler, who promptly wrote back to him. She wanted a distribution deal with Disney for more live-action/animated shorts based upon Alice's Wonderland.
Disney looked up his brother Roy, who was recovering from tuberculosis in a Los Angeles veteran's hospital. Disney pleaded with his brother to help him with his fledgling studio, saying that he could not keep his finances straight without him. Roy agreed and left the hospital with his brother. Virginia Davis (the live-action star of Alice’s Wonderland) and her family were relocated at Disney's request from Kansas City to Hollywood, as were Iwerks and his family. This was the beginning of the Disney Brothers' Studio. It was located on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district, where the studio would remain until 1939.
In 1925, Disney hired a young woman named Lillian Bounds to ink and paint celluloid. should buy a new car or a ring for her finger. They were married on July 15 1925. She later jokingly commented that he was disappointed that she did not tell him to buy the car.
Mickey Mouse
After having lost the rights to Oswald, Disney had to develop a new "star". The mouse was originally named "Mortimer", but later christened "Mickey Mouse" by Lillian Disney.
Disney himself provided the vocal effects for the earliest cartoons and performed as the voice of Mickey Mouse until 1946. Disney believed Mickey would make it far into television.
Silly Symphonies
Joining the Mickey Mouse series in 1929 were a series of musical shorts called Silly Symphonies. The first of these was entitled By 1932, Mickey Mouse had become quite a popular cartoon character. The Van Beuren cartoon studio attempted to cash in on this success by creating a specific process, making these the first commercial films presented in this new process. The first color Symphony was Flowers and Trees, which won the first Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons in 1932.
First Academy Award
In 1932, Disney received a special Academy Award for the creation of Mickey Mouse, whose series was moved into color in 1935 and soon launched spinoff series for supporting characters such as Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto.
The family grows
As Mickey's co-creator and producer, Disney was almost as famous as his mouse cartoon character, but remained a largely private individual. His greatest hope was to be a father to many children. However, the Disneys' first attempts at pregnancy ended in miscarriage. This, coupled with pressures at the studio, led to Disney having "a hell of a breakdown", as he called it. His doctors said that he had to get away for a while, so he and his wife went on a Caribbean cruise and then traveled to Washington, D.C.
When Lilly Disney became pregnant again, Disney told his sister in a letter that he did not care what sex the child was, just as long as they were not disappointed again. Lilly finally gave birth to a daughter, Diane Marie Disney, on December 18, 1933. Disney was excited to finally have a child. A few years later the Disneys adopted a second daughter, Sharon Mae Disney, born on December 21,1934.
1937-1941: The Golden Age of Animation
"Disney's Folly": Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Although his studio produced the two most successful cartoon series in the industry, the returns were still dissatisfying to Disney, and he began plans for a full-length feature in 1934. When the rest of the film industry learned of Disney's plans to produce an animated feature-length version of Snow White, they dubbed the project "Disney's Folly" and were certain that the project would destroy the Disney studio. Both Lillian and Roy tried to talk Disney out of the project, but he continued plans for the feature. He employed Chouinard Art Institute professor Don Graham to start a training operation for the studio staff, and used the Silly Symphonies as a platform for experiments in realistic human animation, distinctive character animation, special effects, and the use of specialized processes and apparatus such as the multiplane camera.
All of this development and training was used to elevate the quality of the studio so that it would be able to give the feature the quality Disney desired. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as the feature was named, was in full production from 1935 until mid-1937, when the studio ran out of money. The success of Snow White (for which Disney received one full-size, and seven miniature Oscar statuettes) allowed Disney to build a new campus for the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank on December 24, 1939 The feature animation staff, having just completed Pinocchio, continued work on Fantasia and Bambi, while the shorts staff continued work on the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto cartoon series, and discontinuing the Silly Symphonies.
Wartime Woes
Pinocchio and Fantasia followed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into movie theatres in 1940, but both were financial disappointments. The inexpensive Dumbo was planned as an income generator, but during production of the new film, most of the animation staff went on strike, permanently straining the relationship between Disney and his artists.
Shortly after Dumbo was released in October 1941 and became a successful moneymaker, the United States entered World War II. The U.S. Army contracted for most of the Disney studio's facilities and had the staff create training and instructional films for the military. The military films did not generate income, however, and the feature film Bambi underperformed when it was released in April 1942. By the late 1940s, the studio had recovered enough to continue production on the full-length features Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, which had been shelved during the war years, and began work on Cinderella.
Testimony before Congress
After the 1941 strike of Disney Studio employees, Walt Disney deeply distrusted organized labor. In 1947, during the early years of the Cold War,[1] he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he branded Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, former animators and labor union organizers, as Communist agitators. (All three men denied the allegations.) Disney implicated the Screen Actors Guild as a Communist front, and charged that the 1941 strike was part of an organized Communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood. 'Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince' London: André Deutsch, 1994.</ref>[2] —>
1955-1966: Theme Parks and beyond
Planning Disneyland
On a business trip to Chicago in the late-1940s, Disney drew sketches of his ideas for an amusement park where he envisioned his employees spending time with their children. He got his idea for a children's theme park after visiting Children's Fairyland in Oakland, California. A small group of Disney studio employees joined the Disneyland development project as engineers and planners, and were dubbed Imagineers.
When describing one of his earliest plans to Herb Ryman (who created the first aerial drawing of Disneyland to present to the Bank of America for funds), Disney said, "Herbie, I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded by a train."[2] Entertaining his daughters and their friends in his backyard and taking them for rides on his Carolwood Pacific Railroad had inspired Disney to include a railroad in the plans for Disneyland.
Expanding into new areas
As Walt Disney Productions began work on Disneyland, it also began expanding its other entertainment operations. Treasure Island (1950) became the studio's first all-live-action feature, and was soon followed by such successes as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (in CinemaScope, 1954), The Shaggy Dog (1959), and The Parent Trap (1961). The Walt Disney Studio was one of the first to take full advantage of the then-new medium of television, producing its first TV special, One Hour in Wonderland, in 1950. In 1955, he debuted the studio's first daily television show, the popular Mickey Mouse Club, which would continue in many various incarnations into the 1990s.
As the studio expanded and diversified into other media, Disney devoted less of his attention to the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, whom he dubbed the Nine Old Men. During Disney's lifetime, the animation department created the successful Lady and the Tramp (in CinemaScope, 1955), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), the financially disappointing Sleeping Beauty (in Super Technirama 70mm, 1959) and The Sword in the Stone (1963).
Production on the short cartoons had kept pace until 1956, when Disney shut down the shorts division. Special shorts projects would continue to be made for the rest of the studio's duration on an irregular basis. Disney's mind was set toward expansion, and he wanted to make longer films.
Disneyland, one of the world's first theme parks, finally opened on July 17, 1955, and was immediately successful. Visitors from around the world came to visit Disneyland, which boasted a plethora of attractions based upon a number of successful Disney films and their well recognized and well loved characters. After 1955, the Disneyland TV show became known as Walt Disney Presents. The show went from black-and-white to color in 1961 — changing its name to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color — and eventually evolved into what is today known as the The Wonderful World of Disney, which continued to air on ABC until 2005. Since 2005, Disney features have been split between ABC, the Hallmark Channel, and Cartoon Network via separate broadcast rights deals. It currently airs periodically, with features such as the December 2005 revival of Once Upon a Mattress.
During the mid-1950s, Disney produced a number of educational films on the space program in collaboration with NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun: Man in Space and Man and the Moon in 1955, and Mars and Beyond in 1957. The films attracted the attention of not only the general public, but also the Soviet space program.
Early 1960s successes
By the early 1960s, the Disney empire was a major success, and Walt Disney Productions had established itself as the world's leading producer of family entertainment. Walt Disney was the Head of Pageantry for the 1960 Winter Olympics. After decades of trying, Disney finally procured the rights to P.L. Travers' books about a magical nanny. Mary Poppins, released in 1964, was the most successful Disney film of the 1960s and featured a memorable song score written by Disney favorites, the Sherman Brothers. Many hailed the live-action/animation combination feature as Disney's greatest achievement. The same year, Disney debuted a number of exhibits at the 1964 New York World's Fair, including Audio-Animatronic figures, all of which were later integrated into attractions at Disneyland and a new theme park project to be established on the East Coast, which Disney had been planning ever since Disneyland opened.
"Florida Project"
In 1964, Walt Disney Productions began quietly purchasing land in central Florida southwest of Orlando in a large swamp land for Disney's "Florida Project." Disney did so under the mask of many fake companies, in order to keep the price of land as low as he could. As soon as the word got out that Disney was purchasing the land, however, the prices immediately rose. The company acquired over 27,000 acres (109 km²) of land, and arranged favorable state legislation . Disney and his brother Roy then announced plans for what they called "Disney World."
Plans for Disney World and EPCOT
Disney World was to include a larger, more elaborate version of Disneyland to be called the Magic Kingdom, and would also feature a number of golf courses and resort hotels. The heart of Disney World, however, was to be the Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow, or EPCOT for short. EPCOT was designed to be an operational city where residents would live, work, and interact using advanced and experimental technology, while scientists would develop and test new technologies to improve human life and health.
Death of Walt Disney
Songwriter Robert B. Sherman said about the last time he saw Walt Disney:
| “ | He was up in the third floor of the animation building after a run-through of The Happiest Millionaire. He usually held court in the hallway afterward for the people involved with the picture. And he started talking to them, telling them what he liked and what they should change, and then, when they were through, he turned to us and with a big smile, he said, 'Keep up the good work, boys.' And he walked to his office. It was the last we ever saw of him.[3] | ” |
Disney's involvement in Disney World ended in late 1966; after many years of chain-smoking cigarettes, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was checked into the St. Joseph's Hospital across the street from the Disney Studio lot and his health began to deteriorate, causing him to suffer cardiac arrest.
He died on December 15, 1966 at 9:30am, ten days after his 65th birthday. He was cremated on December 17, 1966 at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. Roy O. Disney continued to carry out the Florida project, insisting that the name be changed to Walt Disney World in honor of his brother. Roy Disney died just three months after the Magic Kingdom opened for business in 1971.
Rumors
There has been a long-standing rumor that after his death, Disney was cryopreserved so he may be revived at a later date. However, this has been refuted on numerous occasions. In fact, Disney was cremated, and his ashes were interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.
1967-present: Legacy
Continuing the vision
After Walt Disney's death, Roy Disney returned from retirement to take full control of Walt Disney Productions and WED Enterprises. He still refused to talk about his brother, and his grief, though rarely shown to other people, lasted until his death in 1971. In October of that year, their families met in front of Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom to officially open the Walt Disney World Resort. After an orchestra made up of over 66 countries performed a medley of Disney music, Roy stepped up to the podium.
After giving his dedication for Walt Disney World, he then asked Lillian Disney to join him. As the orchestra played "When You Wish Upon a Star", she stepped up to the podium accompanied by Mickey Mouse. He then said, "Lilly, you knew all of Walt's ideas and hopes as well as anybody; what would Walt think of it [Walt Disney World]?". "I think Walt would have approved," she replied. Roy died from a cerebral hemorrhage in December, the day he was due to open the Disneyland Christmas parade.
When the second phase of the Walt Disney World theme park was built, EPCOT was translated by Walt Disney's successors into EPCOT Center, which opened in 1982. As it currently exists, EPCOT is essentially a living world's fair, a far cry from the actual functional city that Disney had envisioned. In 1992 Walt Disney Imagineering took the step closer to Walt's vision and dedicated Celebration, Florida, a town built by the Walt Disney Company adjacent to Walt Disney World, that harkens back to the spirit of EPCOT. EPCOT was also originally intended to be devoid of Disney characters which initially limited the appeal of the park to young children. The company later changed this policy. The sale of alcoholic beverages is also permitted at EPCOT, something never allowed in the Magic Kingdom.
The Disney entertainment empire
Today, Walt Disney's animation/motion picture studios and theme parks have developed into a multi-billion dollar television, motion picture, vacation destination and media corporation that carries his name. The Walt Disney Company today owns, among other assets, five vacation resorts, eleven theme parks, two water parks, thirty-nine hotels, eight motion picture studios, six record labels, eleven cable television networks, and one terrestrial television network.
Disney Animation today
Traditional hand-drawn animation, with which Walt Disney built the success of his company, no longer continues at the Walt Disney Feature Animation studio. After a stream of financially unsuccessful traditionally-animated features in the late-1990s and early 2000s, the two satellite studios in Paris and Orlando were closed, and the main studio in Burbank was converted to a computer animation production facility. In 2004, Disney released their final traditionally animated feature film, Home on the Range. The DisneyToons studio in Australia, which produced lower-budget traditionally animated films, at first appeared to survive the purge, but its closing was announced in July 2005.
Only recently with Roy E. Disney's return and Bob Iger now the CEO and with the Disney purchase of Pixar Animation Studios, reviving the traditional style of animation for which Disney has been famous for is again a reality. New creative head of Disney animation, John Lasseter, commissioned veteran Disney animator James Baxter to produce an animated test sequence for Disney CEO Robert Iger in February of 2006. If approved, the film based on this test sequence, called the Frog Princess, will be released in 2007.[citation needed]
CalArts
Disney devoted substantial time in his later years funding The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), . When he died, one fourth of his estate went towards CalArts, which greatly helped the building of its campus. He also donated 38 acres (154,000 m²) of the Golden Oaks ranch in Valencia for the school to be built on. CalArts moved onto the Valencia campus in 1971.
Lillian Disney devoted much of her time after her husband died to pursuing CalArts and organized hundreds of fund raising events for the university in her late husband's honor (as well as funding the Walt Disney Symphony Hall). After Lillian's passing, the legacy continued with daughter Diane and husband Ron continuing the tradition. CalArts is one of the largest independent universities in California today, mostly because of the contributions of the Disneys.
Academy Awards
Among many awards, Walt Disney holds the record for having the most Academy Awards. 22 won, and 4 honorary.
- 1969 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day
- 1959 Best Short Subject, Live Action Subjects for: Grand Canyon
- 1956 Best Documentary, Short Subjects for: Men Against the Arctic
- 1955 Best Documentary, Features for: The Vanishing Prairie (1954)
- 1954 Best Documentary, Features for: The Living Desert (1953)
- Best Documentary, Short Subjects for: The Alaskan Eskimo (1953)
- Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom (1953)
- Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Bear Country (1953)
- 1953 Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Water Birds (1952)
- 1952 Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Nature's Half Acre (1951)
- 1951 Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Beaver Valley (1950)
- 1949 Best Short Subject, Two-reel for: Seal Island (1948)
- 1943 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Der Fuehrer's Face (1942)
- 1942 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Lend a Paw (1941)
- Honorary Award for: Fantasia (1940)
Shared with: William E. Garity J.N.A. Hawkins For their outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia (certificate).
- Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award
- 1940 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Ugly Duckling(1939)
- 1939 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Ferdinand the Bull (1938)
- Honorary Award for: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
For Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field (one statuette - seven miniature statuettes).
- 1938 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: The Old Mill (1937)
- 1937 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: The Country Cousin (1936)
- 1936 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Three Orphan Kittens (1935)
- 1935 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: The Tortoise and the Hare (1934)
- 1934 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Three Little Pigs (1933)
- 1932 Best Short Subject, Cartoons for: Flowers and Trees (1932)
- Honorary Award For the creation of Mickey Mouse.
Other Honors
Walt Disney was the inaugural recipient of a star on the Anaheim walk of stars. The star is in honor of Walt's significant contributions to the city of Anaheim, California, specifically, Disneyland, now the Disneyland Resort. It is located at the pedestrian entrance to the Disneyland Resort on Harbor Boulevard.
Walt Disney also received the Congressional Gold Medal on May 24, 1968 (P.L. 90-316, 82 Stat. 130-131).
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- ↑ Thomas, Bob (1976,1994). Walt Disney: An American Original. New York: Hyperion, pp. 42-43. ISBN ISBN 0-7868-6027-8.
- ↑ Disney, Walt. The Testimony of Walter Elias Disney Before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. 24 October 1947. http://filmtv.eserver.org/disney-huac-testimony.txt
- ↑ Kathrine and Richard Greene, Inside The Dream: The Personal Story Of Walt Disney, 2001, p 180.
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Resources
- Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-516729-5.
- Broggie, Michael (1997, 1998, 2005). Walt Disney's Railroad Story. Virginia Beach, Virginia. Donning Publishers. ISBN 1563420090
- Eliot, Marc (1993). Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince. Carol. ISBN 1-55972-174-X
- Mosley, Leonard (1985, 2002). Disney's World: A Biography Chelsea, MI: Scarborough House. ISBN 0-8128-8514-7.
- Gabler, Neal. (2006) Walt Disney: The Triumph of American Imagination, New York, NY. Random House. ISBN 0-679-43822-X
- Schickel, Richard, and Dee, Ivan R. (1967, 1985, 1997). The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt Disney. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher. ISBN 1-56663-158-0.
- Sherman, Robert B. and Sherman, Richard M. (1998) Walt's Time: From Before to Beyond ISBN 0-9646059-3-7.
- Thomas, Bob]] (1991). Disney's Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1562828991
- Thomas, Bob (1976, 1994). Walt Disney: An American Original New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0-7868-6027-8
- Watts, Steven, The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life, University of Missouri Press, 2001, ISBN 0826213790
External links
- Walt Disney at the Internet Movie Database
- Walt Disney at the TCM Movie Database
- Walt Disney Family Museum
- 1985 audio interview with Leonard Mosley, author of Disney's World, a biography about Walt Disney by Don Swaim
- Neal Gabler, Inside Walt Disney
- Anaheim Walk of Stars
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