Walt Disney (1901-1966)

For many people, the name of 'Walt Disney' is the first to come to mind when thinking about the creation of movies. The very word "Disney" is emotive - it strikes a chord of childhood memories involving wholesome fantasy worlds, funny cartoons and rich family entertainment.

Walt Disney was different from the other moguls who created and built up Hollywood studios during the 1920s and 30s. He began as a cartoonist from the Midwest, then moved to Los Angeles where his studio became the preeminent animation house. It gave him the freedom to take the cartoon medium to hitherto undreamed of artistic heights and to commercial prominence.

Walt holds the record for most Oscars won - 22 Oscars from 59 nominations. He received many other honours including two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award. The American Film Institute named several of his films as being amongst the greatest films ever. In addition Walt founded, with his brother, Roy, one of the largest and most successful entertainment groups in the world.

Disney name

The name 'Disney' originated as Isigny-sur-Mer in Normandy, France. During the Norman conquest of England in 1066 a father and son bearing the name d'Isigny fought with William the Conqueror and then settled in England. Over centuries their name was anglicized to 'Disney' and in the nineteenth century a branch of the family moved, first to Ireland and then to North America.

Biography

Walt was born Walter Elias Disney on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, the fourth child of Elias and Flora Disney. He had three brothers and one sister.

His father was a professional carpenter and builder in Chicago but in 1904 He moved his family to a farm in Marceline, Missouri and then, when Walt was seven, to Kansas City where Walt spent most of his childhood and attended Benton Grammar School until 1917. That year his family moved to Chicago, Illinois where Walt began his freshman year (and only year) at McKinley High School.

He developed an interest in drawing at an early age and showed real ability. He also enjoyed working with watercolors and crayons.

To get away from home Walt, at age 16 during World War I, lied about his age to the recruiting office ofthe American Red Cross and spent several months in France as an ambulance driver. He also painted signs for the canteen and designs for the trucks.

Ub Iwerks

He returned home with an ambition to become a newspaper cartoonist and with a particular interest in animation. He won a scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute where he met a fellow animation enthusiast, Ub Iwerks. Iwerks had trained as a commercial artist and he and Walt decided to form an animation company. In 1921, they made a series of short animations for the Newman theater company, entitled "Newman's Laugh-O-Grams".

The Laugh-O-Grams cartoons did not provide enough income to keep the new company solvent, so Walt started a new production called 'Alice's Wonderland' - based on the Lewis Carrol book—which combined animation and live acting. The resulting one-reel film did not prevent the Laugh-O-Gram Studio from going into bankruptcy in 1923.

Hollywood 1923

Walt was in a difficult situation. He needed to earn money and he had ambitions to become a live-action film director as well as an animator. He was attracted to Los Angeles because Hollywood was starting to overtake New York as the place to make films, and his brother, Roy, was already there, recovering from tuberculosis.

Walt moved to Los Angeles in July 1923, and immediately began trying to sell 'Alice's Wonderland'. He eventually succeeded and signed a contract for six Alice comedies with New York film distributor Margaret J. Winkler. Winkler was intrigued with the idea of a live-action girl in a cartoon world. Walt formed a completely new studio, Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, which eventually changed its name to Walt Disney Productions.

In July 1924, Disney persuaded Iwerks to relocate to Hollywood and In 1926, the first official Walt Disney Studio was established. Walt was on his way.

Mickey Mouse 1928

Margaret Winkler's husband was film distributor Charles Mintz. When the Alice series came to an end in 1927, Mintz contracted with Walt Disney Studios to create a new series of animation films based on a fresh character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

The new series was successful, but in 1928, Walt and Mintz had a disagreement over money and split up. As Mintz owned the rights to the 'Oswald' character Disney was back to square one and he realised he had to create a new character. He chose a mouse whom he first called Mortimer, but soon changed to Mickey.

Debuting in the silent 'Plane Crazy', Mickey eventually found his voice (actually Disney's voice) in 'Steamboat Willie' later that year, by which time Disney had begun a series of experiments to perfect sound and image synchronisation.

With Walt voicing Mickey, 'Steamboat Willie' was a countrywide sensation and over the next few years a lengthy series of Mickey Mouse cartoons was produced in which he was given a wife, Minnie, and friends Goofy, Pluto and Donald Duck, all of whom became popular in their own right. Walt was now in the big time, but he didn't stop creating new ideas.

'Silly Symphonies 1929

In 1929, just one year after Micky, Walt created the 'Silly Symphonies', a series of cartoons which featured a variety of different characters, enabling Walt and his animators to experiment with elements such as music, mood and emotion.

The 'Silly Symphonies' were hugely popular. 'Flowers and Trees', made in 1932 was the first full-color cartoon and it won the Academy Award for Best Cartoon for that year, the first year that such a category was offered. For the rest of that decade, a Disney cartoon won the Oscar every year. In 1933 'Three Little Pigs' became so popular it was often billed above the feature films it accompanied.

Disney's vision for the future of animation was becoming reality, but he had greater ambition. He was convinced that short cartoons would not keep his studio profitable in the long run, so he took what was seen as an enormous gamble. .He decided to make a full length feature cartoon.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937

Work began on 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' in 1934 and it took 3 years to complete. The critics made dire predictions about full length cartoons and called it 'Disney's Folly', but they were proved wrong. The movie opened in December, 1937, and became a spectacular worldwide hit. Until 'Gone with the Wind' two years later, it was the highest-grossing film of all time. Animation had come of age and in future would be regarded as a serious art form. Walt was riding the crest of a wave. He won another Honorary Academy Award,that year, which consisted of one full-sized and seven miniature Oscar statuettes

Pinocchio' and 'Fantasia 1940

He immediately began work on other feature cartoons, and 'Pinocchio' and 'Fantasia', were both released in 1940. Each movie was a technical tour de force, but neither was immediately successful and initially lost the company money. A major slice of the potential market had disappeared with Europe's involvement in WWII

Dumbo 1941

Walt needed to refloat the finances of the company and in 1941 he produced another feature cartoon, 'Dumbo', this time on a very low budget. It was a great success both critically and commercially and brought in much needed revenue

The Animators' Strike 1941

For around four months from May, 1941, employees of Walt Disney Productions, dissatisfied with the company pay rates, picketed and disrupted film production. They were led by Art Babbitt, one of the company's top animators on 'Snow White'. He earned good money but many of his colleagues did not. Walt Disney Productions had expanded dramatically in the years after 'Snow White' and the rates of pay at the company were highly inequitable. One person in the room, like Art Babbit, could be making $300 or more a week while others might make as little as $16 a week.

Walt felt strongly that communism was the only plausible explanation for the strike and he dismissed Babbitt. Eventually, after federal arbitration, the studio had to agree to various pay demands as well as sick leave — and Babbitt’s return.

World War II 1942

The attack on Pearl Harbour in December, 1941 led to the U S Government using the Hollywood movie studios to produce propaganda material to support the war effort. The U.S.Army requisitioned half of the DisneyStudios to house troops which forced Disney to temporarily hold back a number of feature films including 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Peter Pan'.

During the war Disney Studios contributed animations for many training films in collaboration with the U S Army Air Forces and Frank Capra's signal corps. The films included series such as 'Why We Fight', 'Know Your Enemies' and 'Rules of the Nautical Road'. Disney also produced several propaganda films, such as 'Der Fuehrer's Face' and the 1943 full length film 'Victory Through Air Power'.

Bambi 1942

'Bambi' had been started in 1937. Walt allowed it to continue production and it was released in April, 1942. It is a groundbreaking, beautifully created movie and deeply touching. It has rightly become one of Disney's most popular animations but on its release it was not well received and lost $200,000 at the box office.

Disney Battling Communism

The animators' strike of 1941 had destroyed the unique camaraderie of the Disney studios. Walt had become bitter and was convinced that communism was behind the strike. In 1944 he founded the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA), an anti-Communist political group.. In 1947 Walt was called as a "friendly witness" before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and testified on his belief that communist agitators had caused the strike in 1941. He declared it to have been part of an organized communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood and he named former employees as communists,

Postwar period

At the war's end in 1945, the army departed the Disney studios with Walt once again in a difficult financial position. He released some low budget animations, joined together to make a feature length film. These included 'Make Mine Music' in 1946, 'Fun and Fancy Free' in 1947, 'Melody Time' in 1948, and 'The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad' in 1949. The studio only profited in the immediate postwar years by reissuing 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' and 'Pinocchio', but still had to lay off half of its employees in 1946.

Song of the South 1946

The 1946 movie 'Song of the South' was a musical film, part live-action and part animation. One of the highlights was the song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" sung by James Baskett as Uncle Remus, walking alongside cartoon butterflies, birds and woodland animals. Baskett won an honorary Academy Award, the first African-American man to win any kind of Oscar. Astonishingly, he was not allowed to attend its premiere in Atlanta because of his race.

True Life Adventures 1948-1960

Walt continued to innovate, and in 1948 he began making nature films, both short and feature-length, under the general heading 'True-Life Adventures'. They were amongst the industry's earliest nature documentaries and they became very popular. The first was 'Seal Island' which won an Oscar in 1949 for Best Short Subject (Two-Reel). The series continued until 1960 with titles such as 'Beaver Valley', 'Bear Country', The Living Desert' and 'White Wilderness'.

1950 and after

In 1950 Disney returned to his first love - animation. 'Cinderella' became his first commercially successful animated feature since 'Snow White' and it was followed by 'Alice in Wonderland' in 1951 and 'Peter Pan' two years later. In 1950 also he started producing non-animated feature films, beginning in that year with 'Treasure Island' and following with ' The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men' in 1952. Around this time, he formed his own movie distribution company, Buena Vista. During these years of consolidation and growth, Walt did not neglect animated features, producing, 'Lady and the Tramp' in 1955, 'Sleeping Beauty' in 1959, and 'One Hundred and One Dalmatians' in 1961. He also made more live-action movies such as '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' in 1954, 'Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier' the following year, 'Old Yeller' in 1957 and ' Swiss Family Robinson' in 1960.

Expansion and Diversification

By now the name "Disney" was a household word and Walt was an immensely wealthy man but he still had the drive, determination and vision to explore other avenues of entertainment.

Disneyland 1955

Visits to Griffith Park in Los Angeles and Tivoli World in Denmark had sparked his interest in building a theme park. He briefly considered a site in Burbank, near the Disney studios, but this proved too small for his ambitious plans so he purchased a larger plot in Anaheim, 35 miles from the studio, and he used his personal bankroll to fund a group of talented designers to help turn his plans into reality.

The designers were sent to every amusement park in the country to get ideas and incorporate their findings into his design. Construction on Disneyland started in July 1954, and the park opened just one year later in July 1955. Within two months it had received over one million visitors - another startling success.

Television

Walt was one of the first movie producers to venture into television. 'The Magical World of Disney' was started in 1954 in order to promote Disneyland. It was an anthology series which ran until 1997. He also produced 'The Mickey Mouse Club' in 1955 a show aimed specifically at the youth market, and which aired every afternoon. It proved very popular and ran, in various forms, until 1996. .

Walt Disney World

.Disneyland in California was an enormous success but was limited from expanding by the surrounding buildings which were not owned by Disney. Accordingly, the company purchased land in Orlando, Florida, and built a resort similar in scope to Disneyland, but much bigger. Construction started in 1967 and the first phase, 'Magic Kingdom', opened in 1971. It was Roy, who came out of retirement on Walt's death, who insisted the name of the entire complex be changed from Disney World to Walt Disney World, ensuring that people would remember that the project was Walt's dream.

The resort has become the most visited vacation resort in the world, with attendance of more than one million visitors a week. It is a fitting memorial to the genius and foresight of Walt Disney.

Final Years

Until he became ill in the mid 1960s, Walt continued to push himself and his staff. Despite the demands wrought by non-studio projects, Disney continued to work on film and television projects. In 1955, he was involved in "Man in Space", an episode of the 'Disneyland' series, which was made in collaboration with NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun. Walt also worked directly on the full-length cartoon features 'Lady and the Tramp' in 1955, 'Sleeping Beauty' in 1959, 'One Hundred and One Dalmatians' in 1961, and 'The Sword in the Stone' in 1963. Walt managed to top his previous efforts with 'Mary Poppins', in 1964 which reverted to his first movies - mixing animation and live action. It is considered to be one of his greatest films.

Personal

Walt married once, to Lillian Bounds, who worked in his inking department, and the couple had two daughters.

Walt entered St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank, California, on 2 November 1966, after being in bad health for several months. He was diagnosed with cancer in his left lung which was removed. Walt Disney died on 15 December 1966.

Walt's death spawned two rumors that became urban legends. The first is that he had his body cryogenically frozen. The second held that he was buried somewhere on the grounds of Disneyland. Neither rumour is true. After cremation, Walt's ashes were interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

Summary

There is no doubt that Walt Disney was a major figure in the cultural history of the United States. The Disney company is now amongst the largest entertainment providers in the world. His company continues to flourish, still producing animated and live-action films and overseeing the still-growing empire started by one determined man. Walt Disney was a creative colossus. He will never be forgotten.

Walt Disney Filmography 1937-1979 (as producer)