Walt Disney

• Born: December 5, 1901
• Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
• Died: December 15, 1966
• Place of death: Burbank, California

American businessman

Disney was an innovator in the entertainment industry including television, film, and theme parks a chance-taker responsible for what he termed “imagineering,” leading the way in amusements for children as well as adults.

Areas of achievement Theater and entertainment, business and industry, art

Early Life

Walt Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois. His mother, née Flora Call, was German-American; his father, Elias Disney, was Irish-Canadian. Both parents had farming backgrounds. Walt Disney was the youngest of four sons by eight years but was older than his only sister, Ruth. With little doubt, the strongest influence on Walt during his childhood was his father. The older Disney was a religious fundamentalist and stern taskmaster who was always ready to beat his children with his belt. The beatings finally led to a showdown in Walt’s teen years, when he physically prevented his father from beating him, marking a turning point in their relationship.

The Disney children were denied a typical childhood environment, their father refusing to provide toys, games, and sporting equipment. Added to this were the frequent job changes of their father, who sought success in such areas as farming, railway shops, carpentry and contracting work, newspaper distributing, and factory owning. The disruption of moves from Chicago to Marceline, Missouri, to Kansas City, Missouri, and back to Chicago in the space of eleven years principally accounted for Walt never getting past the ninth grade.

Disney’s favorite childhood memories were of Marceline, where he lived from the age of four to eight. The Disneys worked a forty-eight-acre farm, a life Disney loved. It also provided him with his first acquaintance with a variety of animals, contact that his closest brother, Roy, stressed was the start of a sensitive, lifelong consideration. Marceline was also a railroad hub, and Disney was ever after captivated by trains.

Following the collapse of the farm, the Disneys rode in a boxcar to Kansas City, where Elias bought a newspaper delivery route. Seven days a week, Walt Disney delivered early morning newspapers over a sprawling route, sometimes falling asleep in warm buildings and then waking in panic to find himself behind schedule. Nightmares of that panic affected him for the rest of his life. Tardiness at school regularly resulted, and after school hours were occupied by afternoon paper deliveries. Paid nothing for this work, Disney had a job in a candy store at noontime to earn spending money.

In his teen years, Disney participated in vaudeville amateur nights, doing a prizewinning Charles Chaplin act, and took some beginning art lessons. When Elias sold his business to move back to Chicago to take over a jelly factory, the fifteen-year-old Disney stayed in Kansas City. He tutored the new owner of the newspaper distributorship and became a vendor on the Santa Fe Railroad through the summer.

Rejoining his parents in Chicago, Disney became a school newspaper cartoonist, pursued photography, worked at the jelly factory, took odd jobs, and joined an art class at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. When he finished the ninth grade, he worked for the post office through the summer and decided to enlist in the military. The United States had recently entered World War I. Disney, eager to serve and to wear a uniform to impress the girls, was rejected by every recruiter; he was too young. With his mother’s cooperation, Disney obtained forged documents that enabled him to be accepted as a driver in the Red Cross Ambulance Corps. The war ended just before Disney went overseas, but his experiences in France made an indelible mark on him. Though not yet eighteen when he returned to Chicago, he knew that he could not return to school. Disney had reached his full height (five feet ten inches) and weighed a solid 165 pounds. He was ready to strike out on his own.

Life’s Work

Moving to Kansas City, Disney went through an assortment of jobs as a commercial artist and cartoonist, his work leading to an enthusiastic interest in filmed cartoons. He also met, and even tried a business partnership with, Ub Iwerks, a young man his own age who was a more gifted artist than Disney. Thus started a long and interesting, often troubling, relationship between the consummate artist Iwerks and the consummate organizer and visionary Disney.

During this period, Disney combined a live performer with cartoon figures in Alice’s Wonderland (1923), which led to a popular Alice in Cartoonland (1923-1926) series after Disney had moved to Hollywood, California. Over three years, Disney produced fifty-six Alice in Cartoonland comedies.

Disney returned to a straight cartoon format with the Oswald the Rabbit (1927) series, producing twenty-six cartoons in the series in less than two years before losing the rights to Oswald in a New York contract dispute with Charlie Mintz and Universal Pictures. Oswald was tremendously popular, and Disney knew that he had to have a dynamic, new character.

Disney had by then married Lillian Bounds (July 13, 1925), an original employee in the first Disney Brothers Studio. She had accompanied Disney to New York and now faced with him the important trip back to California. Referring to a series of Iwerks sketches and reminiscing with Lilly about past experiences, Disney settled on a cartoon mouse as his next star. Disney first called his character Mortimer, but Lilly thought that pompous and suggested Mickey. Soon after, Disney with Iwerks getting prominent credit as the major cartoonist finished two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy (1928), based on the exploits of Charles A. Lindbergh, and Gallopin’ Gaucho (1928), with Mickey emulating Douglas Fairbanks. Prior to their release, however, Disney saw the first feature talkie, The Jazz Singer (1927), and realized that the future of films was in sound. He immediately worked on a third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, incorporating sound and thus revolutionizing the film cartoon industry. Its premiere on November 18, 1928, stands as a hallowed date in Disney annals. After its success, sound was added to the first pair of Mickey Mouse cartoons, and they were released.

Within three years, Mickey Mouse had captured audiences throughout the United States, and by 1936 it was said in all seriousness that the famous mouse was the most widely recognized figure in the world. Disney himself was acclaimed as one of the two top geniuses in filmmaking; Chaplin was the other. Sales of Mickey Mouse watches and windup handcars literally saved the Ingersoll Watch Company and the Lionel Corporation from bankruptcy during the Depression. Figures such as songwriter Cole Porter, conductor Arturo Toscanini, and King George VI of England were dedicated Mickey Mouse fans, while famed Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein pronounced Mickey Mouse to be America’s most original cultural contribution.

Most intriguing of all was the symbolic tying together of Mickey Mouse and his creator. Mickey’s voice, on all sound tracks until 1946, was Disney’s own. During that period, Mickey, along with the other featured characters (Donald Duck and Pluto are prime examples), had progressed from a Depression barnyard to comfortable middle-class suburbia. Mickey Mouse had ventured into dozens of occupations, from airplane pilot to polo player to orchestra conductor, and had ended as an entrepreneur. Some claimed that Disney had used Mickey to grope for his own niche and the entrepreneur won in the end.

In 1931, Disney had suffered a nervous breakdown. Fully recovered, he launched into the rest of the decade with enormous energy. He earned plaudits for innovative moves and won a string of Academy Awards. In 1932, he was the first in animated cartooning to use the Technicolor process. His Academy Award-winning Three Little Pigs (1933) had uplifted American morale during the Depression by supplying a theme, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the first feature-length cartoon in history, also took an Oscar and paved the way for many later classics. Academy Awards were also won by The Tortoise and the Hare (1935), The Old Mill (1937), and The Ugly Duckling (1939), among other films. To Disney, the most important development of the 1930’s was the growth of the studio. From a handful of employees and a garage studio had emerged many hundreds of workers in a huge complex.

The 1940’s were quite different. Disney actually could have gone bankrupt. World War II gravely affected the studio’s overseas market, and American entry into the war came on the heels of two box-office disasters: Fantasia (1940) and The Reluctant Dragon (1941). Fantasia was not to be seen as a masterpiece until the 1960’s. A traumatic labor union strike (1941) devastated Disney, whose belief that he headed one big, happy family was shattered when roughly half the cartoonists picketed. An irony through this episode was that the conservatively Republican, strongly anticommunist Disney, who blamed the strike on communists, had come full spectrum from his father, who had been an active labor unionist supporter of oft-defeated socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs. The strike so affected Disney that, appearing close to a second breakdown, he agreed to tour Latin America for the State Department. In his absence, the strike was settled.

The surprising success of Dumbo (1941), the shortest feature Disney ever made, and Bambi (1942), as well as a United States government contract to produce training films, barely kept Disney in business. The goodwill tour of Latin America inspired Saludos Amigos (1943) and The Three Caballeros (1945), but Disney’s finances had to wait for the war’s end before significant recovery.

Disney’s first postwar feature was Make Mine Music (1946), which was later cut into ten short cartoons, another innovation by Disney and one he followed with later omnibus features. Song of the South (1946) followed, combining live action and cartoon animation, and gaining an Academy Award for its song “Zip-a-dee Doo-dah.” The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League, however, criticized the work for perpetuating racial stereotyping.

Two years later, Disney produced one of his favorite films, So Dear to My Heart, entirely live-action. Though animated features immediately followed The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) and the extremely profitable Cinderella (1950) the 1950’s, and especially the 1960’s, saw Disney shifting emphasis to live-action films.

Disney practically took over the field of nature documentaries in the 1950’s with his True-Life Adventure series, winning three Oscars and several international awards. The decade also witnessed Disney’s entry into television, starting innocently with consecutive Christmas specials in 1950-1951, proceeding to a weekly Disneyland series in 1954 (during which a Davy Crockett serial led to a surprise multimillion dollar bonanza) and a daily Mickey Mouse Club show in 1955. Thereafter, Disney virtually wrote his own ticket in television.

Disney’s most important accomplishment of the 1950’s, however, was Disneyland, which opened in Anaheim, California, on July 13, 1955, the Disneys’ thirtieth wedding anniversary. When taking his daughters, Sharon (adopted) and Diane, to amusement parks, Disney had been constantly disappointed and had determined to create a far superior park. He insisted that Disneyland was not an amusement park, though he claimed that it was his own private amusement area. The fantastic success of Disneyland and the later Walt Disney World (1971) in Florida stood as final testimony to Disney’s courage and vision. He had stood virtually alone against other Disney executives, willing to risk frightening losses against a dream, something he had done fairly often before. Controversial in this regard is what happened to his EPCOT(Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) idea at Disney World. Disney’s intention was to have an actual live-in community of thousands of people, under an all-weather dome, with its own schools, shopping and entertainment areas, and innovative technology placing them a minimum of twenty-five years into the future. Those utopian thoughts died when Disney died. EPCOT, as exciting as many of its projects are, and as Disney-like as its practices are, falls far short of Disney’s own concept.

By the 1960’s, Disney was wealthy and in full command of a respected, diversified empire. Despite the tremendous expansion of Disney holdings, he remained in dictatorial control, as he had since the 1920’s. Yet, in the 1960’s, critics suggested that Disney had lost his spirit, pointing to the lack of any outstanding films. His answer was the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Mary Poppins (1964). The biggest financial hit in Disney’s life, the film was nominated for thirteen Academy Awards and garnered five. Though more projects followed, Mary Poppins proved to be his last hurrah. Disney, a heavy smoker through his career, was hospitalized for lung cancer in 1966, appeared to have recovered from major surgery, but suffered a relapse, dying on December 15, 1966, in a hospital room that overlooked his Burbank studio. An entire world mourned the loss of a person who had come to seem like a favorite uncle.

Significance

Disney was said to have the facility of seeing things no others saw, from chairs being reshaped into acrobatic animals to swamps converted into paradises. More important, he was willing to express his ideas openly, despite the risk of ridicule. Had Disney been an outstanding artist himself, it is entirely possible, even probable, that his success would have been much more limited, given the tens of thousands of talented artists who do not achieve fame. Disney learned early, however, that his own drawing skills were limited. Thus, he became the organizer, the “idea man,” and exercised absolute control of his own, and hence his corporation’s, destiny. Disney’s attention to the most minute detail, his insistence on perfection, his enormous drive, and his need to be boss caused him to be both loved and hated by his employees. The finished product, be it feature film, cartoon short, comic book, or Disneyland ride, bore his unmistakable stamp, however, whether employees were happy or not: That was the Disney way. Disney always assumed that others were as fiercely devoted to each project as he, an assumption that often misled him into thinking that others shared his joy as well.

Disney, born in the big city and spending most of his life in major cities, nevertheless loved small-town and country life, often painting the contrast between urban ugliness and rural beauty. Indeed, his works created a Disney America, and the effects of these Disney impressions on American culture are inestimable. Presented through his films, television productions, comic and story books, and theme parks, Disney’s America may well represent the nation’s image to most Americans, especially given that children learn with Disney products at an early age.

The probability is that Disney never intended to create a substitute America. Instead, Disney in many ways was Everyperson. He did not cater as much to a mass public as to his own taste, which was clearly reflective of conservative American ideals. When he aimed to please the public, his objective was to entertain, to amuse, to bring smiles to his consumers, rather than to propagandize. He was his own best audience. By suiting himself almost as if he were giving himself a childhood he had never had fulfilled he innately satisfied the public. Certainly creative, he also accumulated wealth that could have made him a snob. However, Disney never lost the common touch.

Disney’s place in the American panorama is secure. His classic works are regularly reissued in cinemas, a Disney Channel and other television productions keep his name prominently in the limelight, copyrighted Disney materials are marketed abundantly every day, and the California and Florida amusement parks easily exceed any others in attendance. Indeed, it has been suggested that Disneyland and Walt Disney World constitute America’s Mecca, shrines that most Americans visit at least once in their lives.

Disney seized opportunities as they presented themselves and, though hating failure, never feared it. The greatest key to Disney’s stunning success was probably his willingness to be selfish enough not only to be himself but also to risk his own and others’ bankrolls to prove that his ideas worked.

Bibliography

Apple, Max. “Uncle Walt.” Esquire, December, 1983. A quick and frank look at Disney and his accomplishments in a readable magazine format.

Barrier, Michael. The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Barrier, a noted animation historian, presents a detailed examination of Disney’s life and work and an analysis of his impact on American culture.

Culhane, John. Walt Disney’s “Fantasia.” New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1983. A rich, sensitive study by one of Disney’s most valued employees, concentrating on a film classic that caused Disney more than a few headaches. An excellent source.

Davidson, Bill. “The Fantastic Walt Disney.” The Saturday Evening Post, November 7, 1964. An interesting look into a Disney who had ventured into his varied nooks and crannies. Poignant in that Disney had little more than two years to live at the time of its publication.

Finch, Christopher. The Art of Walt Disney. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1973. Probably the best work done on Disney. Rich with illustrations, it also contains important biographical data, as well as a number of extremely challenging premises, not the least being a defense of Disney as a great artist.

Gabler, Neal. Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. New York: Knopf, 2006. A thorough examination of Disney’s life and work, especially good for its in-depth description of the early years of the Disney studio and how the studio created its groundbreaking animation.

Jackson, Kathy Merlock, ed. Walt Disney: Conversations. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006. A collection of newspaper and magazine interviews and speeches from 1929 through 1966 that provide an overview of Disney’s ideas, work, and personality.

Maltin, Leonard. The Disney Films. New York: Bonanza Books, 1973. An excellent source by one of the best film historians. The book is compartmented into such matters as features and shorts so that a sense of continuity is somewhat missing, but the book remains one of the best sources on Disney films.

Mosely, Leonard. Disney’s World. New York: Stein and Day, 1985. This study reveals some data never before published. For example, the author contends with the question of whether Disney’s corpse is in a cryogenic state and reaches no definite conclusions.

Munsey, Cecil. Disneyana: Walt Disney Collectibles. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1974. A fascinating work that seems to cover every marketed product from Disney’s long career. The book’s lone drawback is that, since its publication, the collector’s market has experienced tremendous inflation.

Schickel, Richard. The Disney Version. New York: Touchstone Books, 1985. A strong, challenging study, loaded with provocative side trips. Probably the most stimulating of the biographical studies, this latest edition is superior to the earlier works by the same author.

Thomas, Bob. Walt Disney. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976. The warmest Disney biography, without being sugarcoated. The author is a dependable, fair-minded, noted biographer, and his work served greatly to aid the later Leonard Mosely work.

Wallace, Kevin. “Onward and Upward with the Arts: The Engineering of Ease.” The New Yorker, September 7, 1963. A well-written, witty, informative, and thought-provoking treatment, typical of The New Yorker.

Related Articles in Great Events from History: The Twentieth Century

1901-1940: December 21, 1937: Disney Releases Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; November 13, 1940: Disney’s Fantasia Premieres.

1941-1970: April 19, 1948: ABC Begins Its Own Network Television Service; April, 1954: ABC Makes a Landmark Deal with Disney; July 17, 1955: Disneyland Amusement Park Opens.

1971-2000: October 1, 1982: EPCOT Center Opens; 1990’s: Disney Emerges as an Architectural Patron; April 12, 1992: Euro Disneyland Opens.