A WALT DISNEY BIOGRAPHY

Little Walter Elias Disney

Disney's Portrait

Disney: The Great Imagineer

By Katherine M.

Immortalized as an American folk hero, Walt Disney has been recognized as one of the most brilliant innovators of the twentieth century. As the creative genius behind many beloved cartoon characters, Disney has become a name synonymous with eternal youth and innocence. His work has delighted millions from around the world by providing quality entertainment for people of all ages. Equally remarkable, was Disney’s ability to persevere, and triumph over obstacles in his relentless pursuit of a dream. Because of those qualities, he has become a wonderful source of inspiration to others. As an artist, Disney evolved from a gifted cartoonist to an award winning feature filmmaker, and finally the great “Imagineer” who gave us the much loved Disney theme parks.

Disney the Cartoonist

       Walter Elias Disney was born December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois. When he was only 5 years old, his family moved to Marceline, Missouri, which is commonly believed to be his inspiration for Mainstreet USA in Disneyland. While living in this farming community he developed a love of animals that would later become the motivation behind his cartoon characters. During his school years, Walt loved to entertain his friends with comedy skits. He had also developed a passion for drawing and attended the Academy of Fine Arts during his teen years.

      At 16, Walt tried to enlist in the army but was rejected because of his age. Instead, he ended up overseas, driving an ambulance for the Red Cross. It has been noted that, instead of the standard camouflage, Disney’s ambulance was covered with drawings of his cartoon characters.

      After his return to the United States in 1919, Walt found a job as a cartoonist in Kansas City. It was there that he met up with another cartoonist, Ube Iwerks, who later became Walt’s business partner. In 1920, Walt created and marketed his first original animated cartoons.

      Despite his ingenuity, Walt’s business went bankrupt and he left for Hollywood in 1923 with only $40 in his pocket. He would not succumb to failure, and believed so strongly in his ideas that he persuaded his brother Roy (who was living in LA) to team up with him. With financial backing from a woman named Margaret Winkler, the Disney brothers set up a small studio of their own. In 1924, Walt hired his first animator.

      In 1925, Walt married employee Lillian Bounds (reportedly the first person to answer his ad for a secretary), who later became the mother of his two daughters, Sharon Mae and Diane. Three years after they were married, Walt dreamed up a character that he named Mortimer Mouse, but was eventually changed to Mickey Mouse at the insistence of his wife.

      In 1928, Walt achieved commercial success by adding sound (known as “Cinesound”) to his animated short Steamboat Willie.  Following that endeavor, he created the Silly Symphony series, which allowed further experimentation with sound and music. 1931 saw Walt’s career begin to soar when he negotiated a two-year contract for the exclusive use of Technicolor’s three-strip color system. With the use of more sophisticated color and sound, his Flowers and Trees became the first cartoon to win an Academy Award.

      By 1934, Disney’s staff had grown from 6 to 184, and characters Pluto, Goofy and Donald Duck were introduced. Business was going well, with Walt’s brother Roy in charge of the finances, and Walt the main creative force behind the business. Yet even with greater success, the returns from producing animated shorts couldn’t justify the rising costs, so an entirely new concept in filmmaking was born: the first full length animated feature film. In his book “Disney and his Worlds”, Alan Bryman describes a late night meeting between Walt and his staff where Walt used his expertise as a storyteller to present his vision of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. His staff was enthusiastic, but it received much negative publicity due to rising costs of production (It is reported that Snow White cost more than one and a half million dollars to make during the depths of the depression). However, Walt took it upon himself to do a presentation to Bank of America, and was able to secure considerable financial backing. Adding to existing technology, Disney developed a way to add depth and motion to his animated films by using a “multi-plane” camera that allowed more than three celluloids to be used, thus creating a three-dimensional image. As a result, Snow White achieved great commercial and critical success. This was Disney’s first foray into feature films; an avenue that would give him even greater freedom to share his dreams and ideals with the world.

Snow White was Disney's 1st feature Film

Pinocchio was Disney's 2nd feature film

Fantasia was Disney's 3rd feature film

Disney the Moviemaker

After the success of Snow White, Walt built a new studio in Burbank and began working on Pinocchio, Fantasia and Bambi. These films were not as commercially successful as Snow White, but, over the years, have become timeless family classics. What distinguished Walt’s cartoons from their predecessors, was his ability to breath life into his characters and give them distinct personalities. Anthropomorphism (attributing human characteristics to inanimate objects, or animals) was a key ingredient in Disney cartoons.

        At the start of World War II, the Disney studio was commissioned by the State Department to make health films. The studio also continued to suffer from financial setbacks. To battle the rising costs of animation, Walt began to combine animation with live action. Transition films like Song of the South, and The Three Caballeros, led the way to Disney’s highly lucrative venture into family friendly films based on classic tales like Treasure Island. Walt enlisted the help of the very best naturalist photographers to produce films like The Living Desert, and added clever narratives to his true-life nature and adventure films. The audience witnessed not only spectacular photography, but also a story that would endear its characters to the hearts of the viewers.

      Following his success in the movie business, Walt was ready to move into his next creative venture: the medium of television. The Disneyland television series first aired on October 27, 1954. Each week, Walt would take his viewers on a journey through lands of fantasy and adventure (O’Day, 2000). As part of the agreement to do the weekly show, Walt had also received financial backing from the network to fund what would be one of Walt’s greatest achievements. Television allowed him to take his audience behind the scenes of his latest project, the “Magic Kingdom”, formally known as Disneyland.

Mr. Disney inspecting the trolley tracks on Main Street USA

Walt at the entrance to Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Construction of Main Street USA

The flag flies at half mast in Disneyland to mark the passing of its creator

Building the Magic Kingdom

  During the 1940’s, Walt began to develop an interest in the possibility of designing his own amusement park. This desire was fueled by his observation that current amusement parks were poorly maintained and offered little to interest the adults. Walt envisioned a different type of “magical little park” that families could come and enjoy together. Walt, an enthusiastic railroad hobbyist, had already built a fully functional model train, which he named the Lilly Belle after his wife Lillian. Walt sought to combine his talents as a filmmaker with the model of an amusement park to introduce an entirely new concept in entertainment: the Disney theme park (O’Day, 2000).

      Walt’s brother Roy, who was in charge of finances for the business, initially was more cautious about the project. He finally relented, however, and allocated a budget of about $10,000 towards the building of the park. The Disney Company had chosen 160 acres of orange groves in Anaheim, California as the new home for Disneyland. “In December 1952, Walt gathered together a stellar group of designers, architects, engineers, writers, sculptors, and special-effects experts from both inside his studio and from outside firms” (O’Day, 2000). These would be Disney’s first “Imagineers” (a term coined by Disney to describe the creative forces behind Disneyland). Considerably more financial backing was required, so Roy eventually signed a seven-year contract with ABC for a weekly TV series in exchange for funding of the Disneyland project.

       Disneyland’s official opening was on July 17, 1955, at a reported completion cost of about $17,000,000(O’Day, 2000). Despite the opening day fiascos (one being a lack of water due to a plumber’s strike), Disneyland became a huge success, and to this day remains a world-renowned family vacation spot.

       With Disneyland as an example, Walt created theme parks that are well known for their cleanliness, and outstanding customer service. Concepts that were unique to Disneyland were creation of themed “lands” that were separated visually from other parts of the park so that one could become completely immersed in the mood that Disney was trying to create. Walt Disney had wanted his guests to forget about the worries of everyday life, so had constructed the park so that one could neither see out of nor see into it. Power lines and employee transportation systems were kept underground to reduce clutter. Disney theme parks were the first to use queue lines that double back so as to give the illusion of constant motion (Bryman, 1995).

       Audio-animatronics were also a unique feature of Disney parks. To create everything from singing birds to an American president, Disney used advanced technology (valves and controls that were developed for rockets) that allowed them to move and to “speak”.  Many Americans have shared Disney’s devout patriotism as they have watched Abraham Lincoln rise from his chair to deliver a compilation of lines from some of his most famous speeches. Even Lincoln’s skin, which is made from a substance called Duraflex, looks strikingly real and can be made to form complex facial expressions with the aid of animatronics technology (De Roos, 1994). 

       After the success of Disneyland, Walt had begun thinking about his next extravagant venture. In 1964 he purchased land in Orange County, Florida and began to plan out the details of what would become EPCOT Center (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), and the Florida theme park. Sadly, he never got a chance to see them. Disney passed away on December 15, 1966 from complications due to lung cancer.

A look at the life of Walt Disney brings to focus the special qualities that he brought to his work, and to his relationships with others. His enthusiasm inspired those around him. Always the eternal optimist, Walt viewed every challenge as a new opportunity. The “magic” that he gave us was simply his determination to create a happy environment for families. Walt Disney also showed us that there is immense opportunity for anyone who has the courage to follow his or her dream. For this he will always hold a special place in the hearts of “children” all over the world.     

Images © Disney

To view a more extensive biography on Disney please click HERE