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Walt Disney
Disney in 1946
Born	Walter Elias Disney December 5, 1901 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	December 15, 1966 (aged 65) Burbank, California, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
Occupations	Animator film producer entrepreneur
Title	President of The Walt Disney Company[1]
Spouse	Lillian Disney ​ (m. 1925)​
Children	2, including Diane Disney Miller
Relatives	Disney family
Awards	26 Academy Awards (22 competitive, 4 honorary) 3 Golden Globe Awards 1 Emmy Award
Signature

Walter Elias Disney (;^[2] December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, he holds the record for most Academy Awards earned and nominations by an individual, having won 22 Oscars from 59 nominations. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and have also been named as some of the greatest films ever by the American Film Institute. Disney was the first person to be nominated for Academy Awards in six different categories.

Born in Chicago in 1901, Disney developed an early interest in drawing. He took art classes as a boy and got a job as a commercial illustrator at the age of 18. He moved to California in the early 1920s and set up the Disney Brothers Studio with his brother Roy. With Ub Iwerks, he developed the character Mickey Mouse in 1928, his first highly popular success; he also provided the voice for his creation in the early years. As the studio grew, he became more adventurous, introducing synchronized sound, full-color three-strip Technicolor, feature-length cartoons and technical developments in cameras. The results, seen in features such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio, Fantasia (both 1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942), furthered the development of animated film. New animated and live-action films followed after World War II, including the critically successful Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Mary Poppins (1964), the last of which received five Academy Awards.

In the 1950s, Disney expanded into the amusement park industry, and in July 1955 he opened Disneyland in Anaheim, California. To fund the project he diversified into television programs, such as Walt Disney’s Disneyland and The Mickey Mouse Club. He was also involved in planning the 1959 Moscow Fair, the 1960 Winter Olympics, and the 1964 New York World’s Fair. In 1965, he began development of another theme park, Disney World, the heart of which was to be a new type of city, the «Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow» (EPCOT). Disney was a heavy smoker throughout his life and died of lung cancer in December 1966 before either the park or the EPCOT project were completed.

Disney was a shy, self-deprecating and insecure man in private but adopted a warm and outgoing public persona. He had high standards and high expectations of those with whom he worked. Although there have been accusations that he was racist or antisemitic, they have been contradicted by many who knew him. Historiography of Disney has taken a variety of perspectives, ranging from views of him as a purveyor of homely patriotic values to being a representative of American imperialism. He remains an important figure in the history of animation and in the cultural history of the United States, where he is considered a national cultural icon. His film work continues to be shown and adapted, and the Disney theme parks have grown in size and number to attract visitors in several countries.

Early life

Disney was born on December 5, 1901, at 1249 Tripp Avenue, in Chicago’s Hermosa neighborhood.^[a] He was the fourth son of Elias Disney‍—‌born in the Province of Canada, to Irish parents‍—‌and Flora (née Call), an American of German and English descent.^[4][5][b] Aside from Walt, Elias and Flora’s sons were Herbert, Raymond and Roy; and the couple had a fifth child, Ruth, in December 1903.^[8] In 1906, when Disney was four, the family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri, where his uncle Robert had just purchased land. In Marceline, Disney developed his interest in drawing when he was paid to draw the horse of a retired neighborhood doctor.^[9] Elias was a subscriber to the Appeal to Reason newspaper, and Disney practiced drawing by copying the front-page cartoons of Ryan Walker.^[10] He also began to develop an ability to work with watercolors and crayons.^[5] He lived near the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway line and became enamored with trains.^[11] He and his younger sister Ruth started school at the same time at the Park School in Marceline in late 1909.^[12] The Disney family were active members of a Congregational church.^[13]

In 1911, the Disneys moved to Kansas City, Missouri.^[14] There, Disney attended the Benton Grammar School, where he met fellow-student Walter Pfeiffer, who came from a family of theatre fans and introduced him to the world of vaudeville and motion pictures. Before long, Disney was spending more time at the Pfeiffers’ house than at home.^[15] Elias had purchased a newspaper delivery route for The Kansas City Star and Kansas City Times. Disney and his brother Roy woke up at 4:30 every morning to deliver the Times before school and repeated the round for the evening Star after school. The schedule was exhausting, and Disney often received poor grades after falling asleep in class, but he continued his paper route for more than six years.^[16] He attended Saturday courses at the Kansas City Art Institute and also took a correspondence course in cartooning.^[5][17]

In 1917, Elias bought stock in a Chicago jelly producer, the O-Zell Company, and moved back to the city with his family.^[18] Disney enrolled at McKinley High School and became the cartoonist of the school newspaper, drawing patriotic pictures about World War I;^[19][20] he also took night courses at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.^[21] In mid-1918, he attempted to join the United States Army to fight the Germans, but he was rejected as too young. After forging the date of birth on his birth certificate, he joined the Red Cross in September 1918 as an ambulance driver. He was shipped to France but arrived in November, after the armistice.^[22] He drew cartoons on the side of his ambulance for decoration and had some of his work published in the army newspaper Stars and Stripes.^[23] He returned to Kansas City in October 1919,^[24] where he worked as an apprentice artist at the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio, where he drew commercial illustrations for advertising, theater programs and catalogs, and befriended fellow artist Ub Iwerks.^[25]

Career

Early career: 1920–1928

In January 1920, as Pesmen-Rubin’s revenue declined after Christmas, Disney, aged 18, and Iwerks were laid off. They started their own business, the short-lived Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists.^[26] Failing to attract many customers, Disney and Iwerks agreed that Disney should leave temporarily to earn money at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, run by A. V. Cauger; the following month Iwerks, who was not able to run their business alone, also joined.^[27] The company produced commercials using the cutout animation technique.^[28] Disney became interested in animation, although he preferred drawn cartoons such as Mutt and Jeff and Max Fleischer’s Out of the Inkwell. With the assistance of a borrowed book on animation and a camera, he began experimenting at home.^[29][c] He came to the conclusion that cel animation was more promising than the cutout method.^[d] Unable to persuade Cauger to try cel animation at the company, Disney opened a new business with a co-worker from the Film Ad Co, Fred Harman.^[31] Their main client was the local Newman Theater, and the short cartoons they produced were sold as «Newman’s Laugh-O-Grams».^[32] Disney studied Paul Terry’s Aesop’s Fables as a model, and the first six «Laugh-O-Grams» were modernized fairy tales.^[33]

In May 1921, the success of the «Laugh-O-Grams» led to the establishment of Laugh-O-Gram Studio, for which he hired more animators, including Fred Harman’s brother Hugh, Rudolf Ising and Iwerks.^[34] The Laugh-O-Grams cartoons did not provide enough income to keep the company solvent, so Disney started production of Alice’s Wonderland‍—‌based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland‍—‌which combined live action with animation; he cast Virginia Davis in the title role.^[35] The result, a 12-and-a-half-minute, one-reel film, was completed too late to save Laugh-O-Gram Studio, which went into bankruptcy in 1923.^[36]

Disney moved to Hollywood in July 1923 at 21 years old. Although New York was the center of the cartoon industry, he was attracted to Los Angeles because his brother Roy was convalescing from tuberculosis there,^[37] and he hoped to become a live-action film director.^[38] Disney’s efforts to sell Alice’s Wonderland were in vain until he heard from New York film distributor Margaret J. Winkler. She was losing the rights to both the Out of the Inkwell and Felix the Cat cartoons, and needed a new series. In October, they signed a contract for six Alice comedies, with an option for two further series of six episodes each.^[38][39] Disney and his brother Roy formed the Disney Brothers Studio‍—‌which later became The Walt Disney Company‍—‌to produce the films;^[40][41] they persuaded Davis and her family to relocate to Hollywood to continue production, with Davis on contract at $100 a month. In July 1924, Disney also hired Iwerks, persuading him to relocate to Hollywood from Kansas City.^[42] In 1926,^[43] the first official Walt Disney Studio was established at 2725 Hyperion Avenue, demolished in 1940.^[44]

By 1926, Winkler’s role in the distribution of the Alice series had been handed over to her husband, the film producer Charles Mintz, although the relationship between him and Disney was sometimes strained.^[45] The series ran until July 1927,^[46] by which time Disney had begun to tire of it and wanted to move away from the mixed format to all animation.^[45][47] After Mintz requested new material to distribute through Universal Pictures, Disney and Iwerks created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character Disney wanted to be «peppy, alert, saucy and venturesome, keeping him also neat and trim».^[47][48]

In February 1928, Disney hoped to negotiate a larger fee for producing the Oswald series, but found Mintz wanting to reduce the payments. Mintz had also persuaded many of the artists involved to work directly for him, including Harman, Ising, Carman Maxwell and Friz Freleng. Disney also found out that Universal owned the intellectual property rights to Oswald. Mintz threatened to start his own studio and produce the series himself if Disney refused to accept the reductions. Disney declined Mintz’s ultimatum and lost most of his animation staff, except Iwerks, who chose to remain with him.^[49][50][e]

Creation of Mickey Mouse to the first Academy Awards: 1928–1933

To replace Oswald, Disney and Iwerks developed Mickey Mouse, possibly inspired by a pet mouse that Disney had adopted while working in his Laugh-O-Gram studio, although the origins of the character are unclear.^[52][f] Disney’s original choice of name was Mortimer Mouse, but his wife Lillian thought it too pompous, and suggested Mickey instead.^[53][g] Iwerks revised Disney’s provisional sketches to make the character easier to animate. Disney, who had begun to distance himself from the animation process,^[55] provided Mickey’s voice until 1947. In the words of one Disney employee, «Ub designed Mickey’s physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul.»^[56]

Mickey Mouse first appeared in May 1928 as a single test screening of the short Plane Crazy, but it, and the second feature, The Gallopin’ Gaucho, failed to find a distributor.^[57] Following the 1927 sensation The Jazz Singer, Disney used synchronized sound on the third short, Steamboat Willie, to create the first post-produced sound cartoon. After the animation was complete, Disney signed a contract with the former executive of Universal Pictures, Pat Powers, to use the «Powers Cinephone» recording system;^[58] Cinephone became the new distributor for Disney’s early sound cartoons, which soon became popular.^[59]

To improve the quality of the music, Disney hired the professional composer and arranger Carl Stalling, on whose suggestion the Silly Symphony series was developed, providing stories through the use of music; the first in the series, The Skeleton Dance (1929), was drawn and animated entirely by Iwerks. Also hired at this time were several local artists, some of whom stayed with the company as core animators; the group later became known as the Nine Old Men.^[60][h] Both the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series were successful, but Disney and his brother felt they were not receiving their rightful share of profits from Powers. In 1930, Disney tried to trim costs from the process by urging Iwerks to abandon the practice of animating every separate cel in favor of the more efficient technique of drawing key poses and letting lower-paid assistants sketch the inbetween poses. Disney asked Powers for an increase in payments for the cartoons. Powers refused and signed Iwerks to work for him; Stalling resigned shortly afterwards, thinking that without Iwerks, the Disney Studio would close.^[61] Disney had a nervous breakdown in October 1931‍—‌which he blamed on the machinations of Powers and his own overwork‍—‌so he and Lillian took an extended holiday to Cuba and a cruise to Panama to recover.^[62]

With the loss of Powers as distributor, Disney studios signed a contract with Columbia Pictures to distribute the Mickey Mouse cartoons, which became increasingly popular, including internationally.^[63][64][i] Disney and his crew would also introduce new cartoon stars like Pluto in 1930, Goofy in 1932 and Donald Duck in 1934.^[65] Always keen to embrace new technology and encouraged by his new contract with United Artists, Disney filmed Flowers and Trees (1932) in full-color three-strip Technicolor;^[66] he was also able to negotiate a deal giving him the sole right to use the three-strip process until August 31, 1935.^[67] All subsequent Silly Symphony cartoons were in color.^[68] Flowers and Trees was popular with audiences^[69] and won the inaugural Academy Award for best Short Subject (Cartoon) at the 1932 ceremony. Disney had been nominated for another film in that category, Mickey’s Orphans, and received an Honorary Award «for the creation of Mickey Mouse».^[70][71]

In 1933, Disney produced The Three Little Pigs, a film described by the media historian Adrian Danks as «the most successful short animation of all time».^[72] The film won Disney another Academy Award in the Short Subject (Cartoon) category. The film’s success led to a further increase in the studio’s staff, which numbered nearly 200 by the end of the year.^[73] Disney realized the importance of telling emotionally gripping stories that would interest the audience,^[74] and he invested in a «story department» separate from the animators, with storyboard artists who would detail the plots of Disney’s films.^[75]

Golden age of animation: 1934–1941

By 1934, Disney had become dissatisfied with producing formulaic cartoon shorts,^[65] and believed a feature-length cartoon would be more profitable.^[76] The studio began the four-year production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, based on the fairy tale. When news leaked out about the project, many in the film industry predicted it would bankrupt the company; industry insiders nicknamed it «Disney’s Folly».^[77] The film, which was the first animated feature made in full color and sound, cost $1.5 million to produce‍—‌three times over budget.^[78] To ensure the animation was as realistic as possible, Disney sent his animators on courses at the Chouinard Art Institute;^[79] he brought animals into the studio and hired actors so that the animators could study realistic movement.^[80] To portray the changing perspective of the background as a camera moved through a scene, Disney’s animators developed a multiplane camera which allowed drawings on pieces of glass to be set at various distances from the camera, creating an illusion of depth. The glass could be moved to create the impression of a camera passing through the scene. The first work created on the camera‍—‌a Silly Symphony called The Old Mill (1937)‍—‌won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film because of its impressive visual power. Although Snow White had been largely finished by the time the multiplane camera had been completed, Disney ordered some scenes be re-drawn to use the new effects.^[81]

Snow White premiered in December 1937 to high praise from critics and audiences. The film became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and by May 1939 its total gross of $6.5 million made it the most successful sound film made to that date.^[77][j] Disney won another Honorary Academy Award, which consisted of one full-sized and seven miniature Oscar statuettes.^[83][k] The success of Snow White heralded one of the most productive eras for the studio; the Walt Disney Family Museum calls the following years «the ‘Golden Age of Animation’ ».^[84][85] With work on Snow White finished, the studio began producing Pinocchio in early 1938 and Fantasia in November of the same year. Both films were released in 1940, and neither performed well at the box office‍—‌partly because revenues from Europe had dropped following the start of World War II in 1939. The studio made a loss on both pictures and was deeply in debt by the end of February 1941.^[86]

In response to the financial crisis, Disney and his brother Roy started the company’s first public stock offering in 1940, and implemented heavy salary cuts. The latter measure, and Disney’s sometimes high-handed and insensitive manner of dealing with staff, led to a 1941 animators’ strike which lasted five weeks.^[87] While a federal mediator from the National Labor Relations Board negotiated with the two sides, Disney accepted an offer from the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs to make a goodwill trip to South America, ensuring he was absent during a resolution he knew would be unfavorable to the studio.^[88][l] As a result of the strike‍—‌and the financial state of the company‍—‌several animators left the studio, and Disney’s relationship with other members of staff was permanently strained as a result.^[91] The strike temporarily interrupted the studio’s next production, Dumbo (1941), which Disney produced in a simple and inexpensive manner; the film received a positive reaction from audiences and critics alike.^[92]

World War II and beyond: 1941–1950

Shortly after the release of Dumbo in October 1941, the U.S. entered World War II. Disney formed the Walt Disney Training Films Unit within the company to produce instruction films for the military such as Four Methods of Flush Riveting and Aircraft Production Methods.^[93] Disney also met with Henry Morgenthau Jr., the Secretary of the Treasury, and agreed to produce short Donald Duck cartoons to promote war bonds.^[94] Disney also produced several propaganda productions, including shorts such as Der Fuehrer’s Face‍—‌which won an Academy Award‍—‌and the 1943 feature film Victory Through Air Power.^[95]

The military films generated only enough revenue to cover costs, and the feature film Bambi‍—‌which had been in production since 1937‍—‌underperformed on its release in April 1942, and lost $200,000 at the box office.^[96] On top of the low earnings from Pinocchio and Fantasia, the company had debts of $4 million with the Bank of America in 1944.^[97][m] At a meeting with Bank of America executives to discuss the future of the company, the bank’s chairman and founder, Amadeo Giannini, told his executives, «I’ve been watching the Disneys’ pictures quite closely because I knew we were lending them money far above the financial risk. … They’re good this year, they’re good next year, and they’re good the year after. … You have to relax and give them time to market their product.»^[98] Disney’s production of short films decreased in the late 1940s, coinciding with increasing competition in the animation market from Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Roy Disney, for financial reasons, suggested more combined animation and live-action productions.^[58][n] In 1948, Disney initiated a series of popular live-action nature films, titled True-Life Adventures, with Seal Island the first; the film won the Academy Award in the Best Short Subject (Two-Reel) category.^[99]

Theme parks, television and other interests: 1950–1966

In early 1950, Disney produced Cinderella, his studio’s first animated feature in eight years. It was popular with critics and theater audiences. Costing $2.2 million to produce, it earned nearly $8 million in its first year.^[100][o] Disney was less involved than he had been with previous pictures because of his involvement in his first entirely live-action feature, Treasure Island (1950), which was shot in Britain, as was The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952).^[101] Other all-live-action features followed, many of which had patriotic themes.^[58][p] He continued to produce full-length animated features too, including Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953). From the early to mid-1950s, Disney began to devote less attention to the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, the Nine Old Men, although he was always present at story meetings. Instead, he started concentrating on other ventures.^[102] Around the same time, Disney would establish his own film distribution chain Buena Vista, replacing his most recent distributor RKO Pictures.^[103]

For several years Disney had been considering building a theme park. When he visited Griffith Park in Los Angeles with his daughters, he wanted to be in a clean, unspoiled park, where both children and their parents could have fun.^[104] He visited the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was heavily influenced by the cleanliness and layout of the park.^[105] In March 1952 he received zoning permission to build a theme park in Burbank, near the Disney studios.^[106] This site proved too small, and a larger plot in Anaheim, 35 miles (56 km) south of the studio, was purchased. To distance the project from the studio‍—‌which might attract the criticism of shareholders‍—‌Disney formed WED Enterprises (now Walt Disney Imagineering) and used his own money to fund a group of designers and animators to work on the plans;^[107][108] those involved became known as «Imagineers».^[109] After obtaining bank funding he invited other stockholders, American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres‍—‌part of American Broadcasting Company (ABC)‍—‌and Western Printing and Lithographing Company.^[58] In mid-1954, Disney sent his Imagineers to every amusement park in the U.S. to analyze what worked and what pitfalls or problems there were in the various locations and incorporated their findings into his design.^[110] Construction work started in July 1954, and Disneyland opened in July 1955; the opening ceremony was broadcast on ABC, which reached 70 million viewers.^[111] The park was designed as a series of themed lands, linked by the central Main Street, U.S.A.‍—‌a replica of the main street in his hometown of Marceline. The connected themed areas were Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. The park also contained the narrow gauge Disneyland Railroad that linked the lands; around the outside of the park was a high berm to separate the park from the outside world.^[112][113] An editorial in The New York Times considered that Disney had «tastefully combined some of the pleasant things of yesterday with fantasy and dreams of tomorrow».^[114] Although there were early minor problems with the park, it was a success, and after a month’s operation, Disneyland was receiving over 20,000 visitors a day; by the end of its first year, it attracted 3.6 million guests.^[115]

The money from ABC was contingent on Disney television programs.^[116] The studio had been involved in a successful television special on Christmas Day 1950 about the making of Alice in Wonderland. Roy believed the program added millions to the box office takings. In a March 1951 letter to shareholders, he wrote that «television can be a most powerful selling aid for us, as well as a source of revenue. It will probably be on this premise that we enter television when we do».^[58] In 1954, after the Disneyland funding had been agreed, ABC broadcast Walt Disney’s Disneyland, an anthology consisting of animated cartoons, live-action features and other material from the studio’s library. The show was successful in terms of ratings and profits, earning an audience share of over 50%.^[117][q] In April 1955, Newsweek called the series an «American institution».^[118] ABC was pleased with the ratings, leading to Disney’s first daily television program, The Mickey Mouse Club, a variety show catering specifically to children.^[119] The program was accompanied by merchandising through various companies (Western Printing, for example, had been producing coloring books and comics for over 20 years, and produced several items connected to the show).^[120] One of the segments of Disneyland consisted of the five-part miniseries Davy Crockett which, according to Gabler, «became an overnight sensation».^[121] The show’s theme song, «The Ballad of Davy Crockett», became internationally popular, and ten million records were sold.^[122] As a result, Disney formed his own record production and distribution entity, Disneyland Records.^[123]

As well as the construction of Disneyland, Disney worked on other projects away from the studio. He was consultant to the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow; Disney Studios’ contribution was America the Beautiful, a 19-minute film in the 360-degree Circarama theater that was one of the most popular attractions.^[58] The following year he acted as the chairman of the Pageantry Committee for the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California, where he designed the opening, closing and medal ceremonies.^[124] He was one of twelve investors in the Celebrity Sports Center, which opened in 1960 in Glendale, Colorado; he and Roy bought out the others in 1962, making the Disney company the sole owner.^[125]

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.^[r] Disney also oversaw aspects of the full-length features Lady and the Tramp (the first animated film in CinemaScope) in 1955, Sleeping Beauty (the first animated film in Technirama 70 mm film) in 1959, One Hundred and One Dalmatians (the first animated feature film to use Xerox cels) in 1961, and The Sword in the Stone in 1963.^[127]

In 1964, Disney produced Mary Poppins, based on the book series by P. L. Travers; he had been trying to acquire the rights to the story since the 1940s.^[128] It became the most successful Disney film of the 1960s, although Travers disliked the film intensely and regretted having sold the rights.^[129] The same year he also became involved in plans to expand the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts), and had an architect draw up blueprints for a new building.^[130]

Disney provided four exhibits for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, for which he obtained funding from selected corporate sponsors. For PepsiCo, who planned a tribute to UNICEF, Disney developed It’s a Small World, a boat ride with audio-animatronic dolls depicting children of the world; Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln contained an animatronic Abraham Lincoln giving excerpts from his speeches; Carousel of Progress promoted the importance of electricity; and Ford’s Magic Skyway portrayed the progress of mankind. Elements of all four exhibits‍—‌principally concepts and technology‍—‌were re-installed in Disneyland, although It’s a Small World is the ride that most closely resembles the original.^[131][132]

During the early to mid-1960s, Disney developed plans for a ski resort in Mineral King, a glacial valley in California’s Sierra Nevada. He hired experts such as the renowned Olympic ski coach and ski-area designer Willy Schaeffler.^{[133][134][s]} With income from Disneyland accounting for an increasing proportion of the studio’s income, Disney continued to look for venues for other attractions. In 1963 he presented a project to create a theme park in downtown St. Louis, Missouri; he initially reached an agreement with the Civic Center Redevelopment Corp, which controlled the land, but the deal later collapsed over funding.^[136][137] In late 1965, he announced plans to develop another theme park to be called «Disney World» (now Walt Disney World), a few miles southwest of Orlando, Florida. Disney World was to include the «Magic Kingdom»‍—‌a larger and more elaborate version of Disneyland‍—‌plus golf courses and resort hotels. The heart of Disney World was to be the «Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow» (EPCOT),^[138] which he described as:

an experimental prototype community of tomorrow that will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and systems. And EPCOT will always be a showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise.^[139]

During 1966, Disney cultivated businesses willing to sponsor EPCOT.^[140] He received a story credit in the 1966 film Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. as Retlaw Yensid, his name spelt backwards.^[141] He increased his involvement in the studio’s films, and was heavily involved in the story development of The Jungle Book, the live-action musical feature The Happiest Millionaire (both 1967) and the animated short Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968).^[142]

Illness, death and aftermath

Disney had been a heavy smoker since World War I. He did not use cigarettes with filters and had smoked a pipe as a young man. In early November 1966, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was treated with cobalt therapy.^[143] On November 30, he felt unwell and was taken by ambulance from his home to St. Joseph Hospital where, on December 15, 1966, aged 65, he died of circulatory collapse caused by the cancer.^[144] His remains were cremated two days later and his ashes interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.^[145][t]

The release of The Jungle Book and The Happiest Millionaire in 1967 raised the total number of feature films that Disney had been involved in to 81.^[19] When Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day was released in 1968, it earned Disney an Academy Award in the Short Subject (Cartoon) category, awarded posthumously.^[149] After Disney’s death, his studios continued to produce live-action films prolifically but largely abandoned animation until the late 1980s, after which there was what The New York Times describes as the «Disney Renaissance» that began with The Little Mermaid (1989).^[150] Disney’s companies continue to produce successful film, television and stage entertainment.^[151]

Disney’s plans for the futuristic city of EPCOT did not come to fruition. After Disney’s death, his brother Roy deferred his retirement to take full control of the Disney companies. He changed the focus of the project from a town to an attraction.^[152] At the inauguration in 1971, Roy dedicated Walt Disney World to his brother.^[153][u] Walt Disney World expanded with the opening of Epcot Center in 1982; Walt Disney’s vision of a functional city was replaced by a park more akin to a permanent world’s fair.^[155] In 2009, the Walt Disney Family Museum, designed by Disney’s daughter Diane and her son Walter E. D. Miller, opened in the Presidio of San Francisco.^[156] Thousands of artifacts from Disney’s life and career are on display, including numerous awards that he received.^[157] In 2014, the Disney theme parks around the world hosted approximately 134 million visitors.^[158]

Personal life and character

Early in 1925, Disney hired an ink artist, Lillian Bounds. They married in July of that year, at her brother’s house in her home town of Lewiston, Idaho.^[159] The marriage was generally happy, according to Lillian, although according to Disney’s biographer Neal Gabler she did not «accept Walt’s decisions meekly or his status unquestionably, and she admitted that he was always telling people ‘how henpecked he is’.»^[160][v] Lillian had little interest in films or the Hollywood social scene and she was, in the words of the historian Steven Watts, «content with household management and providing support for her husband».^[161] Their marriage produced two daughters, Diane (born December 1933) and Sharon (adopted in December 1936, born six weeks previously).^[162][w] Within the family, neither Disney nor his wife hid the fact Sharon had been adopted, although they became annoyed if people outside the family raised the point.^[163] The Disneys were careful to keep their daughters out of the public eye as much as possible, particularly in the light of the Lindbergh kidnapping; Disney took steps to ensure his daughters were not photographed by the press.^[164]

In 1949, Disney and his family moved to a new home in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles. With the help of his friends Ward and Betty Kimball, who already had their own backyard railroad, Disney developed blueprints and immediately set to work on creating a miniature live steam railroad for his back yard. The name of the railroad, Carolwood Pacific Railroad, came from his home’s location on Carolwood Drive. The miniature working steam locomotive was built by Disney Studios engineer Roger E. Broggie, and Disney named it Lilly Belle after his wife;^[165] after three years Disney ordered it into storage due to a series of accidents involving his guests.^[166]

Disney grew more politically conservative as he got older. A Democratic Party supporter until the 1940 presidential election, when he switched allegiance to the Republican Party,^[167] he became a generous donor to Thomas E. Dewey’s 1944 bid for the presidency.^[168] In 1946, he was a founding member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, an organization who stated they «believ[ed] in, and like, the American Way of Life … we find ourselves in sharp revolt against a rising tide of Communism, Fascism and kindred beliefs, that seek by subversive means to undermine and change this way of life».^[169] In 1947, during the Second Red Scare, Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), where he branded Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, former animators and labor union organizers, as communist agitators; Disney stated that the 1941 strike led by them was part of an organized communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood.^[170][171] It was alleged by The New York Times in 1993 that Disney had been passing secret information to the FBI from 1940 until his death in 1966. In return for this information, J. Edgar Hoover allowed Disney to film in FBI headquarters in Washington. Disney was made a «full Special Agent in Charge Contact» in 1954.^[172]

Disney’s public persona was very different from his actual personality.^[173] Playwright Robert E. Sherwood described him as «almost painfully shy … diffident» and self-deprecating.^[174] According to his biographer Richard Schickel, Disney hid his shy and insecure personality behind his public identity.^[175] Kimball argues that Disney «played the role of a bashful tycoon who was embarrassed in public» and knew that he was doing so.^[176] Disney acknowledged the façade and told a friend that «I’m not Walt Disney. I do a lot of things Walt Disney would not do. Walt Disney does not smoke. I smoke. Walt Disney does not drink. I drink.»^[177] Critic Otis Ferguson, in The New Republic, called the private Disney: «common and everyday, not inaccessible, not in a foreign language, not suppressed or sponsored or anything. Just Disney.»^[176] Many of those with whom Disney worked commented that he gave his staff little encouragement due to his exceptionally high expectations. Norman recalls that when Disney said «That’ll work», it was an indication of high praise.^[178] Instead of direct approval, Disney gave high-performing staff financial bonuses, or recommended certain individuals to others, expecting that his praise would be passed on.^[179]

Reputation

Views of Disney and his work have changed over the decades, and there have been polarized opinions.^[180] Mark Langer, in the American Dictionary of National Biography, writes that «Earlier evaluations of Disney hailed him as a patriot, folk artist, and popularizer of culture. More recently, Disney has been regarded as a paradigm of American imperialism and intolerance, as well as a debaser of culture.»^[58] Steven Watts wrote that some denounce Disney «as a cynical manipulator of cultural and commercial formulas»,^[180] while PBS records that critics have censured his work because of its «smooth façade of sentimentality and stubborn optimism, its feel-good re-write of American history».^[181]

Disney has been accused of anti-Semitism for having given Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl a tour of his studio a month after Kristallnacht,^[182] something he disavowed three months later claiming he was unaware who she was when he was issued the invitation.^[183][x] None of Disney’s employees—including the animator Art Babbitt, who disliked Disney intensely—ever accused him of making anti-Semitic slurs or taunts.^[185] The Walt Disney Family Museum acknowledges that ethnic stereotypes common to films of the 1930s were included in some early cartoons^[y] but also points out that Disney donated regularly to Jewish charities, was named «1955 Man of the Year» by the B’nai B’rith chapter in Beverly Hills,^[188][189] and his studio employed a number of Jews, some of whom were in influential positions.^[190][z] Gabler, the first writer to gain unrestricted access to the Disney archives, concludes that the available evidence does not support accusations of anti-Semitism and that Disney was «not [anti-Semitic] in the conventional sense that we think of someone as being an anti-Semite». Gabler concludes that «though Walt himself, in my estimation, was not anti-Semitic, nevertheless, he willingly allied himself with people who were anti-Semitic [meaning some members of the MPAPAI], and that reputation stuck. He was never really able to expunge it throughout his life».^[192] Disney distanced himself from the Motion Picture Alliance in the 1950s.^[193] According to Disney’s daughter Diane Disney-Miller, her sister Sharon dated a Jewish boyfriend for a period of time, to which her father raised no objections and even reportedly said «Sharon, I think it’s wonderful how these Jewish families have accepted you.»^[186]

Disney has also been accused of other forms of racism because some of his productions released between the 1930s and 1950s contain racially insensitive material.^[194][aa] The feature film Song of the South was criticized by contemporary film critics, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and others for its perpetuation of black stereotypes,^[195] but Disney later campaigned successfully for an Honorary Academy Award for its star, James Baskett, the first black actor so honored.^[196][ab] Gabler argues that «Walt Disney was no racist. He never, either publicly or privately, made disparaging remarks about blacks or asserted white superiority. Like most white Americans of his generation, however, he was racially insensitive.»^[194] Floyd Norman, the studio’s first black animator who worked closely with Disney during the 1950s and 1960s, said, «Not once did I observe a hint of the racist behavior Walt Disney was often accused of after his death. His treatment of people‍—‌and by this I mean all people‍—‌can only be called exemplary.»^[197]

Watts argues that many of Disney’s post-World War II films «legislated a kind of cultural Marshall Plan. They nourished a genial cultural imperialism that magically overran the rest of the globe with the values, expectations, and goods of a prosperous middle-class United States.»^[198] Film historian Jay P. Telotte acknowledges that many see Disney’s studio as an «agent of manipulation and repression», although he observes that it has «labored throughout its history to link its name with notions of fun, family, and fantasy».^[199] John Tomlinson, in his study Cultural Imperialism, examines the work of Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart, whose 1971 book Para leer al Pato Donald (trans: How to Read Donald Duck) identifies that there are «imperialist … values ‘concealed’ behind the innocent, wholesome façade of the world of Walt Disney»; this, they argue, is a powerful tool as «it presents itself as harmless fun for consumption by children.»^[200] Tomlinson views their argument as flawed, as «they simply assume that reading American comics, seeing adverts, watching pictures of the affluent … [‘Yankee’] lifestyle has a direct pedagogic effect».^[201]

Disney has been portrayed numerous times in fictional works. H. G. Wells references Disney in his 1938 novel The Holy Terror, in which World Dictator Rud fears that Donald Duck is meant to lampoon the dictator.^[202] Disney was portrayed by Len Cariou in the 1995 made-for-TV film A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story,^[203] and by Tom Hanks in the 2013 film Saving Mr. Banks.^[204] In 2001, the German author Peter Stephan Jungk published Der König von Amerika (trans: The King of America), a fictional work of Disney’s later years that re-imagines him as a power-hungry racist. The composer Philip Glass later adapted the book into the opera The Perfect American (2013).^[205]

Several commentators have described Disney as a cultural icon.^[206] On Disney’s death, journalism professor Ralph S. Izard comments that the values in Disney’s films are those «considered valuable in American Christian society», which include «individualism, decency, … love for our fellow man, fair play and toleration».^[207] Disney’s obituary in The Times calls the films «wholesome, warm-hearted and entertaining … of incomparable artistry and of touching beauty».^[208] Journalist Bosley Crowther argues that Disney’s «achievement as a creator of entertainment for an almost unlimited public and as a highly ingenious merchandiser of his wares can rightly be compared to the most successful industrialists in history.»^[5] Correspondent Alistair Cooke calls Disney a «folk-hero … the Pied Piper of Hollywood»,^[209] while Gabler considers Disney «reshaped the culture and the American consciousness».^[210] In the American Dictionary of National Biography, Langer writes:

Disney remains the central figure in the history of animation. Through technological innovations and alliances with governments and corporations, he transformed a minor studio in a marginal form of communication into a multinational leisure industry giant. Despite his critics, his vision of a modern, corporate utopia as an extension of traditional American values has possibly gained greater currency in the years after his death.^[58]

In December 2021, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opened a three month special exhibit in honor of Disney titled «Inspiring Walt Disney».^[211]

Awards and honors

Disney received 59 Academy Award nominations, including 22 awards: both totals are records.^[212] He was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, but did not win, but he was presented with two Special Achievement Awards‍—‌for Bambi (1942) and The Living Desert (1953)‍—‌and the Cecil B. DeMille Award.^[213] He also received four Emmy Award nominations, winning once, for Best Producer for the Disneyland television series.^[214] Several of his films are included in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as «culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant»: Steamboat Willie, The Three Little Pigs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo and Mary Poppins.^[215] In 1998, the American Film Institute published a list of the 100 greatest American films, according to industry experts; the list included Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (at number 49), and Fantasia (at 58).^[216]

In February 1960, Disney was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame with two stars, one for motion pictures and the other for his television work;^[217] Mickey Mouse was given his own star for motion pictures in 1978.^[218] Disney was also inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1986,^[219] the California Hall of Fame in December 2006,^[220] and was the inaugural recipient of a star on the Anaheim walk of stars in 2014.^[221]

The Walt Disney Family Museum records that he «along with members of his staff, received more than 950 honors and citations from throughout the world».^[19] He was made a Chevalier in the French Légion d’honneur in 1935,^[222] and in 1952 he was awarded the country’s highest artistic decoration, the Officer d’Academie.^[223] Other national awards include Thailand’s Order of the Crown (1960); Germany’s Order of Merit (1956),^[224] Brazil’s Order of the Southern Cross (1941),^[225] and Mexico’s Order of the Aztec Eagle (1943).^[226] In the United States, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on September 14, 1964,^[227] and on May 24, 1968, he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.^[228] He received the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners,^[226] and in 1955, the National Audubon Society awarded Disney its highest honor, the Audubon Medal, for promoting the «appreciation and understanding of nature» through his True-Life Adventures nature films.^[229] A minor planet discovered in 1980 by astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina, was named 4017 Disneya,^[230] and he was also awarded honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles.^[19]

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

External links

Walt Disney
Disney in 1946
Born	Walter Elias Disney December 5, 1901 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	December 15, 1966 (aged 65) Burbank, California, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
Occupations	Animator film producer entrepreneur
Title	President of The Walt Disney Company[1]
Spouse	Lillian Disney ​ (m. 1925)​
Children	2, including Diane Disney Miller
Relatives	Disney family
Awards	26 Academy Awards (22 competitive, 4 honorary) 3 Golden Globe Awards 1 Emmy Award
Signature

Walter Elias Disney (;^[2] December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film producer, he holds the record for most Academy Awards earned and nominations by an individual, having won 22 Oscars from 59 nominations. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors. Several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and have also been named as some of the greatest films ever by the American Film Institute. Disney was the first person to be nominated for Academy Awards in six different categories.

Born in Chicago in 1901, Disney developed an early interest in drawing. He took art classes as a boy and got a job as a commercial illustrator at the age of 18. He moved to California in the early 1920s and set up the Disney Brothers Studio with his brother Roy. With Ub Iwerks, he developed the character Mickey Mouse in 1928, his first highly popular success; he also provided the voice for his creation in the early years. As the studio grew, he became more adventurous, introducing synchronized sound, full-color three-strip Technicolor, feature-length cartoons and technical developments in cameras. The results, seen in features such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio, Fantasia (both 1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942), furthered the development of animated film. New animated and live-action films followed after World War II, including the critically successful Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Mary Poppins (1964), the last of which received five Academy Awards.

In the 1950s, Disney expanded into the amusement park industry, and in July 1955 he opened Disneyland in Anaheim, California. To fund the project he diversified into television programs, such as Walt Disney’s Disneyland and The Mickey Mouse Club. He was also involved in planning the 1959 Moscow Fair, the 1960 Winter Olympics, and the 1964 New York World’s Fair. In 1965, he began development of another theme park, Disney World, the heart of which was to be a new type of city, the «Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow» (EPCOT). Disney was a heavy smoker throughout his life and died of lung cancer in December 1966 before either the park or the EPCOT project were completed.

Disney was a shy, self-deprecating and insecure man in private but adopted a warm and outgoing public persona. He had high standards and high expectations of those with whom he worked. Although there have been accusations that he was racist or antisemitic, they have been contradicted by many who knew him. Historiography of Disney has taken a variety of perspectives, ranging from views of him as a purveyor of homely patriotic values to being a representative of American imperialism. He remains an important figure in the history of animation and in the cultural history of the United States, where he is considered a national cultural icon. His film work continues to be shown and adapted, and the Disney theme parks have grown in size and number to attract visitors in several countries.

Early life

Disney was born on December 5, 1901, at 1249 Tripp Avenue, in Chicago’s Hermosa neighborhood.^[a] He was the fourth son of Elias Disney‍—‌born in the Province of Canada, to Irish parents‍—‌and Flora (née Call), an American of German and English descent.^[4][5][b] Aside from Walt, Elias and Flora’s sons were Herbert, Raymond and Roy; and the couple had a fifth child, Ruth, in December 1903.^[8] In 1906, when Disney was four, the family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri, where his uncle Robert had just purchased land. In Marceline, Disney developed his interest in drawing when he was paid to draw the horse of a retired neighborhood doctor.^[9] Elias was a subscriber to the Appeal to Reason newspaper, and Disney practiced drawing by copying the front-page cartoons of Ryan Walker.^[10] He also began to develop an ability to work with watercolors and crayons.^[5] He lived near the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway line and became enamored with trains.^[11] He and his younger sister Ruth started school at the same time at the Park School in Marceline in late 1909.^[12] The Disney family were active members of a Congregational church.^[13]

In 1911, the Disneys moved to Kansas City, Missouri.^[14] There, Disney attended the Benton Grammar School, where he met fellow-student Walter Pfeiffer, who came from a family of theatre fans and introduced him to the world of vaudeville and motion pictures. Before long, Disney was spending more time at the Pfeiffers’ house than at home.^[15] Elias had purchased a newspaper delivery route for The Kansas City Star and Kansas City Times. Disney and his brother Roy woke up at 4:30 every morning to deliver the Times before school and repeated the round for the evening Star after school. The schedule was exhausting, and Disney often received poor grades after falling asleep in class, but he continued his paper route for more than six years.^[16] He attended Saturday courses at the Kansas City Art Institute and also took a correspondence course in cartooning.^[5][17]

In 1917, Elias bought stock in a Chicago jelly producer, the O-Zell Company, and moved back to the city with his family.^[18] Disney enrolled at McKinley High School and became the cartoonist of the school newspaper, drawing patriotic pictures about World War I;^[19][20] he also took night courses at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.^[21] In mid-1918, he attempted to join the United States Army to fight the Germans, but he was rejected as too young. After forging the date of birth on his birth certificate, he joined the Red Cross in September 1918 as an ambulance driver. He was shipped to France but arrived in November, after the armistice.^[22] He drew cartoons on the side of his ambulance for decoration and had some of his work published in the army newspaper Stars and Stripes.^[23] He returned to Kansas City in October 1919,^[24] where he worked as an apprentice artist at the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio, where he drew commercial illustrations for advertising, theater programs and catalogs, and befriended fellow artist Ub Iwerks.^[25]

Career

Early career: 1920–1928

In January 1920, as Pesmen-Rubin’s revenue declined after Christmas, Disney, aged 18, and Iwerks were laid off. They started their own business, the short-lived Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists.^[26] Failing to attract many customers, Disney and Iwerks agreed that Disney should leave temporarily to earn money at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, run by A. V. Cauger; the following month Iwerks, who was not able to run their business alone, also joined.^[27] The company produced commercials using the cutout animation technique.^[28] Disney became interested in animation, although he preferred drawn cartoons such as Mutt and Jeff and Max Fleischer’s Out of the Inkwell. With the assistance of a borrowed book on animation and a camera, he began experimenting at home.^[29][c] He came to the conclusion that cel animation was more promising than the cutout method.^[d] Unable to persuade Cauger to try cel animation at the company, Disney opened a new business with a co-worker from the Film Ad Co, Fred Harman.^[31] Their main client was the local Newman Theater, and the short cartoons they produced were sold as «Newman’s Laugh-O-Grams».^[32] Disney studied Paul Terry’s Aesop’s Fables as a model, and the first six «Laugh-O-Grams» were modernized fairy tales.^[33]

In May 1921, the success of the «Laugh-O-Grams» led to the establishment of Laugh-O-Gram Studio, for which he hired more animators, including Fred Harman’s brother Hugh, Rudolf Ising and Iwerks.^[34] The Laugh-O-Grams cartoons did not provide enough income to keep the company solvent, so Disney started production of Alice’s Wonderland‍—‌based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland‍—‌which combined live action with animation; he cast Virginia Davis in the title role.^[35] The result, a 12-and-a-half-minute, one-reel film, was completed too late to save Laugh-O-Gram Studio, which went into bankruptcy in 1923.^[36]

Disney moved to Hollywood in July 1923 at 21 years old. Although New York was the center of the cartoon industry, he was attracted to Los Angeles because his brother Roy was convalescing from tuberculosis there,^[37] and he hoped to become a live-action film director.^[38] Disney’s efforts to sell Alice’s Wonderland were in vain until he heard from New York film distributor Margaret J. Winkler. She was losing the rights to both the Out of the Inkwell and Felix the Cat cartoons, and needed a new series. In October, they signed a contract for six Alice comedies, with an option for two further series of six episodes each.^[38][39] Disney and his brother Roy formed the Disney Brothers Studio‍—‌which later became The Walt Disney Company‍—‌to produce the films;^[40][41] they persuaded Davis and her family to relocate to Hollywood to continue production, with Davis on contract at $100 a month. In July 1924, Disney also hired Iwerks, persuading him to relocate to Hollywood from Kansas City.^[42] In 1926,^[43] the first official Walt Disney Studio was established at 2725 Hyperion Avenue, demolished in 1940.^[44]

By 1926, Winkler’s role in the distribution of the Alice series had been handed over to her husband, the film producer Charles Mintz, although the relationship between him and Disney was sometimes strained.^[45] The series ran until July 1927,^[46] by which time Disney had begun to tire of it and wanted to move away from the mixed format to all animation.^[45][47] After Mintz requested new material to distribute through Universal Pictures, Disney and Iwerks created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character Disney wanted to be «peppy, alert, saucy and venturesome, keeping him also neat and trim».^[47][48]

In February 1928, Disney hoped to negotiate a larger fee for producing the Oswald series, but found Mintz wanting to reduce the payments. Mintz had also persuaded many of the artists involved to work directly for him, including Harman, Ising, Carman Maxwell and Friz Freleng. Disney also found out that Universal owned the intellectual property rights to Oswald. Mintz threatened to start his own studio and produce the series himself if Disney refused to accept the reductions. Disney declined Mintz’s ultimatum and lost most of his animation staff, except Iwerks, who chose to remain with him.^[49][50][e]

Creation of Mickey Mouse to the first Academy Awards: 1928–1933

To replace Oswald, Disney and Iwerks developed Mickey Mouse, possibly inspired by a pet mouse that Disney had adopted while working in his Laugh-O-Gram studio, although the origins of the character are unclear.^[52][f] Disney’s original choice of name was Mortimer Mouse, but his wife Lillian thought it too pompous, and suggested Mickey instead.^[53][g] Iwerks revised Disney’s provisional sketches to make the character easier to animate. Disney, who had begun to distance himself from the animation process,^[55] provided Mickey’s voice until 1947. In the words of one Disney employee, «Ub designed Mickey’s physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul.»^[56]

Mickey Mouse first appeared in May 1928 as a single test screening of the short Plane Crazy, but it, and the second feature, The Gallopin’ Gaucho, failed to find a distributor.^[57] Following the 1927 sensation The Jazz Singer, Disney used synchronized sound on the third short, Steamboat Willie, to create the first post-produced sound cartoon. After the animation was complete, Disney signed a contract with the former executive of Universal Pictures, Pat Powers, to use the «Powers Cinephone» recording system;^[58] Cinephone became the new distributor for Disney’s early sound cartoons, which soon became popular.^[59]

To improve the quality of the music, Disney hired the professional composer and arranger Carl Stalling, on whose suggestion the Silly Symphony series was developed, providing stories through the use of music; the first in the series, The Skeleton Dance (1929), was drawn and animated entirely by Iwerks. Also hired at this time were several local artists, some of whom stayed with the company as core animators; the group later became known as the Nine Old Men.^[60][h] Both the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series were successful, but Disney and his brother felt they were not receiving their rightful share of profits from Powers. In 1930, Disney tried to trim costs from the process by urging Iwerks to abandon the practice of animating every separate cel in favor of the more efficient technique of drawing key poses and letting lower-paid assistants sketch the inbetween poses. Disney asked Powers for an increase in payments for the cartoons. Powers refused and signed Iwerks to work for him; Stalling resigned shortly afterwards, thinking that without Iwerks, the Disney Studio would close.^[61] Disney had a nervous breakdown in October 1931‍—‌which he blamed on the machinations of Powers and his own overwork‍—‌so he and Lillian took an extended holiday to Cuba and a cruise to Panama to recover.^[62]

With the loss of Powers as distributor, Disney studios signed a contract with Columbia Pictures to distribute the Mickey Mouse cartoons, which became increasingly popular, including internationally.^[63][64][i] Disney and his crew would also introduce new cartoon stars like Pluto in 1930, Goofy in 1932 and Donald Duck in 1934.^[65] Always keen to embrace new technology and encouraged by his new contract with United Artists, Disney filmed Flowers and Trees (1932) in full-color three-strip Technicolor;^[66] he was also able to negotiate a deal giving him the sole right to use the three-strip process until August 31, 1935.^[67] All subsequent Silly Symphony cartoons were in color.^[68] Flowers and Trees was popular with audiences^[69] and won the inaugural Academy Award for best Short Subject (Cartoon) at the 1932 ceremony. Disney had been nominated for another film in that category, Mickey’s Orphans, and received an Honorary Award «for the creation of Mickey Mouse».^[70][71]

In 1933, Disney produced The Three Little Pigs, a film described by the media historian Adrian Danks as «the most successful short animation of all time».^[72] The film won Disney another Academy Award in the Short Subject (Cartoon) category. The film’s success led to a further increase in the studio’s staff, which numbered nearly 200 by the end of the year.^[73] Disney realized the importance of telling emotionally gripping stories that would interest the audience,^[74] and he invested in a «story department» separate from the animators, with storyboard artists who would detail the plots of Disney’s films.^[75]

Golden age of animation: 1934–1941

By 1934, Disney had become dissatisfied with producing formulaic cartoon shorts,^[65] and believed a feature-length cartoon would be more profitable.^[76] The studio began the four-year production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, based on the fairy tale. When news leaked out about the project, many in the film industry predicted it would bankrupt the company; industry insiders nicknamed it «Disney’s Folly».^[77] The film, which was the first animated feature made in full color and sound, cost $1.5 million to produce‍—‌three times over budget.^[78] To ensure the animation was as realistic as possible, Disney sent his animators on courses at the Chouinard Art Institute;^[79] he brought animals into the studio and hired actors so that the animators could study realistic movement.^[80] To portray the changing perspective of the background as a camera moved through a scene, Disney’s animators developed a multiplane camera which allowed drawings on pieces of glass to be set at various distances from the camera, creating an illusion of depth. The glass could be moved to create the impression of a camera passing through the scene. The first work created on the camera‍—‌a Silly Symphony called The Old Mill (1937)‍—‌won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film because of its impressive visual power. Although Snow White had been largely finished by the time the multiplane camera had been completed, Disney ordered some scenes be re-drawn to use the new effects.^[81]

Snow White premiered in December 1937 to high praise from critics and audiences. The film became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and by May 1939 its total gross of $6.5 million made it the most successful sound film made to that date.^[77][j] Disney won another Honorary Academy Award, which consisted of one full-sized and seven miniature Oscar statuettes.^[83][k] The success of Snow White heralded one of the most productive eras for the studio; the Walt Disney Family Museum calls the following years «the ‘Golden Age of Animation’ ».^[84][85] With work on Snow White finished, the studio began producing Pinocchio in early 1938 and Fantasia in November of the same year. Both films were released in 1940, and neither performed well at the box office‍—‌partly because revenues from Europe had dropped following the start of World War II in 1939. The studio made a loss on both pictures and was deeply in debt by the end of February 1941.^[86]

In response to the financial crisis, Disney and his brother Roy started the company’s first public stock offering in 1940, and implemented heavy salary cuts. The latter measure, and Disney’s sometimes high-handed and insensitive manner of dealing with staff, led to a 1941 animators’ strike which lasted five weeks.^[87] While a federal mediator from the National Labor Relations Board negotiated with the two sides, Disney accepted an offer from the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs to make a goodwill trip to South America, ensuring he was absent during a resolution he knew would be unfavorable to the studio.^[88][l] As a result of the strike‍—‌and the financial state of the company‍—‌several animators left the studio, and Disney’s relationship with other members of staff was permanently strained as a result.^[91] The strike temporarily interrupted the studio’s next production, Dumbo (1941), which Disney produced in a simple and inexpensive manner; the film received a positive reaction from audiences and critics alike.^[92]

World War II and beyond: 1941–1950

Shortly after the release of Dumbo in October 1941, the U.S. entered World War II. Disney formed the Walt Disney Training Films Unit within the company to produce instruction films for the military such as Four Methods of Flush Riveting and Aircraft Production Methods.^[93] Disney also met with Henry Morgenthau Jr., the Secretary of the Treasury, and agreed to produce short Donald Duck cartoons to promote war bonds.^[94] Disney also produced several propaganda productions, including shorts such as Der Fuehrer’s Face‍—‌which won an Academy Award‍—‌and the 1943 feature film Victory Through Air Power.^[95]

The military films generated only enough revenue to cover costs, and the feature film Bambi‍—‌which had been in production since 1937‍—‌underperformed on its release in April 1942, and lost $200,000 at the box office.^[96] On top of the low earnings from Pinocchio and Fantasia, the company had debts of $4 million with the Bank of America in 1944.^[97][m] At a meeting with Bank of America executives to discuss the future of the company, the bank’s chairman and founder, Amadeo Giannini, told his executives, «I’ve been watching the Disneys’ pictures quite closely because I knew we were lending them money far above the financial risk. … They’re good this year, they’re good next year, and they’re good the year after. … You have to relax and give them time to market their product.»^[98] Disney’s production of short films decreased in the late 1940s, coinciding with increasing competition in the animation market from Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Roy Disney, for financial reasons, suggested more combined animation and live-action productions.^[58][n] In 1948, Disney initiated a series of popular live-action nature films, titled True-Life Adventures, with Seal Island the first; the film won the Academy Award in the Best Short Subject (Two-Reel) category.^[99]

Theme parks, television and other interests: 1950–1966

In early 1950, Disney produced Cinderella, his studio’s first animated feature in eight years. It was popular with critics and theater audiences. Costing $2.2 million to produce, it earned nearly $8 million in its first year.^[100][o] Disney was less involved than he had been with previous pictures because of his involvement in his first entirely live-action feature, Treasure Island (1950), which was shot in Britain, as was The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952).^[101] Other all-live-action features followed, many of which had patriotic themes.^[58][p] He continued to produce full-length animated features too, including Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953). From the early to mid-1950s, Disney began to devote less attention to the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, the Nine Old Men, although he was always present at story meetings. Instead, he started concentrating on other ventures.^[102] Around the same time, Disney would establish his own film distribution chain Buena Vista, replacing his most recent distributor RKO Pictures.^[103]

For several years Disney had been considering building a theme park. When he visited Griffith Park in Los Angeles with his daughters, he wanted to be in a clean, unspoiled park, where both children and their parents could have fun.^[104] He visited the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was heavily influenced by the cleanliness and layout of the park.^[105] In March 1952 he received zoning permission to build a theme park in Burbank, near the Disney studios.^[106] This site proved too small, and a larger plot in Anaheim, 35 miles (56 km) south of the studio, was purchased. To distance the project from the studio‍—‌which might attract the criticism of shareholders‍—‌Disney formed WED Enterprises (now Walt Disney Imagineering) and used his own money to fund a group of designers and animators to work on the plans;^[107][108] those involved became known as «Imagineers».^[109] After obtaining bank funding he invited other stockholders, American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres‍—‌part of American Broadcasting Company (ABC)‍—‌and Western Printing and Lithographing Company.^[58] In mid-1954, Disney sent his Imagineers to every amusement park in the U.S. to analyze what worked and what pitfalls or problems there were in the various locations and incorporated their findings into his design.^[110] Construction work started in July 1954, and Disneyland opened in July 1955; the opening ceremony was broadcast on ABC, which reached 70 million viewers.^[111] The park was designed as a series of themed lands, linked by the central Main Street, U.S.A.‍—‌a replica of the main street in his hometown of Marceline. The connected themed areas were Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. The park also contained the narrow gauge Disneyland Railroad that linked the lands; around the outside of the park was a high berm to separate the park from the outside world.^[112][113] An editorial in The New York Times considered that Disney had «tastefully combined some of the pleasant things of yesterday with fantasy and dreams of tomorrow».^[114] Although there were early minor problems with the park, it was a success, and after a month’s operation, Disneyland was receiving over 20,000 visitors a day; by the end of its first year, it attracted 3.6 million guests.^[115]

The money from ABC was contingent on Disney television programs.^[116] The studio had been involved in a successful television special on Christmas Day 1950 about the making of Alice in Wonderland. Roy believed the program added millions to the box office takings. In a March 1951 letter to shareholders, he wrote that «television can be a most powerful selling aid for us, as well as a source of revenue. It will probably be on this premise that we enter television when we do».^[58] In 1954, after the Disneyland funding had been agreed, ABC broadcast Walt Disney’s Disneyland, an anthology consisting of animated cartoons, live-action features and other material from the studio’s library. The show was successful in terms of ratings and profits, earning an audience share of over 50%.^[117][q] In April 1955, Newsweek called the series an «American institution».^[118] ABC was pleased with the ratings, leading to Disney’s first daily television program, The Mickey Mouse Club, a variety show catering specifically to children.^[119] The program was accompanied by merchandising through various companies (Western Printing, for example, had been producing coloring books and comics for over 20 years, and produced several items connected to the show).^[120] One of the segments of Disneyland consisted of the five-part miniseries Davy Crockett which, according to Gabler, «became an overnight sensation».^[121] The show’s theme song, «The Ballad of Davy Crockett», became internationally popular, and ten million records were sold.^[122] As a result, Disney formed his own record production and distribution entity, Disneyland Records.^[123]

As well as the construction of Disneyland, Disney worked on other projects away from the studio. He was consultant to the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow; Disney Studios’ contribution was America the Beautiful, a 19-minute film in the 360-degree Circarama theater that was one of the most popular attractions.^[58] The following year he acted as the chairman of the Pageantry Committee for the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California, where he designed the opening, closing and medal ceremonies.^[124] He was one of twelve investors in the Celebrity Sports Center, which opened in 1960 in Glendale, Colorado; he and Roy bought out the others in 1962, making the Disney company the sole owner.^[125]

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.^[r] Disney also oversaw aspects of the full-length features Lady and the Tramp (the first animated film in CinemaScope) in 1955, Sleeping Beauty (the first animated film in Technirama 70 mm film) in 1959, One Hundred and One Dalmatians (the first animated feature film to use Xerox cels) in 1961, and The Sword in the Stone in 1963.^[127]

In 1964, Disney produced Mary Poppins, based on the book series by P. L. Travers; he had been trying to acquire the rights to the story since the 1940s.^[128] It became the most successful Disney film of the 1960s, although Travers disliked the film intensely and regretted having sold the rights.^[129] The same year he also became involved in plans to expand the California Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts), and had an architect draw up blueprints for a new building.^[130]

Disney provided four exhibits for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, for which he obtained funding from selected corporate sponsors. For PepsiCo, who planned a tribute to UNICEF, Disney developed It’s a Small World, a boat ride with audio-animatronic dolls depicting children of the world; Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln contained an animatronic Abraham Lincoln giving excerpts from his speeches; Carousel of Progress promoted the importance of electricity; and Ford’s Magic Skyway portrayed the progress of mankind. Elements of all four exhibits‍—‌principally concepts and technology‍—‌were re-installed in Disneyland, although It’s a Small World is the ride that most closely resembles the original.^[131][132]

During the early to mid-1960s, Disney developed plans for a ski resort in Mineral King, a glacial valley in California’s Sierra Nevada. He hired experts such as the renowned Olympic ski coach and ski-area designer Willy Schaeffler.^{[133][134][s]} With income from Disneyland accounting for an increasing proportion of the studio’s income, Disney continued to look for venues for other attractions. In 1963 he presented a project to create a theme park in downtown St. Louis, Missouri; he initially reached an agreement with the Civic Center Redevelopment Corp, which controlled the land, but the deal later collapsed over funding.^[136][137] In late 1965, he announced plans to develop another theme park to be called «Disney World» (now Walt Disney World), a few miles southwest of Orlando, Florida. Disney World was to include the «Magic Kingdom»‍—‌a larger and more elaborate version of Disneyland‍—‌plus golf courses and resort hotels. The heart of Disney World was to be the «Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow» (EPCOT),^[138] which he described as:

an experimental prototype community of tomorrow that will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and systems. And EPCOT will always be a showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise.^[139]

During 1966, Disney cultivated businesses willing to sponsor EPCOT.^[140] He received a story credit in the 1966 film Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. as Retlaw Yensid, his name spelt backwards.^[141] He increased his involvement in the studio’s films, and was heavily involved in the story development of The Jungle Book, the live-action musical feature The Happiest Millionaire (both 1967) and the animated short Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968).^[142]

Illness, death and aftermath

Disney had been a heavy smoker since World War I. He did not use cigarettes with filters and had smoked a pipe as a young man. In early November 1966, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was treated with cobalt therapy.^[143] On November 30, he felt unwell and was taken by ambulance from his home to St. Joseph Hospital where, on December 15, 1966, aged 65, he died of circulatory collapse caused by the cancer.^[144] His remains were cremated two days later and his ashes interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.^[145][t]

The release of The Jungle Book and The Happiest Millionaire in 1967 raised the total number of feature films that Disney had been involved in to 81.^[19] When Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day was released in 1968, it earned Disney an Academy Award in the Short Subject (Cartoon) category, awarded posthumously.^[149] After Disney’s death, his studios continued to produce live-action films prolifically but largely abandoned animation until the late 1980s, after which there was what The New York Times describes as the «Disney Renaissance» that began with The Little Mermaid (1989).^[150] Disney’s companies continue to produce successful film, television and stage entertainment.^[151]

Disney’s plans for the futuristic city of EPCOT did not come to fruition. After Disney’s death, his brother Roy deferred his retirement to take full control of the Disney companies. He changed the focus of the project from a town to an attraction.^[152] At the inauguration in 1971, Roy dedicated Walt Disney World to his brother.^[153][u] Walt Disney World expanded with the opening of Epcot Center in 1982; Walt Disney’s vision of a functional city was replaced by a park more akin to a permanent world’s fair.^[155] In 2009, the Walt Disney Family Museum, designed by Disney’s daughter Diane and her son Walter E. D. Miller, opened in the Presidio of San Francisco.^[156] Thousands of artifacts from Disney’s life and career are on display, including numerous awards that he received.^[157] In 2014, the Disney theme parks around the world hosted approximately 134 million visitors.^[158]

Personal life and character

Early in 1925, Disney hired an ink artist, Lillian Bounds. They married in July of that year, at her brother’s house in her home town of Lewiston, Idaho.^[159] The marriage was generally happy, according to Lillian, although according to Disney’s biographer Neal Gabler she did not «accept Walt’s decisions meekly or his status unquestionably, and she admitted that he was always telling people ‘how henpecked he is’.»^[160][v] Lillian had little interest in films or the Hollywood social scene and she was, in the words of the historian Steven Watts, «content with household management and providing support for her husband».^[161] Their marriage produced two daughters, Diane (born December 1933) and Sharon (adopted in December 1936, born six weeks previously).^[162][w] Within the family, neither Disney nor his wife hid the fact Sharon had been adopted, although they became annoyed if people outside the family raised the point.^[163] The Disneys were careful to keep their daughters out of the public eye as much as possible, particularly in the light of the Lindbergh kidnapping; Disney took steps to ensure his daughters were not photographed by the press.^[164]

In 1949, Disney and his family moved to a new home in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles. With the help of his friends Ward and Betty Kimball, who already had their own backyard railroad, Disney developed blueprints and immediately set to work on creating a miniature live steam railroad for his back yard. The name of the railroad, Carolwood Pacific Railroad, came from his home’s location on Carolwood Drive. The miniature working steam locomotive was built by Disney Studios engineer Roger E. Broggie, and Disney named it Lilly Belle after his wife;^[165] after three years Disney ordered it into storage due to a series of accidents involving his guests.^[166]

Disney grew more politically conservative as he got older. A Democratic Party supporter until the 1940 presidential election, when he switched allegiance to the Republican Party,^[167] he became a generous donor to Thomas E. Dewey’s 1944 bid for the presidency.^[168] In 1946, he was a founding member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, an organization who stated they «believ[ed] in, and like, the American Way of Life … we find ourselves in sharp revolt against a rising tide of Communism, Fascism and kindred beliefs, that seek by subversive means to undermine and change this way of life».^[169] In 1947, during the Second Red Scare, Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), where he branded Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, former animators and labor union organizers, as communist agitators; Disney stated that the 1941 strike led by them was part of an organized communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood.^[170][171] It was alleged by The New York Times in 1993 that Disney had been passing secret information to the FBI from 1940 until his death in 1966. In return for this information, J. Edgar Hoover allowed Disney to film in FBI headquarters in Washington. Disney was made a «full Special Agent in Charge Contact» in 1954.^[172]

Disney’s public persona was very different from his actual personality.^[173] Playwright Robert E. Sherwood described him as «almost painfully shy … diffident» and self-deprecating.^[174] According to his biographer Richard Schickel, Disney hid his shy and insecure personality behind his public identity.^[175] Kimball argues that Disney «played the role of a bashful tycoon who was embarrassed in public» and knew that he was doing so.^[176] Disney acknowledged the façade and told a friend that «I’m not Walt Disney. I do a lot of things Walt Disney would not do. Walt Disney does not smoke. I smoke. Walt Disney does not drink. I drink.»^[177] Critic Otis Ferguson, in The New Republic, called the private Disney: «common and everyday, not inaccessible, not in a foreign language, not suppressed or sponsored or anything. Just Disney.»^[176] Many of those with whom Disney worked commented that he gave his staff little encouragement due to his exceptionally high expectations. Norman recalls that when Disney said «That’ll work», it was an indication of high praise.^[178] Instead of direct approval, Disney gave high-performing staff financial bonuses, or recommended certain individuals to others, expecting that his praise would be passed on.^[179]

Reputation

Views of Disney and his work have changed over the decades, and there have been polarized opinions.^[180] Mark Langer, in the American Dictionary of National Biography, writes that «Earlier evaluations of Disney hailed him as a patriot, folk artist, and popularizer of culture. More recently, Disney has been regarded as a paradigm of American imperialism and intolerance, as well as a debaser of culture.»^[58] Steven Watts wrote that some denounce Disney «as a cynical manipulator of cultural and commercial formulas»,^[180] while PBS records that critics have censured his work because of its «smooth façade of sentimentality and stubborn optimism, its feel-good re-write of American history».^[181]

Disney has been accused of anti-Semitism for having given Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl a tour of his studio a month after Kristallnacht,^[182] something he disavowed three months later claiming he was unaware who she was when he was issued the invitation.^[183][x] None of Disney’s employees—including the animator Art Babbitt, who disliked Disney intensely—ever accused him of making anti-Semitic slurs or taunts.^[185] The Walt Disney Family Museum acknowledges that ethnic stereotypes common to films of the 1930s were included in some early cartoons^[y] but also points out that Disney donated regularly to Jewish charities, was named «1955 Man of the Year» by the B’nai B’rith chapter in Beverly Hills,^[188][189] and his studio employed a number of Jews, some of whom were in influential positions.^[190][z] Gabler, the first writer to gain unrestricted access to the Disney archives, concludes that the available evidence does not support accusations of anti-Semitism and that Disney was «not [anti-Semitic] in the conventional sense that we think of someone as being an anti-Semite». Gabler concludes that «though Walt himself, in my estimation, was not anti-Semitic, nevertheless, he willingly allied himself with people who were anti-Semitic [meaning some members of the MPAPAI], and that reputation stuck. He was never really able to expunge it throughout his life».^[192] Disney distanced himself from the Motion Picture Alliance in the 1950s.^[193] According to Disney’s daughter Diane Disney-Miller, her sister Sharon dated a Jewish boyfriend for a period of time, to which her father raised no objections and even reportedly said «Sharon, I think it’s wonderful how these Jewish families have accepted you.»^[186]

Disney has also been accused of other forms of racism because some of his productions released between the 1930s and 1950s contain racially insensitive material.^[194][aa] The feature film Song of the South was criticized by contemporary film critics, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and others for its perpetuation of black stereotypes,^[195] but Disney later campaigned successfully for an Honorary Academy Award for its star, James Baskett, the first black actor so honored.^[196][ab] Gabler argues that «Walt Disney was no racist. He never, either publicly or privately, made disparaging remarks about blacks or asserted white superiority. Like most white Americans of his generation, however, he was racially insensitive.»^[194] Floyd Norman, the studio’s first black animator who worked closely with Disney during the 1950s and 1960s, said, «Not once did I observe a hint of the racist behavior Walt Disney was often accused of after his death. His treatment of people‍—‌and by this I mean all people‍—‌can only be called exemplary.»^[197]

Watts argues that many of Disney’s post-World War II films «legislated a kind of cultural Marshall Plan. They nourished a genial cultural imperialism that magically overran the rest of the globe with the values, expectations, and goods of a prosperous middle-class United States.»^[198] Film historian Jay P. Telotte acknowledges that many see Disney’s studio as an «agent of manipulation and repression», although he observes that it has «labored throughout its history to link its name with notions of fun, family, and fantasy».^[199] John Tomlinson, in his study Cultural Imperialism, examines the work of Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart, whose 1971 book Para leer al Pato Donald (trans: How to Read Donald Duck) identifies that there are «imperialist … values ‘concealed’ behind the innocent, wholesome façade of the world of Walt Disney»; this, they argue, is a powerful tool as «it presents itself as harmless fun for consumption by children.»^[200] Tomlinson views their argument as flawed, as «they simply assume that reading American comics, seeing adverts, watching pictures of the affluent … [‘Yankee’] lifestyle has a direct pedagogic effect».^[201]

Disney has been portrayed numerous times in fictional works. H. G. Wells references Disney in his 1938 novel The Holy Terror, in which World Dictator Rud fears that Donald Duck is meant to lampoon the dictator.^[202] Disney was portrayed by Len Cariou in the 1995 made-for-TV film A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story,^[203] and by Tom Hanks in the 2013 film Saving Mr. Banks.^[204] In 2001, the German author Peter Stephan Jungk published Der König von Amerika (trans: The King of America), a fictional work of Disney’s later years that re-imagines him as a power-hungry racist. The composer Philip Glass later adapted the book into the opera The Perfect American (2013).^[205]

Several commentators have described Disney as a cultural icon.^[206] On Disney’s death, journalism professor Ralph S. Izard comments that the values in Disney’s films are those «considered valuable in American Christian society», which include «individualism, decency, … love for our fellow man, fair play and toleration».^[207] Disney’s obituary in The Times calls the films «wholesome, warm-hearted and entertaining … of incomparable artistry and of touching beauty».^[208] Journalist Bosley Crowther argues that Disney’s «achievement as a creator of entertainment for an almost unlimited public and as a highly ingenious merchandiser of his wares can rightly be compared to the most successful industrialists in history.»^[5] Correspondent Alistair Cooke calls Disney a «folk-hero … the Pied Piper of Hollywood»,^[209] while Gabler considers Disney «reshaped the culture and the American consciousness».^[210] In the American Dictionary of National Biography, Langer writes:

Disney remains the central figure in the history of animation. Through technological innovations and alliances with governments and corporations, he transformed a minor studio in a marginal form of communication into a multinational leisure industry giant. Despite his critics, his vision of a modern, corporate utopia as an extension of traditional American values has possibly gained greater currency in the years after his death.^[58]

In December 2021, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opened a three month special exhibit in honor of Disney titled «Inspiring Walt Disney».^[211]

Awards and honors

Disney received 59 Academy Award nominations, including 22 awards: both totals are records.^[212] He was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, but did not win, but he was presented with two Special Achievement Awards‍—‌for Bambi (1942) and The Living Desert (1953)‍—‌and the Cecil B. DeMille Award.^[213] He also received four Emmy Award nominations, winning once, for Best Producer for the Disneyland television series.^[214] Several of his films are included in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as «culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant»: Steamboat Willie, The Three Little Pigs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo and Mary Poppins.^[215] In 1998, the American Film Institute published a list of the 100 greatest American films, according to industry experts; the list included Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (at number 49), and Fantasia (at 58).^[216]

In February 1960, Disney was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame with two stars, one for motion pictures and the other for his television work;^[217] Mickey Mouse was given his own star for motion pictures in 1978.^[218] Disney was also inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1986,^[219] the California Hall of Fame in December 2006,^[220] and was the inaugural recipient of a star on the Anaheim walk of stars in 2014.^[221]

The Walt Disney Family Museum records that he «along with members of his staff, received more than 950 honors and citations from throughout the world».^[19] He was made a Chevalier in the French Légion d’honneur in 1935,^[222] and in 1952 he was awarded the country’s highest artistic decoration, the Officer d’Academie.^[223] Other national awards include Thailand’s Order of the Crown (1960); Germany’s Order of Merit (1956),^[224] Brazil’s Order of the Southern Cross (1941),^[225] and Mexico’s Order of the Aztec Eagle (1943).^[226] In the United States, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on September 14, 1964,^[227] and on May 24, 1968, he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.^[228] He received the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners,^[226] and in 1955, the National Audubon Society awarded Disney its highest honor, the Audubon Medal, for promoting the «appreciation and understanding of nature» through his True-Life Adventures nature films.^[229] A minor planet discovered in 1980 by astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina, was named 4017 Disneya,^[230] and he was also awarded honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles.^[19]

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

External links

В Википедии есть статьи о других людях с такой фамилией, см. Дисней.

Уолт Дисней
англ. Walt Disney
Уолт Дисней в 1946 году.
Имя при рождении	англ. Walter Elias Disney
Дата рождения	5 декабря 1901
Место рождения	Чикаго, Иллинойс, США
Дата смерти	15 декабря 1966 (65 лет)
Место смерти	Бербанк, Калифорния, США
Гражданство	США[1]
Профессия	художник-мультипликатор, кинорежиссёр, сценарист, продюсер, актёр, предприниматель, общественный деятель
Карьера	1920—1966
Направление	семейное кино
Награды	Золотая медаль Конгресса США «Оскар» (1932 — дважды, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939 — дважды, 1940, 1942 — трижды, 1943, 1949, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954 — четырежды, 1955, 1956, 1959, 1969) «Золотой глобус» (1948, 1953, 1954) «Эмми» (1956)
IMDb	ID 0000370
Автограф
disney.de
Медиафайлы на Викискладе

Уо́лтер Эла́йас (Уолт) Дисне́й^[2] (англ. Walter Elias Disney, Walt Disney, МФА: [ˈwɔlt ˈdɪzni]^[3]; 5 декабря 1901, Чикаго, Иллинойс, США — 15 декабря 1966, Бербанк, Калифорния, США) — американский предприниматель, художник-мультипликатор, кинорежиссёр, актёр, сценарист и продюсер, основатель компании «Walt Disney Productions», ставшей мультимедийной империей «The Walt Disney Company».

Дисней стал создателем первых в истории кинематографа звукового и музыкального мультфильмов^{[уточнить]}. Как режиссёр снял 111 фильмов и был продюсером ещё 576 кинофильмов. Выдающиеся заслуги Диснея в области киноискусства отмечены 26 статуэтками «Оскар» (абсолютный рекорд)^[4] и премией имени Ирвинга Тальберга (которая обладает статусом «Оскара», но не представляет собой привычную статуэтку), а также другими многочисленными наградами и премиями.

Биография

Ранние годы

Уолт Дисней родился 5 декабря 1901 года в Чикаго. Среди его предков были англичане, ирландцы и немцы. В 1906 году семья переехала на ферму в штат Миссури, а в 1910 году — в Канзас-сити. В 14 лет Уолт уже подрабатывал как разносчик газет. Во время Первой мировой войны Дисней год прослужил за рулём санитарной машины Международного Красного Креста во Франции, вместе с ним в одной роте служил Рэй Крок (будущий владелец McDonald’s)^[5].

В 1920 году Дисней устраивается художником на студию кинорекламы, где начинает создавать свои первые рекламные фильмы — тогда же у него возникло желание продолжить свои эксперименты в мире рисованной анимации. Со временем Дисней открыл в Канзас-Сити свою первую студию анимации «Laugh-O-Gram», где его компаньоном и ведущим мультипликатором стал Аб Айверкс. Однако вскоре фирма обанкротилась.

Дебют

В 1922—1927 годах он выступал как сугубо творческий работник, а после войны занялся кинопроизводством. В 1923 году Дисней переезжает в Лос-Анджелес, где со своим братом Роем создаёт в Голливуде Disney Cartoon Studio как небольшую анимационную студию. Первого марта 1924 года Дисней представил свой первый трюковый фильм «День Алисы на море», подсказанный героями книжки Льюиса Кэрролла «Алиса в стране чудес». Свою серию фильмов, нарисованных в 1926—1927 годах, режиссёр тоже назвал в честь героини этой книги — «Алиса в стране мультипликации» (всего Дисней снял 56 фильмов о приключениях Алисы). Тогда же начал формироваться стиль диснеевских фильмов.

Микки Маус и другие

В 1927 году огромную популярность получил фильм «Кролик Освальд», а его герой открывает галерею знаменитых персонажей из фильмов Диснея. Мышонка Микки Мауса, которого нарисовал Аб Айверкс, сначала звали Мортимер, но вскоре он получил имя, сегодня хорошо известное во всем мире. Впервые мышонок Микки Маус появился в немом фильме «Безумный самолёт» (1928), а в том же году стал героем и первого звукового фильма Диснея — «Пароходик Вилли» (первый в истории рисованный фильм с синхронным звуком). В первых лентах Дисней сам озвучивал мышонка, и вскоре этот фильм открыл перед режиссёром дорогу к успеху.

В 1929 году Дисней начал работать над циклом «Наивные симфонии», и к 1938 году снял свыше 70 серий, включая «Танец скелетов» (1929), «Гадкий утёнок» (1932), «Три поросёнка» (1933). В этих фильмах появляются собака Плуто (1930), пёс Гуфи (1932), а также селезень Дональд Дак (1934).

«Белоснежка и 7 гномов», «Пиноккио»

Когда Диснею было 14 лет и он подрабатывал продажей газет, в Канзас-Сити он увидел короткий немой мультфильм о Белоснежке, который ему запомнился на всю жизнь. Осенью 1934 года Дисней сделал первый набросок сценария по мотивам сказки братьев Гримм. Над последней версией этого сценария вместе с Диснеем трудилось несколько человек, включая Отто Ингландера, Эрла Харда и Тэда Сирса. 21 декабря 1937 года на экранах Америки впервые был показан полнометражный анимационный фильм Диснея «Белоснежка и семь гномов» по сказке братьев Гримм. «Белоснежка» принесла Диснею огромный успех: популярность, 8 млн долларов дохода и восторженные отклики в профессиональной прессе.

Вскоре появились новые полнометражные фильмы. «Пиноккио» (1940) по сказке итальянского писателя ΧΙΧ века Карло Коллоди зрителями был воспринят с восторгом, который разделяли и критики. Успех был результатом титанического труда: чтобы лучше нарисовать сцену, когда Пиноккио пытается убежать от кита, художники долго изучали повадки и движения настоящих китов. Музыка к этому фильму, авторами которой были Ли Харлайн, Поль Смит и Нед Вашингтон, награждена «Оскаром». Была также отмечена песенка «When you wish upon a star» (музыка Ли Харлайна на слова Неда Вашингтона).

«Фантазия»

Построить собственное сказочное королевство было давней мечтой основателя анимационной студии Уолта Диснея. В 1953 году Уолту Диснею удалось уговорить 17 семей продать ему землю в 50 километрах к югу от Лос-Анджелеса, и началось строительство парка, подобного которому ещё не существовало. А 17 июля 1955 года состоялось торжественное открытие «Диснейленда».

Противоречивое мнение вызвал мультфильм «Фантазия» (1940) режиссёра Уолта Диснея по сценарию Джо Гранта и Дика Хьюмара и под музыкальным руководством Эдварда Пламба. Идея фильма возникла ещё со времени работы над «Наивными симфониями», в которых фабула тесно переплеталась с музыкальными произведениями. «Фантазия» — это смелый эксперимент со звуком, цветом и изображением, попытка передать музыку в линии и цвете, подчиняя рисунок музыкальному контексту. Например, токката и фуга Иоганна Себастьяна Баха показаны в виде абстрактных форм, а музыка из балета Чайковского «Щелкунчик» сопровождается танцем грибов. Наиболее безвкусным фрагментом фильма критики называли сцену, когда под звуки «Пасторальной симфонии» Бетховена на экране появляются кентавры. Только в 1960-х годах «Фантазия» получила признание, когда такие произведения стали массово пропагандировать популярную музыку.^{[источник не указан 2202 дня]}

«Дамбо» и «Бэмби»

Полнометражные фильмы Диснея часто называют семейными. В частности, речь идет о фильме «Дамбо» (1941) — музыкальном рассказе по мотивам книги Хелен Эберсон и Гарольда о маленьком цирковом слонёнке, который научился летать (режиссёр — Бен Шарпстин). Динамичные приключения, великолепная пластика рисованных персонажей — всё это принесло фильму огромную популярность. Знаменитыми стали сцены парада розовых слонов, а также фантазии слонёнка, выпившего шампанского из бочки.

Симпатию не только молодых зрителей, но и их родителей завоевал и оленёнок из фильма «Бэмби» (1942).

«Золушка» и другие мультфильмы

В 1950 году Дисней создал рисованную версию о скромной девушке, которая с помощью доброй феи становится невестой прекрасного принца. Режиссёрами фильма «Золушка» были Уилфред Джексон, Гамильтон Ласки и Клайд Джероними. Среди примечательных сцен стоит назвать ту, когда мыши, толкающие огромную тыкву, превращаются в великолепных скакунов, запряжённых в карету, а добрая фея превращает лохмотья Золушки в бальное платье. За техническое мастерство фильм на Берлинском кинофестивале был награждён «Золотым медведем», а Золушка появилась на футболках, постельном белье и платочках во многих странах мира.

Режиссёры, снявшие «Золушку», создали в 1953 году и полнометражный мультфильм «Питер Пэн» по книге сэра Джеймса Барри. За ним последовали такие знаменитые ленты, как «Леди и Бродяга» (1955), «Спящая красавица» (1959) и «101 далматинец» (1961), ставшие классикой мультипликационного кино.

Продюсерская деятельность

В 1948 году Уолт Дисней начал снимать свою знаменитую серию цветных образовательных фильмов, главным образом о природе — в частности, картины «Живая пустыня» (1953) и «Исчезающая прерия» (1954), режиссёром которых был Джеймс Элгар. Эти фильмы завоевали большую популярность, раскрывая малоизвестные стороны жизни животных и растений и вызывая у зрителей желание сберечь природу.

Тогда же стали снимать игровые приключенческие фильмы, рассчитанные на юного зрителя — «Остров сокровищ» (1950) по повести Роберта Льюиса Стивенсона (режиссёр Байрон Хаскин), «Робин Гуд» (1952) (режиссёр Кен Аннакин), а также мюзикл «Мэри Поппинс» (1964), в котором совмещены живые актёры и анимация. Этот фильм был награждён пятью «Оскарами» (режиссёр Роберт Стивенсон). Во всех этих фильмах Дисней выступал как продюсер, следил за ходом съёмок и оказал большое влияние на художественную сторону фильмов.

Смерть

15 декабря 1966 года Уолт Дисней скончался в Лос-Анджелесе на 66-ом году жизни от рака лёгких^[6]. После этого носящая его имя компания приняла стратегическое решение отказаться от показа сигарет в своих фильмах^[7]. После его смерти киностудия продолжила снимать анимационные и игровые фильмы для детей всех возрастов. В 1968 году Уолт Дисней был посмертно награждён высшей наградой США — Золотой медалью Конгресса.

Распространена версия о заморозке мультипликатора в криогенной камере, на которую он пошёл в надежде на нахождение метода разморозки организма человека в далёком будущем^[8]. Однако на самом деле его останки покоятся на кладбище Форест-Лаун^[9].

Личная жизнь

В июле 1925 года женился на секретарше своей студии Лилиан Боундс (1899—1997). В 1933 году у них родилась дочь Дайана Мэри (пара в течение 8 лет пыталась завести ребёнка, предыдущие две беременности закончились выкидышами, причинив много страданий Уолту и Лилли). Не имея возможности родить второго ребёнка, в 1937 году супруги удочерили маленькую девочку, дав ей имя Шэрон Мэй Дисней (1936—1993).

Дайана Мэри Дисней (1933—2013^[10]) — мать семерых детей, автор популярной биографии Уолта Диснея, организатор нескольких проектов, связанных с его именем, один из руководителей «The Walt Disney Company», основатель музея Уолта Диснея в Сан-Франциско (открыт в октябре 2009 года). По словам Дайаны, Уолт Дисней был примерным семьянином, посвящал семье всё свободное от работы время, часто гулял с дочками, и именно во время этих прогулок ему пришла в голову идея создать такое место, где было бы интересно как взрослым, так и детям. Впоследствии таким местом стал Диснейленд.

Дисней был убеждённым антикоммунистом^[11]. Газета The New York Times указывала, что в книге писателя Марка Элиота «Уолт Дисней — чёрный принц Голливуда  (англ.) (рус.», утверждается, что Дисней долгие годы сотрудничал с ФБР^[11]. Журналист Шимон Бриман утверждает, что Дисней по своей инициативе писал в бюро доносы на коллег по Голливуду^{[12][неавторитетный источник?]}. После войны Уолт Дисней активно помогал Комиссии по антиамериканской деятельности выявлять «скрытых коммунистов» в мире кино.

Дисней боялся мышей^[13].

Режиссёрский стиль

Начиная с «Пароходика Вилли» в лентах Диснея важную роль начинает играть музыка. Звук в его фильмах служит не только фоном для диалогов, а становится их важной составной частью, музыкальным фоном, создавая гармонию всего рисованного произведения.

Художники Диснея, перед тем как рисовать животных, всегда тщательно изучали повадки их живых прототипов. Поэтому все движения на экране крайне правдоподобны.

В «Фантазии» Уолта Диснея впервые на широком экране появляется стереозвук. Все отмечали высокое качество музыкального сопровождения этого фильма, которое было записано в исполнении Филадельфийского симфонического оркестра под руководством Леопольда Стоковского.

Дисней одним из первых режиссёров начал использовать трёхплёночные киносъёмочные аппараты для трёхцветного процесса «Техниколор» (англ. Technicolor).

На студии Уолт Дисней ввёл систему премирования мультипликаторов, позже принятую на других студиях, в том числе и на «Союзмультфильме». Художник-мультипликатор, предложив трюк режиссёру, получал небольшое вознаграждение.

Дисней и антисемитизм

И во время жизни, и после смерти Диснея активно обсуждался его возможный антисемитизм. Обвинения основываются на ряде эпизодов. Арт Бэббит утверждал, что Дисней посещал собрания Германоамериканского союза^[14]. Другой аниматор, Дэвид Свифт, увольняясь со студии Диснея, наткнулся на антисемитский выпад Уолта^[15]. В 1938 году, после того как общество было шокировано Хрустальной ночью, Дисней устроил Лени Рифеншталь экскурсию по своей студии^[16][17].

Память

• В честь У. Диснея назван астероид (4017) Disneya, открытый астрономом Людмилой Карачкиной в Крымской Астрофизической Обсерватории 21 февраля 1980 г.
• Роль Диснея в биографическом фильме «Спасти мистера Бэнкса» (2013) исполнил Том Хэнкс.
• В документальном фильме из цикла «Гении и злодеи уходящей эпохи» (Россия, 2003 г.) роль У. Диснея сыграл российский актёр Дмитрий Филимонов.

Нереализованные проекты

• Мультфильм Destino в соавторстве с Сальвадором Дали.
• Мультфильм «Коты-аристократы», который вышел в свет в 1970 году, уже после смерти Диснея.

Фильмография

Фильмы об Уолте Диснее

• 2015 — «Уолт Дисней»
• 2013 — «Спасти мистера Бэнкса»

Награды и премии

Кинопремии «Оскар»

«Золотой глобус»

• 1948 — «Бэмби» — за версию фильма на хинди
• 1953 — Премия им. Сесиля де Милля
• 1954 — «Живая пустыня»

Каннский кинофестиваль

• 1953 — приз за вклад в признание фестиваля

Венецианский кинофестиваль

• 1934 — Лучший анимационный фильм — Funny Little Bunnies (1934)
• 1935 — Лучший анимационный фильм — The Band Concert (1935)
• 1936 — Лучший социально-политический фильм — Il cammino degli eroi (1936); также отмечен мультфильм Who Killed Cock Robin? (1935)
• 1938 — приз за «Белоснежку и семь гномов»
• 1950 — специальный приз за «Золушку» и документальный фильм «In Beaver Valley»

Московский кинофестиваль

• 1935 — третья премия — «за художественные мультипликационные фильмы, являющиеся высоким образцом мастерства»^[20]

David di Donatello

• 1956 — «Леди и бродяга» (1955)

Directors Guild of America

• 1955 — Honorary Life Member Award

Золотой экран

• 1969 — «Книга джунглей» (1967) — посмертно

Laurel Awards

Montreal World Film Festival

• 1999 — Grand Prix Special des Amériques — за исключительный вклад в киноискусство, посмертно

Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Awards

• 1987 — специальный приз в честь 50-летия «Белоснежки и семи гномов», посмертно

New York Film Critics Circle Awards

• 1939 — специальный приз за «Белоснежку и семь гномов»
• 1940 — специальный приз за «Фантазию»

Награды «Эмми»

• 1956 — лучший продюсер

Награды «Энни»

• 1975 — награда им. Виндзора МакКея, посмертно

Голливудская аллея славы

Уолт Дисней имеет 2 звезды-эмблемы на Аллее славы за вклад в киноискусство и за развитие телевидения.

Прочие

• 1940 — Медаль прогресса (Общество инженеров кино и телевидения)
• 1952 — Медаль прогресса (Фотографическое общество Америки)

См. также

• Рой Оливер Дисней — старший брат Уолта Диснея. Вместе с ним Дисней основал компанию, ныне известную как The Walt Disney Company. Рой занимал пост генерального директора (1929—1971) и президента компании (1945—1971).
• The Walt Disney Company — одна из крупнейших корпораций индустрии развлечений в мире. Основанная 16 октября 1923 года братьями Уолтером и Роем Диснеями как небольшая анимационная студия, в настоящее время является одной из крупнейших голливудских студий, владеет 11 тематическими парками развлечений, двумя аквапарками, четырьмя круизными лайнерами (эксплуатируются дочерней компанией Disney Cruises Line)^[21], а также несколькими сетями телерадиовещания, включая ABC.
• «Диснейленд» — популярный и высокоприбыльный парк развлечений в Анахайме в Калифорнии. Открылся в 1955 году, став воплощением идеи Уолта Диснея о парке, в котором был бы воссоздан мир мультфильмов и сказок, где интересно всем — и взрослым, и детям.
• Walt Disney Studios — международная штаб-квартира медиаконгломерата компании Уолта Диснея, которая располагается в городе Бербанк, штат Калифорния.

Примечания

Литература

На русском языке

• Арнольди Э. М. Жизнь и сказки Уолта Диснея. — Л.: Искусство, 1968. — 212 с.
• Дисней, Уолт / Волков А. А. // Динамика атмосферы — Железнодорожный узел [Электронный ресурс]. — 2007. — С. 61. — (Большая российская энциклопедия : [в 35 т.] / гл. ред. Ю. С. Осипов ; 2004—2017, т. 9). — ISBN 978-5-85270-339-2.
• Молтин Л. О мышах и магии. История американского рисованного фильма = Of Mice and Magic. A History of American Animated Cartoons / Пер. с англ. Ф. Хитрука. — М.: Издательство Дединского, 2018. — С. 60—127. — 640 с. — ISBN 978-5-6040967-0-3.

На других языках

• Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-516729-5.
• Mosley, Leonard. Disney’s World: A Biography (1985, 2002). Chelsea, MI: Scarborough House. ISBN 0-8128-8514-7.
• 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.
• Thomas, Bob (1991). Disney’s Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1-56282-899-1
• Thomas, Bob (1976,1994). Walt Disney: An American Original ISBN 0-7868-6027-8
• Broggie, Michael (1997, 1998, 2005). Walt Disney’s Railroad Story. Virginia Beach, Virginia. Donning Publishers. ISBN 1-56342-009-0
• Eliot, Marc (1993). Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince. Carol. ISBN 1-55972-174-X
• Gabler, Neal. Walt Disney: The Triumph of American Imagination (2006). New York, NY. Random House. ISBN 0-679-43822-X
• Sherman, Robert and Richard Sherman (1998) «Walt’s Time: From Before to Beyond» ISBN 0-9646059-3-7.

Ссылки

• Walt Disney Family Museum (англ.)
• Walt Disney’s backyard railroad (англ.). Sci.fi. Дата обращения: 15 января 2019. Архивировано из оригинала 14 мая 2011 года.
• Richard Schickel. Walt Disney: Ruler Of The Magic Kingdom (англ.). Time Magazine (7 декабря 1998). Дата обращения: 5 февраля 2019.
• Walt Disney at justdisney.com (англ.). JustDisney.com. Дата обращения: 5 февраля 2019.
• Disney – Компания. Disney.ru. Дата обращения: 5 февраля 2019.

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Walther Elias «Walt» Disney (1901-1966) was the founder and namesake of Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney Productions and WED Enterprises.

History[]

Walt Disney was a writer animator who found success with his business partner Ub Iwerks in their 1928 short, Steamboat Willie due to being the first animation with synchronized sound. Through the success of Steamboat Willie, Disney and his affiliates founded Walt Disney Pictures and made lucrative success through political-lobbying to change the copyright system in their favour.

In 1937, Walt Disney headed the creation of the first full-length animated feature film in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In 1957, Disney would found what would become WED Enterprises to develop the amusement park of Disneyland.

A heavy smoker, Walt Disney died of lung-cancer on  the December 15 of 1966. He died before the opening of his planned, «Florida Project» which included Walt Disney World and his planned capitalist city-state of EPCOT.

Fictional[]

Disney Parks[]

It is likely that the fictionalized Walt Disney existing in the park mythos has some connection to the supernatural and that he was born far prior to his real-life birth in 1901. It is also possible that he used alternative monikers such as «Yensid«, «Yen Sid» or, «Yesnid» which are anagrams of the name Walt Disney.

1800s-1910s[]

During the turn-of-the-century, Walt Disney lived in Marceline, Missouri on the street known as Main Street, U.S.A.. In this town he lived above a fire-house and worked as the chief operator of the Disneyland Railroad for either the W.E.D. Locomotive Works or Can Do Machine Works. This railroad connected Main Street to destinations such as New Orleans and Thunder Mesa in the Big Thunder Mountain region. Walt’s father Elias Disney worked as a contractor in this neighbourhood since 1895.

Walt also was the founder of the Disneyland Casting Agency, a group which was established in, «’55» (presumably 1855). This group operated out of an apartment in the Main Street Cinema of Marceline and was not just involved in casting performers but also assorted jobs internationally. From around the turn of the century some notable projects which this group assisted with included finding bears to perform in Grizzly Hall, engineers for the Carolwood Pacific Railroad, flying-elephant trainers for the Storybook Circus, entertainers to work for Slue-Foot Sue in the Golden Horseshoe Saloon, and tour-guides for train tours of the Rainbow Ridge region.^[1]

In 1908, an adult Walt and his brother Roy travelled to New Guinea as guests of Lord Henry Mystic, a member of the Society of Explorers and Adventurers. The two men spent time in Lord Henry’s colony of Mystic Point and attended the official opening of his home/museum, Mystic Manor. Around 1911, Walt seemingly assisted S.E.A. member Dr. Albert Falls in the founding of the Jungle Navigation Company. Walt also seemed to work as a riverboat captain in the company at times with his boat of choice having been The Congo Queen.

1920s[]

In 1923, Walt first first travelled to Hollywood, Los Angeles and spent his time on Buena Vista Street. On Buena Vista Street, he became affiliated with the café owners Dottie, Dolly and Ethel Bounds AKA The Silver Lake Sisters. The three women were performers also known as Fiddler, Fifer and Practical which inspired Walt in 1933 to use them as reference for his short The Three Little Pigs.

In 1925, Walt married ink-artist Lillian Disney who he had met doing animation work. In 1928 Lillian aided in co-creating Mickey Mouse by having Walt rename him from Mortimer to Mickey as the name Mortimer sounded, «Too pompous». Mickey was brought to life on the November 18 of 1928 and would make his home in, «Toon Town», a cartoon residency hidden in California.

1930s[]

By the 1930s, Walt came to have some affiliation with the Enchanted Tiki Room in the Polynesian isles. Walt would be considered something of a patron for the Tiki Room by the sentient birds of of the island and the locale was officially referred to as, «Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room». Walt also seemingly established the DBC or Disney Broadcasting Company which would be used by the Jungle Navigation Company.

Also during the ’30s, Walt did some work as a cartoonist for the newspaper The Daily Gnus which had his work published to several, «Adventureland» locales such as Polynesia, the Lost Delta of Cambodia, and the Congo basin of Africa. During the 1930s, Walt also was a customer and/or performer of, «AbracadaBar» on the boardwalk of Crescent Lake. At another point in time, Walt had some affiliation with the esteemed Imagination Institute which gave him an, «Inventor of the Year» award. By 1938, Walt wrote a book titled The True-Life Adventures under the pen-name of, «W.E.D».

1940s-1950s[]

In 1941, Walt, Lillian and several friends of theirs travelled to South America for a vacation and hired Jungle Navigation Co. affiliate Trader Sam to give them tours. Sam and Walt became close and eventually, Disney became the best customer at Sam’s bar, «Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar». Sam seemingly left Sam a gift in the form of the captain’s hat which he wore during his days as a captain for the JNC.

Around 1954, Walt came to be in possession of the tentacle of a giant squid which in the 1860s had years earlier sunk the Nautilus submarine of one Captain Nemo. Walt once again left this tentacle in the safekeeping of Trader Sam who enchanted it in his bar’s sister-location. Also around 1954, Walt aimed to build Disneyland which Mickey Mouse encouraged he build on the Anaheim orange-grove on the border of Toontown.^[2]

1960s[]

In the 1960s, Walt began developing his, «Florida Project» which included the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow or EPCOT. He planned to build this nearby the town of Disney Springs in Florida which his parents had some connection to. In 1964, he worked on several attractions for the New York World’s Fair where he collaborated with members of several different industries, including inventor Howard Stark of Stark Industries.

Alternate versions[]

Once Upon a Time[]

In this non-canonical television series, Walt was one of several figures throughout history to serve as a magical entity known as, «The Author«. This role was given to inhabitants of, «The Realm without Magic» to keep and write within magical texts that controlled the histories of other magical realms such as that of the Enchanted Forest. Walt was selected for this purpose by the sorcerer Merlin and his apprentice (a human representation of Mickey Mouse as portrayed in Fantasia). When Walt died in 1966, the apprentice selected one Isaac Heller to succeed him.

Tomorrowland[]

In this film, Walt was a member of a secret futurist society known as Plus Ultra and joined their ranks prior to the year 1939. He used the It’s a Small World attraction at the 1964 world’s fair to function as a cross-dimensional portal which would access the colony of Tomorrowland. Walt also used the land of Tomorrowland in Disneyland to function as a secret training headquarters for Plus Ultra’s ranks in-addition to being a secret portal to the dimension.

Appearances and allusions[]

Due to his being the namesake of the Disney Company, Walt Disney’s name is frequently included within the names of organizations and locations regarding the Disney Parks. Anagrams of his name such as, «Yensid», «Yen Sid» or, «Yesnid» are also used as allusions sometimes.

Adventure Trading Company[]

Walt Disney’s signed, «Merry Menagerie» comics are published in the Daily Gnus newspaper with a copyright from Walt Disney Productions.^[3]

AbracadaBar[]

In this bar there is a framed photograph of Walt Disney.^[4]

Disney Springs[]

Walt Disney or the Disney family are seemingly the namesake of Disney Springs. In the resort’s backstory, Walt’s parents visited the Spring when the got marries and told Walt about it. Years later in the 1960s, he decided to build his, «Florida Project» nearby the springs.^[5] At the boathouse of the springs is a boat with the name of, «Walt’s Dream».^[6] Within Goofy’s Candy Co., Walt’s signature is on a certificate from the University of Candy Science, certifying Goofy as a Master of Candy Science.^[7]

Honey, I Shrunk the Audience![]

Walt Disney is identified as having been a past recipient of the Imagination Institute’s «Inventor of the Year Award».^[8]

Iron Man Experience[]

Iron Man’s father Howard Stark is shown to be affiliated with Walt Disney in the opening of this attraction where at a 1964 expo, Walt talks to Howard about his plans.

Jungle Cruise[]

Walt Disney is indirectly referenced in the queue audio-loop for the Magic Kingdom’s Jungle Cruise where radio-announcer Albert Awol of AWOL Airwaves mentions his broadcast being on the DBC (Disney Broadcasting Company). Concept art shows the hat which he wore aboard the Jungle Cruise as being in the JNC’s lost and found.

Skipper Canteen[]

In the Skipper Canteen there is a book titled True-Life Adventures by W.E.D.; W.E.D. having been Walt Disney’s initials. The True-Life Adventures are an allusion to the True-Life Adventures, «Nature documentaries» made by Disney from 1948 to 1960.

Trader Sam’s[]

Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar[]

A photograph of Walt Disney from his 1941 trip to South America is hung in this bar with a message from Sam saying he was hired to give them a tour.^[9] Another photo has Walt Disney on his own featured with a note from Sam saying that Walt became one of his best customers.^[10]
The hat which Walt wore while driving a Jungle Cruise boat in 1958 is also hung on one of the shelves.

Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto[]

A photograph in this bar is from Walt Disney’s show and has him holding the tentacle of the Giant Squid from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Said squid’s tentacle is also mounted behind the bar and is enchanted to aid in serving the Nautilus drink.

Jungle Cruise Adventure Game[]

Walt Disney’s likeness is used in this game as a member of the  Temple and DeNyle families, two of the four families which assisted S.E.A. member Dr. Albert Falls in his founding of the Jungle Navigation Company in 1911. Walt’s likeness is that of him as an old man while wearing the sailor’s outfit he wore while riding the Jungle Cruise in 1958.^[11]

Main Street, U.S.A.[]

Walt Disney had a personal apartment within the «Disneyland Fire Department» building on Main Street, U.S.A.. The lights in this apartment are left on as tribute to Walt.^[12] Walt is also depicted in the, «Partners» Statue near the end of Main Street where he is seen hand-in-hand with Mickey Mouse. There are also two fictitious books authored by Disney within the town hall, being titled Lilybelle and Mickey Mouse. Another book on this same shelf is titled, «Walt and You» by Sidejas & Kimbrell, a tribute to cast-members Ray Sidejas and Bruce Kimbrell.^[13]

Disneyland Railroad[]

A window in Main Street, U.S.A. identifies Walt Disney as being the chief-engineer behind the Disneyland Railroad. This is an allusion to how Disneyland was largely influenced by Walt Disney’s love of trains and creation of a miniature train-yard behind his house.^[14]

Mickey’s Toon Town[]

A window in this area identified Walt as the directing animator of, «Laugh-O’Gram Films, Inc.».^[15]

Mystic Manor[]

Walt and Roy Disney cameo in a 1908 photograph of S.E.A. member Lord Henry Mystic opening Mystic Manor to the public. The photo is anachronistic as Walt would have actually been 7 in 1908 while the photo shows him in his 20s.

Pirates of the Caribbean[]

The initials, «W» and, «R» are in the grating of the Royal Street Gallery which holds Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean. These initials represent Walt and Roy Disney, respectively.

Sunshine Tree Terrace[]

The Orange Bird and Sunshine Tree are affiliated with the Sunshine Tree Terrace brand which was run by W.E.D. Enterprises, Incorporated to harvest oranges for the Bay Lake Produce Company.^[16]

Tiana’s Place[]

Within Tiana’s Place on the Disney Wonder is a poster for New Orleans Square. The poster features the W and R initials from Pirates of the Caribbean upon it.^[17]

Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress[]

Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room[]

Walt Disney is the namesake of this attraction and is mentioned in its name by the birds of the show. It is unknown if there is a fictionalized Walt Disney with any connection to the in-continuity Tiki Room or not.

In other media[]

Tomorrowland (film)[]

Connections[]

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea[]

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad[]

Walt’s father-in-law Willard P. Bounds is referenced in Big Thunder Mountain Railroad as a U.S. Marshal in the town of Rainbow Ridge, involved in the operations of the Big Thunder Mining Company.^[18]

Journey Into Imagination[]

The Imagination Institute is a fictional-organization most prominently featured in this attraction.

Pleasure Island[]

In the fictional backstory of Pleasure Island, the Walt Disney Company was highly involved in excavating and restoring Pleasure Island in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The boat the Empress Lilly was also named for Walt’s wife Lillian.

Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom[]

The wizard Merlin makes his headquarters on Main Street’s firehouse in this attraction where he keeps the Crystal of the Magic Kingdom and later the bound spirit of Hades.

Twilight Zone Tower of Terror[]

Walt Disney supposedly once attended a performance of the Silver Lake Sisters on Buena Vista Street and the three inspired his naming and characterization of the Three Little Pigs in 1933.

References[]

Walther Elias «Walt» Disney (1901-1966) was the founder and namesake of Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney Productions and WED Enterprises.

History[]

Walt Disney was a writer animator who found success with his business partner Ub Iwerks in their 1928 short, Steamboat Willie due to being the first animation with synchronized sound. Through the success of Steamboat Willie, Disney and his affiliates founded Walt Disney Pictures and made lucrative success through political-lobbying to change the copyright system in their favour.

In 1937, Walt Disney headed the creation of the first full-length animated feature film in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In 1957, Disney would found what would become WED Enterprises to develop the amusement park of Disneyland.

A heavy smoker, Walt Disney died of lung-cancer on  the December 15 of 1966. He died before the opening of his planned, «Florida Project» which included Walt Disney World and his planned capitalist city-state of EPCOT.

Fictional[]

Disney Parks[]

It is likely that the fictionalized Walt Disney existing in the park mythos has some connection to the supernatural and that he was born far prior to his real-life birth in 1901. It is also possible that he used alternative monikers such as «Yensid«, «Yen Sid» or, «Yesnid» which are anagrams of the name Walt Disney.

1800s-1910s[]

During the turn-of-the-century, Walt Disney lived in Marceline, Missouri on the street known as Main Street, U.S.A.. In this town he lived above a fire-house and worked as the chief operator of the Disneyland Railroad for either the W.E.D. Locomotive Works or Can Do Machine Works. This railroad connected Main Street to destinations such as New Orleans and Thunder Mesa in the Big Thunder Mountain region. Walt’s father Elias Disney worked as a contractor in this neighbourhood since 1895.

Walt also was the founder of the Disneyland Casting Agency, a group which was established in, «’55» (presumably 1855). This group operated out of an apartment in the Main Street Cinema of Marceline and was not just involved in casting performers but also assorted jobs internationally. From around the turn of the century some notable projects which this group assisted with included finding bears to perform in Grizzly Hall, engineers for the Carolwood Pacific Railroad, flying-elephant trainers for the Storybook Circus, entertainers to work for Slue-Foot Sue in the Golden Horseshoe Saloon, and tour-guides for train tours of the Rainbow Ridge region.^[1]

In 1908, an adult Walt and his brother Roy travelled to New Guinea as guests of Lord Henry Mystic, a member of the Society of Explorers and Adventurers. The two men spent time in Lord Henry’s colony of Mystic Point and attended the official opening of his home/museum, Mystic Manor. Around 1911, Walt seemingly assisted S.E.A. member Dr. Albert Falls in the founding of the Jungle Navigation Company. Walt also seemed to work as a riverboat captain in the company at times with his boat of choice having been The Congo Queen.

1920s[]

In 1923, Walt first first travelled to Hollywood, Los Angeles and spent his time on Buena Vista Street. On Buena Vista Street, he became affiliated with the café owners Dottie, Dolly and Ethel Bounds AKA The Silver Lake Sisters. The three women were performers also known as Fiddler, Fifer and Practical which inspired Walt in 1933 to use them as reference for his short The Three Little Pigs.

In 1925, Walt married ink-artist Lillian Disney who he had met doing animation work. In 1928 Lillian aided in co-creating Mickey Mouse by having Walt rename him from Mortimer to Mickey as the name Mortimer sounded, «Too pompous». Mickey was brought to life on the November 18 of 1928 and would make his home in, «Toon Town», a cartoon residency hidden in California.

1930s[]

By the 1930s, Walt came to have some affiliation with the Enchanted Tiki Room in the Polynesian isles. Walt would be considered something of a patron for the Tiki Room by the sentient birds of of the island and the locale was officially referred to as, «Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room». Walt also seemingly established the DBC or Disney Broadcasting Company which would be used by the Jungle Navigation Company.

Also during the ’30s, Walt did some work as a cartoonist for the newspaper The Daily Gnus which had his work published to several, «Adventureland» locales such as Polynesia, the Lost Delta of Cambodia, and the Congo basin of Africa. During the 1930s, Walt also was a customer and/or performer of, «AbracadaBar» on the boardwalk of Crescent Lake. At another point in time, Walt had some affiliation with the esteemed Imagination Institute which gave him an, «Inventor of the Year» award. By 1938, Walt wrote a book titled The True-Life Adventures under the pen-name of, «W.E.D».

1940s-1950s[]

In 1941, Walt, Lillian and several friends of theirs travelled to South America for a vacation and hired Jungle Navigation Co. affiliate Trader Sam to give them tours. Sam and Walt became close and eventually, Disney became the best customer at Sam’s bar, «Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar». Sam seemingly left Sam a gift in the form of the captain’s hat which he wore during his days as a captain for the JNC.

Around 1954, Walt came to be in possession of the tentacle of a giant squid which in the 1860s had years earlier sunk the Nautilus submarine of one Captain Nemo. Walt once again left this tentacle in the safekeeping of Trader Sam who enchanted it in his bar’s sister-location. Also around 1954, Walt aimed to build Disneyland which Mickey Mouse encouraged he build on the Anaheim orange-grove on the border of Toontown.^[2]

1960s[]

In the 1960s, Walt began developing his, «Florida Project» which included the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow or EPCOT. He planned to build this nearby the town of Disney Springs in Florida which his parents had some connection to. In 1964, he worked on several attractions for the New York World’s Fair where he collaborated with members of several different industries, including inventor Howard Stark of Stark Industries.

Alternate versions[]

Once Upon a Time[]

In this non-canonical television series, Walt was one of several figures throughout history to serve as a magical entity known as, «The Author«. This role was given to inhabitants of, «The Realm without Magic» to keep and write within magical texts that controlled the histories of other magical realms such as that of the Enchanted Forest. Walt was selected for this purpose by the sorcerer Merlin and his apprentice (a human representation of Mickey Mouse as portrayed in Fantasia). When Walt died in 1966, the apprentice selected one Isaac Heller to succeed him.

Tomorrowland[]

In this film, Walt was a member of a secret futurist society known as Plus Ultra and joined their ranks prior to the year 1939. He used the It’s a Small World attraction at the 1964 world’s fair to function as a cross-dimensional portal which would access the colony of Tomorrowland. Walt also used the land of Tomorrowland in Disneyland to function as a secret training headquarters for Plus Ultra’s ranks in-addition to being a secret portal to the dimension.

Appearances and allusions[]

Due to his being the namesake of the Disney Company, Walt Disney’s name is frequently included within the names of organizations and locations regarding the Disney Parks. Anagrams of his name such as, «Yensid», «Yen Sid» or, «Yesnid» are also used as allusions sometimes.

Adventure Trading Company[]

Walt Disney’s signed, «Merry Menagerie» comics are published in the Daily Gnus newspaper with a copyright from Walt Disney Productions.^[3]

AbracadaBar[]

In this bar there is a framed photograph of Walt Disney.^[4]

Disney Springs[]

Walt Disney or the Disney family are seemingly the namesake of Disney Springs. In the resort’s backstory, Walt’s parents visited the Spring when the got marries and told Walt about it. Years later in the 1960s, he decided to build his, «Florida Project» nearby the springs.^[5] At the boathouse of the springs is a boat with the name of, «Walt’s Dream».^[6] Within Goofy’s Candy Co., Walt’s signature is on a certificate from the University of Candy Science, certifying Goofy as a Master of Candy Science.^[7]

Honey, I Shrunk the Audience![]

Walt Disney is identified as having been a past recipient of the Imagination Institute’s «Inventor of the Year Award».^[8]

Iron Man Experience[]

Iron Man’s father Howard Stark is shown to be affiliated with Walt Disney in the opening of this attraction where at a 1964 expo, Walt talks to Howard about his plans.

Jungle Cruise[]

Walt Disney is indirectly referenced in the queue audio-loop for the Magic Kingdom’s Jungle Cruise where radio-announcer Albert Awol of AWOL Airwaves mentions his broadcast being on the DBC (Disney Broadcasting Company). Concept art shows the hat which he wore aboard the Jungle Cruise as being in the JNC’s lost and found.

Skipper Canteen[]

In the Skipper Canteen there is a book titled True-Life Adventures by W.E.D.; W.E.D. having been Walt Disney’s initials. The True-Life Adventures are an allusion to the True-Life Adventures, «Nature documentaries» made by Disney from 1948 to 1960.

Trader Sam’s[]

Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar[]

A photograph of Walt Disney from his 1941 trip to South America is hung in this bar with a message from Sam saying he was hired to give them a tour.^[9] Another photo has Walt Disney on his own featured with a note from Sam saying that Walt became one of his best customers.^[10]
The hat which Walt wore while driving a Jungle Cruise boat in 1958 is also hung on one of the shelves.

Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto[]

A photograph in this bar is from Walt Disney’s show and has him holding the tentacle of the Giant Squid from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Said squid’s tentacle is also mounted behind the bar and is enchanted to aid in serving the Nautilus drink.

Jungle Cruise Adventure Game[]

Walt Disney’s likeness is used in this game as a member of the  Temple and DeNyle families, two of the four families which assisted S.E.A. member Dr. Albert Falls in his founding of the Jungle Navigation Company in 1911. Walt’s likeness is that of him as an old man while wearing the sailor’s outfit he wore while riding the Jungle Cruise in 1958.^[11]

Main Street, U.S.A.[]

Walt Disney had a personal apartment within the «Disneyland Fire Department» building on Main Street, U.S.A.. The lights in this apartment are left on as tribute to Walt.^[12] Walt is also depicted in the, «Partners» Statue near the end of Main Street where he is seen hand-in-hand with Mickey Mouse. There are also two fictitious books authored by Disney within the town hall, being titled Lilybelle and Mickey Mouse. Another book on this same shelf is titled, «Walt and You» by Sidejas & Kimbrell, a tribute to cast-members Ray Sidejas and Bruce Kimbrell.^[13]

Disneyland Railroad[]

A window in Main Street, U.S.A. identifies Walt Disney as being the chief-engineer behind the Disneyland Railroad. This is an allusion to how Disneyland was largely influenced by Walt Disney’s love of trains and creation of a miniature train-yard behind his house.^[14]

Mickey’s Toon Town[]

A window in this area identified Walt as the directing animator of, «Laugh-O’Gram Films, Inc.».^[15]

Mystic Manor[]

Walt and Roy Disney cameo in a 1908 photograph of S.E.A. member Lord Henry Mystic opening Mystic Manor to the public. The photo is anachronistic as Walt would have actually been 7 in 1908 while the photo shows him in his 20s.

Pirates of the Caribbean[]

The initials, «W» and, «R» are in the grating of the Royal Street Gallery which holds Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean. These initials represent Walt and Roy Disney, respectively.

Sunshine Tree Terrace[]

The Orange Bird and Sunshine Tree are affiliated with the Sunshine Tree Terrace brand which was run by W.E.D. Enterprises, Incorporated to harvest oranges for the Bay Lake Produce Company.^[16]

Tiana’s Place[]

Within Tiana’s Place on the Disney Wonder is a poster for New Orleans Square. The poster features the W and R initials from Pirates of the Caribbean upon it.^[17]

Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress[]

Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room[]

Walt Disney is the namesake of this attraction and is mentioned in its name by the birds of the show. It is unknown if there is a fictionalized Walt Disney with any connection to the in-continuity Tiki Room or not.

In other media[]

Tomorrowland (film)[]

Connections[]

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea[]

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad[]

Walt’s father-in-law Willard P. Bounds is referenced in Big Thunder Mountain Railroad as a U.S. Marshal in the town of Rainbow Ridge, involved in the operations of the Big Thunder Mining Company.^[18]

Journey Into Imagination[]

The Imagination Institute is a fictional-organization most prominently featured in this attraction.

Pleasure Island[]

In the fictional backstory of Pleasure Island, the Walt Disney Company was highly involved in excavating and restoring Pleasure Island in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The boat the Empress Lilly was also named for Walt’s wife Lillian.

Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom[]

The wizard Merlin makes his headquarters on Main Street’s firehouse in this attraction where he keeps the Crystal of the Magic Kingdom and later the bound spirit of Hades.

Twilight Zone Tower of Terror[]

Walt Disney supposedly once attended a performance of the Silver Lake Sisters on Buena Vista Street and the three inspired his naming and characterization of the Three Little Pigs in 1933.

References[]

Уолт Дисней
Walt Disney
Дата рождения:	5 декабря 1901
Место рождения:	Чикаго, США
Дата смерти:	15 декабря 1966 (65 лет)
Место смерти:	Лос-Анджелес, США
Гражданство:	США
Профессия:	художник-мультипликатор, кинорежиссёр, сценарист, продюсер, актёр, актёр озвучивания, предприниматель, общественный деятель
Карьера:	1920—1966
Направление:	семейное кино
Награды:
IMDb:	ID 0000370
Walt Disney Family Museum

Уо́лтер Эла́йас Ди́сней (англ. Walter Elias Disney, также известен как Уолт Дисней (англ. Walt Disney), МФА: [ˈwɔlt ˈdɪzni]^[1]; 5 декабря 1901 года, Чикаго — 15 декабря 1966 года, Лос-Анджелес) — американский художник-мультипликатор, кинорежиссёр, актёр, сценарист и продюсер, основатель компании «Walt Disney Productions», которая к настоящему времени превратилась в мультимедийную империю «The Walt Disney Company».

Является создателем первых в истории кинематографа звукового, музыкального и полнометражного мультфильмов. За свою необыкновенно напряжённую жизнь Уолт Дисней как режиссёр снял 111 фильмов и был продюсером ещё 576 кинофильмов. Выдающиеся заслуги Диснея в области киноискусства отмечены 26 статуэтками «Оскара» и премией имени Ирвинга Тальберга, обладающей статусом «Оскара», а также многими другими наградами и премиями.

Биография

Ранние годы

Уолт Дисней родился 5 декабря 1901 года в Чикаго. Среди его предков были англичане, ирландцы и немцы. В 1906 году семья переехала на ферму в штат Миссури, а в 1910 году — в Канзас-сити. В 14 лет подрабатывал как разносчик газет. Во время Первой мировой войны Дисней год прослужил за рулем санитарной машины Международного Красного Креста во Франции.

В 1919 году Дисней устраивается художником на студию кинорекламы, где начинает создавать свои первые рекламные фильмы — тогда же у него возникло желание продолжить свои эксперименты в мире рисованной анимации. Со временем Дисней открыл в Канзас-Сити свою первую студию анимации «Laugh-O-Gram», где его компаньоном и ведущим мультипликатором стал Аб Айверкс. Однако вскоре фирма обанкротилась.

Дебют

В 1922—1937 годах он выступал как сугубо творческий работник, а после войны занялся кинопроизводством. В 1923 году Дисней переезжает в Лос-Анджелес, где со своим братом Роем создает в Голливуде The Walt Disney Company как небольшую анимационную студию. Первого марта 1924 года Дисней представил свой первый трюковый фильм «День Алисы на море», подсказанный героями книжки Льюиса Керролла «Алиса в стране чудес». Свою серию фильмов, нарисованных в 1926—1927 годах, режиссёр тоже назвал в честь героини этой книги — «Алиса в стране мультипликации» (всего Дисней снял 56 фильмов о приключениях Алисы). Тогда же начал формироваться стиль диснеевских фильмов.

Микки Маус и другие

В 1927 году огромную популярность получил фильм «Кролик Освальд», а его герой открывает галерею знаменитых персонажей из фильмов Диснея. Мышонка Микки Мауса, которого нарисовал Аб Айверкс, сначала звали Мортимер, но вскоре он получил имя, сегодня хорошо известное во всем мире. Впервые мышонок Микки Маус появился в немом фильме «Безумный аэроплан» (1928), а в том же году стал героем и первого звукового фильма Диснея — «Пароходик Вилли» (первый в истории рисованный фильм с синхронным звуком). В первых лентах Дисней сам озвучивал мышонка, и вскоре этот фильм открыл перед режиссёром дорогу к успеху.

В 1929 году Дисней начал работать над циклом «Наивные симфонии», и к 1938 году снял свыше 70 серий, включая «Танец скелетов» (1929), «Гадкий утенок» (1932), «Три поросенка» (1933). В этих фильмах появляются собака Плуто (1930), пёс Гуфи (1932), а также утенок Дональд Дак (1934).

«Белоснежка и семь гномов» и «Пиноккио»

Когда Диснею было 14 лет и он подрабатывал продажей газет, в Канзас-Сити он увидел короткий немой мультфильм о Белоснежке, который ему запомнился на всю жизнь. Осенью 1934 года Дисней сделал первый набросок сценария по мотивам сказки братьев Гримм. Над последней версией этого сценария вместе с Диснеем трудилось несколько человек, включая Отто Ингландера, Эрла Харда и Тэда Сирса. 21 декабря 1937 года на экранах Америки впервые был показан полнометражный анимационный фильм Диснея «Белоснежка и семь гномов» по сказке братьев Гримм. «Белоснежка» принесла Диснею огромный успех: популярность, 8 млн долларов дохода и восторженные отклики в профессиональной прессе.

Вскоре появились новые полнометражные фильмы. «Пиноккио» (1940) по сказке итальянского писателя ΧΙΧ века Карло Коллоди зрителями был воспринят с восторгом, который разделяли и критики. Успех был результатом титанического труда: чтобы лучше нарисовать сцену, когда Пиноккио пытается убежать от кита, художники долго изучали повадки и движения настоящих китов. Музыка к этому фильму, авторами которой были Ли Харлайн, Поль Смит и Нед Вашингтон, награждена «Оскаром». Была также отмечена песенка «When you wish upon a star» (музыка Ли Харлайна на слова Неда Вашингтона).

Фантазия

Противоречивое мнения вызвала «Фантазия» (1940) режиссёра Уолта Диснея по сценарию Джо Гранта и Дика Хьюмара и под музыкальным руководством Эдварда Пламба. Идея фильма возникла ещё со времени работы над «Наивными симфониями», в которых фабула тесно переплеталась с музыкальными произведениями. «Фантазия» — это смелый эксперимент со звуком, цветом и изображением, попытка передать музыку в линии и цвете, подчиняя рисунок музыкальному контексту. Например, токката и фуга Иоганна Себастьяна Баха показаны в виде абстрактных форм, а музыка из балета Чайковского «Щелкунчик» сопровождается танцем грибов; на фоне «Праздника весны» Игоря Стравинского разворачивается красочный сюжет сотворения мира. Наиболее безвкусным фрагментом фильма критики называли сцену, когда под звуки «Пасторальной симфонии» Бетховена на экране появляются кентавры. Только в 60-х годах прошлого века «Фантазия» получила признание, когда такие произведения стали массово пропагандировать популярную музыку.

Дамбо и Бэмби

Полнометражные фильмы Диснея часто называют семейными. В частности, речь идет о фильме «Дамбо» (1941) — музыкальном рассказе по мотивам книги Хелен Эберсон и Гарольда о маленьком цирковом слоненке, который научился летать (режиссёр — Бен Шарпстин). Динамичные приключения, великолепная пластика рисованных персонажей — все это принесло фильму огромную популярность. Знаменитыми стали сцены парада розовых слонов, а также фантазии слоненка, выпившего шампанского из бочки.

Симпатию не только молодых зрителей, но и их родителей завоевал и олененок из фильма «Бэмби» (1942).

Золушка и другие мультфильмы

В 1950 году Дисней создал рисованную версию о скромной девушке, которая с помощью доброй феи становится невестой прекрасного принца. Режиссёрами фильма «Золушка» были Уилфред Джексон, Гамильтон Ласки и Клайд Джероними. Среди примечательных сцен стоит назвать ту, когда мыши, толкающие огромную тыкву, превращаются в великолепных скакунов, запряженных в карету, а добрая фея превращает лохмотья Золушки в бальное платье. За техническое мастерство фильм на Берлинском кинофестивале был награждён «Золотым медведем», а Золушка появилась на футболках, постельном белье и платочках во многих странах мира.

Режиссёры, снявшие «Золушку», создали в 1953 году и полнометражный мультфильм «Питер Пэн» по книге сэра Джеймса Барри. За ним последовали такие знаменитые ленты, как «Леди и бродяга» (1955), «Спящая красавица» (1959) и «Сто один далматинец» (1961), ставшие классикой мультипликационного кино.

Продюсерская деятельность

В 1948 году Уолт Дисней начал снимать свою знаменитую серию цветных образовательных фильмов, главным образом о природе — в частности, картины «Живая пустыня» (1953) и «Исчезающая прерия» (1954), режиссёром которых был Джеймс Элгар. Эти фильмы завоевали большую популярность, раскрывая малоизвестные стороны жизни животных и растений и вызывая у зрителей желание сберечь природу.

Тогда же стали снимать игровые приключенческие фильмы, рассчитанные на юного зрителя — «Остров сокровищ» (1950) по повести Роберта Льюиса Стивенсона (режиссёр Байрон Хаскин), «Робин Гуд» (1952) (режиссёр Кен Аннакин), а также мюзикл-кинофантазия «Мэри Поппинс» (1964), который был награждён пятью «Оскарами» (режиссёр Роберт Стивенсон). Во всех этих фильмах Дисней выступал как продюсер, следил за ходом съёмок и оказал большое влияние на художественную сторону фильмов.

Смерть

15 декабря 1966 года Дисней скончался в Лос-Анджелесе от рака лёгких^[2]. После этого носящая его имя компания приняла стратегическое решение отказаться от показа сигарет в своих фильмах^[3].

После его смерти киностудия продолжила снимать анимационные и игровые фильмы для детей всех возрастов. В 1968 году Дисней был посмертно награждён высшей наградой США Золотой медалью Конгресса.

Распространена версия о заморозке мультипликатора в криогенной камере, на которую он пошёл в надежде на нахождение метода разморозки организма человека в далёком будущем^[4]. На самом деле его останки покоятся на кладбище Форест-Лаун^[5].

Нереализованные проекты

Мультфильм «Destino», в соавторстве с Сальвадором Дали, и мультфильм «Коты-аристокаты», которые вышли на свет в 1971 году после его смерти.

Режиссёрский стиль

Начиная с «Пароходика Вилли» в лентах Диснея важную роль начинает играть музыка. Звук в его фильмах служит не только фоном для диалогов, а становится их важной составной частью, музыкальным фоном, создавая гармонию всего рисованного произведения.

Художники Диснея, перед тем как рисовать животных, всегда тщательно изучали повадки их живых прототипов. Поэтому все движения на экране крайне правдоподобны.

В «Фантазии» Уолта Диснея впервые на широком экране появляется стереозвук. Все отмечали высокое качество музыкального сопровождения этого фильма, которое было записано в исполнении Филадельфийского симфонического оркестра под руководством Леопольда Стоковского.

Дисней одним из первых режиссёров начал использовать трёхплёночные киносъёмочные аппараты для трёхцветного процесса «Техниколор» (англ. Technicolor).

На студии Уолт Дисней ввёл систему премирования мультипликаторов, позже принятую на других студиях, в том числе и на Союзмультфильме. Художник-мультипликатор, предложив трюк режиссёру, получал небольшое вознаграждение.

Личная жизнь

В июле 1925 года женился на секретарше его студии Лилиан Боундс (1899—1997). В 1933 году у них родилась дочь Дайана Мэри (пара в течение 8 лет пыталась завести ребёнка, предыдущие две беременности закончились выкидышами, причинив много страданий Уолту и Лилли). Не имея возможности родить второго ребёнка, в 1937 году супруги удочерили маленькую девочку, дав ей имя Шэрон Мэй Дисней (1936—1993).

Дайана Мэри Дисней — мать семерых детей, автор популярной биографии Уолта Диснея, организатор нескольких проектов, связанных с его именем, один из руководителей «The Walt Disney Company», основатель музея Уолта Диснея в Сан-Франциско (открыт в октябре 2009 года). По словам Дайаны, Уолт Дисней был примерным семьянином, посвящал семье все свободное от работы время, часто гулял с дочками и именно во время этих прогулок ему пришла в голову идея создать такое место, где было бы интересно как взрослым, так и детям. Впоследствии таким местом стал Диснейленд.

Избранная фильмография

Основная статья: Фильмография Уолта Диснея

1. 1922 — Красная Шапочка
2. 1922 — 1927 — Приключения Алисы

• • 1923 — Страна чудес Алисы (англ. Alice’s Wonderland)
  • 1924 — Жуткое приключение Алисы (англ. Alice’s Spooky Adventure)
  • 1924 — Шоу Дикого Запада Алисы (англ. Alice’s Wild West Show)
  • 1924 — История рыбалки Алисы (англ. Alice’s Fishy Story)
  • 1924 — Алиса и Ловец собак (англ. Alice and the Dog Catcher)
  • 1924 — Алиса-миротворец (англ. Alice the Peacemaker)
  • 1924 — Алиса едет в Данию (англ. Alice Gets in Dutch)
  • 1924 — Алиса охотится в Африке (англ. Alice Hunting in Africa)
  • 1924 — Алиса и три медведя (англ. Alice and the Three Bears)
  • 1924 — Алиса-волынщик (англ. Alice the Piper)
  • 1925 — Алиса сражается с каннибалами (англ. Alice Cans the Cannibals)
  • 1925 — Алиса-Тореадор (англ. Alice the Toreador)
  • 1925 — Алиса становится нервной(англ. Alice Gets Stung)
  • 1925 — Алиса решает загадку (англ. Alice Solves the Puzzle)
  • 1925 — Фабрика Алисы по производству яиц(англ. Alice’s Egg Plant)
  • 1925 — Алиса терпит неудачу (англ. Alice Loses Out)
  • 1925 — Алиса поклонник театра (англ. Alice Is Stage Struck)
  • 1925 — Алиса выигрывает Дерби (англ. Alice Wins the Derby)
  • 1925 — Алиса выбирает чемпиона (англ. Alice Picks the Champ)
  • 1925 — Оловянный пони Алисы (англ. Alice’s Tin Pony)
  • 1925 — /Alice Chops the Suey
  • 1925 — /Alice the Jail Bird
  • 1925 — /Alice Plays Cupid
  • 1925 — /Alice Rattled by Rats
  • 1925 — Алиса в джунглях (англ. Alice in the Jungle)
  • 1926 — Алиса на ферме (англ. Alice on the Farm)
  • 1926 — /Alice’s Balloon Race
  • 1926 — Маленький парад Алисы (англ. Alice’s Little Parade)
  • 1926 — /Alice’s Mysterious Mystery
  • 1926 — Алиса Сирота (англ. Alice’s Orphan)
  • 1926 — Алиса очаровывает рыбу (англ. Alice Charms the Fish)
  • 1926 — Бессмысленная работа Алисы (англ. Alice’s Monkey Business)
  • 1926 — Алиса в стране снов (англ. Alice in Slumberland)
  • 1926 — Алиса на Диком Западе (англ. Alice in the Wooly West)
  • 1926 — Алиса-Пожарный (англ. Alice the Fire Fighter)
  • 1926 — /Alice Cuts the Ice
  • 1926 — /Alice Helps the Romance
  • 1926 — Испанская гитара Алисы (англ. Alice’s Spanish Guitar)
  • 1926 — /Alice’s Brown Derby
  • 1926 — Алиса-дровосек (англ. Alice the Lumberjack)
  • 1927 — /Alice the Golf Bug
  • 1927 — /Alice Foils the Pirates
  • 1927 — Алиса на карнавале (англ. Alice at the Carnival)
  • 1927 — Алиса на родео (англ. Alice at the Rodeo)
  • 1927 — /Alice the Collegiate
  • 1927 — Алиса в альпах (англ. Alice in the Alps)
  • 1927 — Автогонки Алисы (англ. Alice’s Auto Race)
  • 1927 — /Alice’s Circus Daze
  • 1927 — /Alice’s Three Bad Eggs
  • 1927 — /Alice’s Knaughty Knight
  • 1927 — Пикник Алисы/Alice’s Picnic
  • 1927 — /Alice’s Channel Swim
  • 1927 — Алиса в Клондайке (англ. Alice in the Klondike)
  • 1927 — /Alice’s Medicine Show
  • 1927 — /Alice the Whaler
  • 1927 — /Alice the Beach Nut
  • 1927 — /Alice in the Big League
• 1927 — Ой учитель/Oh Teacher
• 1927 — Механическая корова/The Mechanical Cow
• 1927 — Дочь банкира/The Banker’s Daughter
• 1927 — Кролик Освальд/Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
• 1928 — Безумный аэроплан/Plane Crazy
• 1928 — Пароходик Вилли/Steamboat Willie
• 1929—1939 — Забавные симфонии/Silly Symphonies
• 1937 — Белоснежка и семь гномов/Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• 1940 — Пиноккио/Pinocchio
• 1940 — Фантазия/Fantasia
• 1941 — Дамбо/Dumbo
• 1942 — Бэмби/Bambi
• 1944 — Три кабальеро/The Three Caballeros
• 1949 — Приключения Икебода и мистера Тодда/The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
• 1950 — Золушка/Cinderella
• 1951 — Алиса в Стране чудес/Alice In Wonderland
• 1953 — Питер Пэн/Peter Pan
• 1955 — Леди и Бродяга/Lady and the Tramp
• 1959 — Спящая красавица/Sleeping Beauty
• 1961 — Сто один далматин (Сто один далматинец)/One Hundred And One Dalmatians
• 1963 — Меч в камне Последний фильм снятый при жизни Уолта Диснея

Награды и премии

Кинопремии «Оскар»

• 1932 — Почётная награда за создание Микки-Мауса
• 1933 — Лучший короткометражный мультфильм — Цветы и деревья/Flowers and Trees (1932)
• 1934 — Лучший короткометражный мультфильм — Три поросенка/Three Little Pigs (1933)
• 1935 — Лучший короткометражный мультфильм — The Tortoise and the Hare (1934)
• 1936 — Лучший короткометражный мультфильм — Three Orphan Kittens (1935)
• 1937 — Лучший короткометражный мультфильм — The Country Cousin (1936)
• 1938 — Лучший короткометражный мультфильм — The Old Mill (1937)
• 1939 — Лучший короткометражный мультфильм — Ferdinand the Bull (1938)
• 1939 — Почётная награда за Белоснежку и семь гномов (1937; Дисней получает одну полноценную статуэтку «Оскара» и семь маленьких «Оскаров» — по числу гномов)
• 1940 — Лучший короткометражный мультфильм — Гадкий утенок/The Ugly Duckling (1939)
• 1942 — Лучший короткометражный мультфильм — Lend a Paw (1941)
• 1942 — Почётная награда за вклад в улучшение качества звука в кино — Фантазия (1940) (совместно с Уильямом Гэрити и Джоном Хоукинсом)
• 1942 — Премия имени Ирвинга Тальберга
• 1943 — Лучший короткометражный мультфильм — Der Fuehrer’s Face (1942)
• 1949 — Лучший короткометражный фильм — Seal Island (1948)
• 1951 — Лучший короткометражный фильм — Beaver Valley (1950)
• 1952 — Лучший короткометражный фильм — Nature’s Half Acre (1951)
• 1953 — Лучший короткометражный фильм — Water Birds (1952)
• 1954 — Лучший документальный фильм — Живая пустыня (1953)
• 1954 — Лучший документальный фильм — The Alaskan Eskimo (1953)
• 1954 — Лучший короткометражный фильм — Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom (1953)
• 1954 — Лучший короткометражный фильм — Bear Country (1953)
• 1955 — Лучший документальный фильм — Исчезающая прерия (1954)
• 1956 — Лучший документальный фильм — Men Against the Arctic (1955)
• 1959 — Лучший короткометражный фильм — Grand Canyon (1958)
• 1969 — Лучший короткометражный фильм — Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968) — посмертно

«Золотой глобус»

• 1948 — Бэмби — за версию фильма на хинди
• 1953 — Премия им. Сесиля де Милля
• 1954 — Живая пустыня
• 1955 — Davy Crockett в сериале «Disneyland»
• 1956 — Клуб Микки Мауса

«BAFTA»

• 1955 — Лучший документальный фильм — Исчезающая прерия (1954)
• 1961 — Лучший анимационный фильм — Сто один далматинец (1961)

Награды Каннского кинофестиваля

• 1946 — Лучший анимационный фильм — Make Mine Music (1946)
• 1953 — за вклад в признание фестиваля

David di Donatello

• 1956 — Леди и бродяга (1955)

Directors Guild of America

• 1955 — Honorary Life Member Award

Золотой экран

• 1969 — Книга джунглей (1967) — посмертно

Laurel Awards

• 1958 — Golden Laurel — лучшему продюсеру (2-е место)
• 1959 — Golden Laurel — лучшему продюсеру (3-е место)
• 1960 — Golden Laurel — лучшему продюсеру (2-е место)
• 1961 — Golden Laurel — лучшему продюсеру
• 1962 — Golden Laurel — лучшему продюсеру
• 1963 — Golden Laurel — лучшему продюсеру
• 1964 — Golden Laurel — лучшему продюсеру
• 1965 — Golden Laurel — лучшему продюсеру
• 1966 — Golden Laurel — лучшему продюсеру
• 1967 — Golden Laurel — специальный приз, посмертно

Montreal World Film Festival

• 1999 — Grand Prix Special des Amériques — за исключительный вклад в киноискусство, посмертно

Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Awards

• 1987 — специальный приз в честь 50-летия «Белоснежки и семи гномов», посмертно

New York Film Critics Circle Awards

• 1939 — специальный приз за «Белоснежку и семь гномов»
• 1940 — специальный приз за «Фантазию»

Венецианский кинофестиваль

• 1934 — Лучший анимационный фильм — Funny Little Bunnies (1934)
• 1935 — Лучший анимационный фильм — The Band Concert (1935)
• 1936 — Лучший социально-политический фильм — Il cammino degli eroi (1936); также отмечен мультфильм Who Killed Cock Robin? (1935)
• 1938 — приз за «Белоснежку и семь гномов»
• 1950 — специальный приз за «Золушку» и документальный фильм «In Beaver Valley»

Награды «Эмми»

• 1956 — лучший продюсер

Награды «Энни»

• 1975 — награда им. Виндзора МакКея, посмертно

Голливудская аллея славы

Уолт Дисней имеет звезды эмблемы на Аллее славы: одна за вклад в киноискусство, другая — за развитие телевидения.

Интересные факты

• Дисней был убеждённым антикоммунистом^[6] и долгие годы сотрудничал с ФБР^[7]
• Недавно из рассекреченных документов стало известно, что Дисней в 1940 году отверг просьбу воюющих англичан о помощи. Правительство Черчилля тайно обратилось к мастеру с идеей создания антинацистского мультика по легенде о Святом Георгии, поражающем Дракона. Биограф Диснея Марк Элиот считает, что нежелание делать фильм против нацистов было вызвано вовсе не антисемитизмом: «Дисней был среди сторонников влиятельного движения против ввязывания США в европейскую войну. Опасаясь большевиков, они ни в чём не хотели помешать Германии разбить Красную армию. Кроме того, Дисней не желал терять германский рынок сбыта своих фильмов». После войны Уолт Дисней активно помогал Комиссии по антиамериканской деятельности выявлять скрытых коммунистов в мире кино. Он по своей инициативе писал в ФБР доносы на коллег по Голливуду (среди опороченных было почему-то много евреев).^[8]

См. также

• Рой Оливер Дисней — старший брат Уолта Диснея. Вместе с ним Дисней основал компанию, ныне известную как The Walt Disney Company. Рой занимал пост генерального директора (1929—1971) и президента компании (1945—1971).
• The Walt Disney Company — одна из крупнейших корпораций индустрии развлечений в мире. Основанная 16 октября 1923 года братьями Уолтером и Роем Диснеями как небольшая анимационная студия, в настоящее время является одной из крупнейших голливудских студий, владеет 11 тематическими парками развлечений, двумя аквапарками, а также несколькими сетями телерадиовещания включая ABC.
• Диснейленд — популярный и высокоприбыльный парк развлечений в Анахайме в Калифорнии. Открылся в 1955 году, став воплощением идеи Уолта Диснея о парке, в котором был бы воссоздан мир мультфильмов и сказок, где интересно всем — и взрослым, и детям.
• Walt Disney Studios — международная штаб-квартира медиаконгломерата компании Уолта Диснея, которая располагается в городе Бербанк, штат Калифорния.

Примечания

Литература

• Э. М. Арнольди. Жизнь и сказки Уолта Диснея. — Л.: Искусство, 1968. — 212 с.
• Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-516729-5.
• Mosley, Leonard. Disney’s World: A Biography (1985, 2002). Chelsea, MI: Scarborough House. ISBN 0-8128-8514-7.
• 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.
• Thomas, Bob (1991). Disney’s Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1-56282-899-1
• Thomas, Bob (1976,1994). Walt Disney: An American Original ISBN 0-7868-6027-8
• Broggie, Michael (1997, 1998, 2005). Walt Disney’s Railroad Story. Virginia Beach, Virginia. Donning Publishers. ISBN 1-56342-009-0
• Eliot, Marc (1993). Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince. Carol. ISBN 1-55972-174-X
• Gabler, Neal. Walt Disney: The Triumph of American Imagination (2006). New York, NY. Random House. ISBN 0-679-43822-X
• Sherman, Robert and Richard Sherman (1998) «Walt’s Time: From Before to Beyond» ISBN 0-9646059-3-7.

Ссылки

	Уолт Дисней на Викискладе?

• Walt Disney Family Museum (англ.)
• Walt Disney’s hobby: Miniature garden railroading (англ.)
• Time Magazine profile (англ.)
• Walt Disney at justdisney.com (англ.)
• Биография Уолта Диснея

Озвучивание Микки Мауса
Уолт Дисней (1928—1947) • Джимми Макдональд (англ.) (1947—1977) • Уэйн Оллвайн (1977—2009) • Брет Айван (англ.) (2009—н. в.)