Walter Elias Disney was an American businessman, voice actor, animator, and producer (DIZ-nee; December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966). He was an early trailblazer in the American animation business, and his innovations improved cartooning in many ways. He is the film producer with the most Academy Award nominations (59) and wins (22) of any one person. Among his many accolades were two Special Achievement Awards from the Golden Globes and an Emmy. The Library of Congress has listed several of his works in its National Film Registry, and the American Film Institute has rated them among the best of all time.
Disney, who was born in Chicago in 1901, had a passion for sketching from a young age. Beginning with early art instruction, he found work as a commercial illustrator by the time he was eighteen years old. In the early 1920s, he and his brother Roy relocated to California and established the Disney Brothers Studio, which is today known as The Walt Disney Company. In 1928, he and Ub Iwerks created Mickey Mouse, his first hugely successful venture; he also gave the early voice for his invention. He took greater risks as the studio expanded, offering innovations like synchronized sound, full-color three-strip Technicolor, feature-length cartoons, and improved camera technology. The outcome was a leap forward for animation filmmaking, as seen in classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942). Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Mary Poppins (1964), the latter of which won five Oscars, were among the new live-action and animated features that debuted following WWII.
Opening Disneyland in Anaheim, California in July 1955, Disney ventured into the theme park market in the 1950s. In order to finance the project, he ventured into television shows like The Mickey Mouse Club and Walt Disney's Disneyland. He also helped organize the Winter Olympics in 1960, the New York World's Fair in 1964, and the Moscow Fair in 1959. The "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow" (EPCOT) intended to be the centerpiece of his 1965 theme park, Disney World, which Walt was building at the same time. Before the park or the EPCOT project were finished, Disney passed away from lung cancer in 1966. He was a habitual smoker throughout his life.
In private, Disney was a timid, self-deprecating, and insecure guy, but in public, he became known for his warmth and extroversion. He expected a lot from his coworkers and had high standards himself. Numerous people who knew him have refuted the claims that he was racist or antisemitic. Some historians see Walt Disney as a symbol of American cultural imperialism, while others see him as a messenger of traditional patriotic principles. Disney, acknowledged as a national cultural icon in the United States, and widely regarded as one of the most significant cultural personalities of the twentieth century, had a lasting impact on the development of animation and American popular culture. In addition to his films' enduring popularity and numerous adaptations, Walt Disney's empire has expanded to include more and more theme parks across the globe.
In the Hermosa section of Chicago, at 1249 Tripp Avenue, Disney came into this world on December 5, 1901. He was Elias Disney's fourth son, right?—?brought up in the Canadian province by Irish parents?—?with Flora, whose maiden name was Call, an American of mixed German and English ancestry. The boys of Elias and Flora were Walt, Herbert, Raymond, and Roy; in December 1903, the couple had a fifth child, Ruth. Upon his uncle Robert's recent acquisition of property in Marceline, Missouri, the Disney family relocated to a farm in 1906, when Disney was four years old. After receiving payment to depict a retired local doctor's horse in Marceline, Disney's enthusiasm in art flourished. Disney would often mimic Ryan Walker's front-page cartoons when he was practicing for his own drawings, and Elias would read the Appeal to Reason newspaper. Additionally, he started to get better at using crayons and paints. His fascination with trains began when he was a child living near the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway line. In late 1909, he and his younger sister Ruth enrolled simultaneously at Marceline's Park School. A Congregational church was an important place of worship for the Disney family.
Moving to Kansas City, Missouri, the Disneys made the move in 1911. While enrolled at Benton Grammar School, Disney befriended Walter Pfeiffer, a fellow student who hailed from a theatrical family and enlightened Disney to the wonders of vaudeville and the cinema. Not long after moving there, Disney began to spend more time at the Pfeiffers' than at his own residence. Elias had bought a route to distribute the Kansas City Star and the Kansas City Times newspapers. Every morning at 4:30, Disney and his brother Roy would get up and deliver the Times before school. After school, they would repeat the process for the evening Star. Even though it was a demanding schedule and Disney frequently had low marks because he dozed off in class, he kept doing the paper route for over six years. The Kansas City Art Institute offered Saturday classes, and he also did a cartooning correspondence course.
Elias and his family relocated back to Chicago in 1917 when he purchased shares in the O-Zell Company, a jelly maker in the city. Attending McKinley High School, Disney became the school newspaper's cartoonist and drew patriotic images depicting World War I. He also attended night classes at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. The United States Army turned him down because he was too young to participate in World War I, which occurred in the middle of 1918. He became an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in September 1918 after falsifying his birth certificate. He didn't reach France until November, long after the armistice had ended. In addition to having his cartoons published in the army publication Stars and Stripes, he decorated the side of his ambulance with them. After his trip to New York, he went back to Kansas City in October 1919 to become an apprentice artist at the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio. There, he encountered fellow artist Ub Iwerks and made commercial graphics for advertising, theater programs, and catalogs.
Disney, who was 18 years old at the time, and Iwerks were both let go by Pesmen-Rubin in January 1920 due to a drop in income following Christmas. They formed their own company, Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists, which did not last long. When business dried up, Walt and Iwerks came to an agreement that he should take a short leave to work for A.'s Kansas City Film Ad Company. V. Cauger; the next month, Iwerks, who was unable to manage their company on their own, also became a member. Using cutout animation, the business made ads. Although he favored hand-drawn cartoons like Out of the Inkwell by Max Fleischer and Mutt and Jeff, Disney developed an interest in animation. He started tinkering at home with the help of a borrowed animation book and a webcam. After considering his options, he decided that cel animation had more potential than the cutout technique. Disney and Fred Harman, an employee of the Film Ad Co., started a separate firm after Disney failed to convince Cauger to attempt cel animation at the company. They created short cartoons under the name "Newman's Laugh-O-Grams" and mostly catered to the local Newman Theater. With Paul Terry's Aesop's Fables as an example, Disney created six "Laugh-O-Grams" that updated traditional fairy tales.
Iwerks, Hugh Harman (Fred's brother), Rudolf Ising, and Fred Harman himself were among the other animators he brought on board when he founded Laugh-O-Gram Studio in May 1921 in response to the "Laugh-O-Grams" popularity. When Disney's Laugh-O-Grams cartoons failed to generate enough money to keep the business afloat, they began making Alice's Wonderland instead.—?based on the book "Alice in Wonderland"?—?in which he cast Virginia Davis as the lead; the production blended live action and animation. In 1923, Laugh-O-Gram Studio declared bankruptcy due to the completion of the outcome, a 12-and-a-half-minute picture with only one reel.
At the age of 21, Disney relocated to Hollywood in July 1923. He wanted to be a live-action film director and his brother Roy was recovering from TB in Los Angeles, so he moved there even though New York was the cartoon industry's epicentre. Prior to receiving a message from Margaret J. Winkler, a film distributor based in New York, Disney's endeavors to sell Alice's Wonderland proved fruitless. She required a fresh series as she was about to lose the rights to the Felix the Cat and Out of the Inkwell cartoons. They inked a deal in October for six episodes of the Alice comedy and have the option to do two more six-episode series. What happened when Roy Disney and Walt Disney established the Disney Brothers Studio?—?the one that evolved into Disney, Inc.?—?the movies; they convinced Davis and her family to go to Hollywood so they could keep making them, paying Davis $100 per month. Disney also recruited Iwerks in July 1924, convincing him to leave Kansas City for Hollywood. Before its demolition in 1940, 2725 Hyperion Avenue was home to the first Walt Disney Studio, which opened to the public in 1926.
Despite occasional tensions between the two parties, Winkler's husband, the film producer Charles Mintz, took over distribution duties for the Alice series by 1926. By July of 1927, Disney had become bored with the series and wished to switch to an animated format entirely, ending the blended format. Mintz asked Disney and Iwerks to come up with fresh content for Universal Pictures to market, so they did. The result was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a figure that Disney envisioned as "peppy, alert, saucy and venturesome, keeping him also neat and trim."
When Disney approached Mintz in February 1928 about creating the Oswald series, they were hoping to negotiate a higher price. However, Mintz was interested in reducing the fees. Harman, Ising, Carman Maxwell, and Friz Freleng were among the artists whom Mintz had convinced to work for him personally. Additionally, Disney learned that Universal was the rightful owner of Oswald's intellectual property. If Disney would not accept the cuts, Mintz vowed to launch his own studio and create the show himself. Almost all of Disney's animators left when he turned down Mintz's ultimatum; only Iwerks stayed.
From 1928 until 1934, there were several achievements, including the creation of Mickey Mouse.
Iwerks and Disney created Mickey Mouse to take Oswald's place; the character's roots are murky, although it may have been based on a pet mouse that Disney had while working at his Laugh-O-Gram studio. Disney's wife Lillian believed the name Mortimer Mouse was too haughty and proposed Mickey instead. To make the figure more amenable to animation, Iwerks made revisions to Disney's first designs. Up until 1947, Disney—who had started to withdraw from animation—provided Mickey's voice. As one Disney employee put it, "Ub designed Mickey's physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul."
In May 1928, Mickey Mouse made his debut in a limited showing of the short film Plane Crazy. Unfortunately, neither that film nor its sequel, The Gallopin' Gaucho, were able to get a distributor. After the smash hit The Jazz Singer in 1927, Disney made history with the first post-produced sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie, which utilized synchronized sound in its third short. Following the completion of the animation, Disney inked a deal with Pat Powers, a former executive of Universal Pictures, to utilize the "Powers Cinephone" recording method. Cinephone subsequently started distributing Disney's early sound cartoons, which quickly gained popularity.
Iwerks did all the drawing and animation for the first Silly Symphony film, The Skeleton Dance (1929), but Disney brought in professional composer and arranger Carl Stalling to elevate the score. The series tells stories through music. They also brought on board a number of artists from the area and New York. Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies were both financially successful, but Disney and his brother thought they weren't getting their fair share from Powers. In 1930, Disney attempted to save money by suggesting that Iwerks stop sketching each picture separately and instead have helpers do the in-between postures. This would be more efficient. Disney requested that Powers raise the price for the cartoons. Stalling quit soon after Powers rejected and hired Iwerks; he was afraid the Disney Studio would shut down without Iwerks. In October 1931, Disney suffered a psychological breakdown.—?which he ascribed to Powers's schemes and his own exhaustion?—?In order to recuperate, he and Lillian went on a long vacation to Cuba and a Panama Canal cruise.
After Powers stepped down as distributor, Disney Studios partnered with Columbia Pictures to bring the Mickey Mouse cartoons to a wider audience, both domestically and abroad. Along with Pluto in 1930, Goofy in 1932, and Donald Duck in 1934, Disney and his team also debuted new animated talents. With the support of his new arrangement with United Artists and his insatiable need for technological innovation, Walt Disney shot Flowers and Trees (1932) in full-color three-strip Technicolor. He also managed to secure a deal that granted him exclusive use of the three-strip technique until August 31, 1935. From there on forth, every Silly Symphony animation used color. At the 1932 Academy Awards, Flowers and Trees took home the prize for best short subject (cartoon), a category that was new at the time. In the same category, Disney had already earned an Honorary Award "for the creation of Mickey Mouse" and had another picture, Mickey's Orphans, nominated for a nomination.
According to media historian Adrian Danks, "the most successful short animation of all time" was Disney's 1933 feature The Three Little Pigs. In the Short Subject (Cartoon) category, the picture brought home another Oscar for Disney. As a result of the film's popularity, the studio's crew increased even more, reaching over 200 by the year's conclusion. Disney established a "story department" distinct from the animators, staffed by storyboard artists who would outline the narratives of Disney's films, after realizing the significance of delivering emotionally engaging tales that would captivate the audience.
After becoming disillusioned with cartoon shorts in 1933, Disney decided that a feature-length animation would provide better financial results. Based on the classic children's story, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has begun a four-year production run at the studio. Industry insiders dubbed the project "Disney's Folly" after widespread speculation that it would bankrupt the studio upon its announcement. How about $1.5 million for the making of the first animated picture with full color and sound?—?$3,000 more than anticipated. To make sure the animation was spot on, Disney had his animators take classes at the Chouinard Art Institute, and he even brought in animals and people to help them practice realistic movement. As the camera pans around a scene, the animators at Disney came up with a multiplane camera that could draw on glass panels placed at different distances from the camera to provide the impression of depth, capturing the shifting perspective of the backdrop. You might make it look like a camera is moving through the scene by adjusting the glass. The very first piece of photography art?—?one titled "The Old Mill" (1937)?—?took up the prize for Best Animated Short Film at the Academy Awards for its stunning visual effects. Disney had several scenes redrawn to include the new effects, even though Snow White was nearly finished when the multiplane camera was developed.
After its December 1937 premiere, Snow White received rave reviews from both reviewers and audiences. With a cumulative revenue of $6.5 million by May 1939, the picture had already been the most profitable sound picture up to that point, and it became the most profitable motion picture of 1938. Along with one large and seven little Oscar statuettes, Disney also received an Honorary Academy Award. The Walt Disney Family Museum refers to the years after Snow White's triumph as "the 'Golden Age of Animation,'" which were among the studio's most fruitful periods. After finishing up Snow White in 1937, the studio moved on to Pinocchio and Fantasia in 1938. Neither of these 1940 releases did very well in the cinema.—?in part because, with the outbreak of WWII in 1939, income from Europe began to decline. By the end of February 1941, the studio was badly in debt due to the loss it had on both films.
In 1940, in reaction to the economic downturn, Walt Disney and his brother Roy began the first public stock offering of the corporation and instituted severe wage cuts. A five-week animators' strike broke out in 1941 as a result of the latter measure and Disney's occasionally abrupt and callous treatment of employees. In order to avoid being present during a resolution that he knew would be detrimental to the studio, Disney accepted a trip to South America from the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs while a federal mediator from the National Labor Relations Board mediated the negotiations between the parties. In light of the strike?—?and the company's financial situation?—?When a number of animators quit, it severely damaged Disney's rapport with the remaining employees. Because of the strike, Disney had to postpone their next picture, Dumbo (1941), which they made in an uncomplicated and cheap way; critics and spectators alike praised the picture.
Disney established the Walt Disney Training Films Unit in October 1941, not long after Dumbo's premiere, to create instructional films for the military, such Four Methods of Flush Riveting and Aircraft Production Methods, in preparation for the United States' entry into World War II. The Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr., and Disney met, and the latter agreed to have Disney create brief Donald Duck cartoons to advertise war bonds. Shorts like Der Fuehrer's Face? were among Disney's propaganda creations.—?which one took home the Oscar?—?and Victory Through Air Power, a 1943 film.
The money from the military films barely covered production costs, and Bambi?—?the manufacture of which had begun in 1937?—?bombed upon release in August 1942, resulting in a $200,000 loss for the studio. In1944, the firm owed the Bank of America $4 million and had poor profits on Fantasia and Pinocchio. In a meeting with Bank of America executives to discuss the company's future, Amadeo Giannini, the bank's chairman and founder, informed his colleagues, "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 you have to relax and give them time to market their product." Short film production by Disney declined in the late 1940s, when Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer were becoming more formidable competitors in the animation industry. Roy Disney advocated for more hybrid projects combining animation and live-action due to budgetary considerations. A winner in the Best Short Subject (Two-Reel) category at the Academy Awards in 1948, Seal Island was the first of a successful series of live-action nature films produced by Disney and called True-Life Adventures.
After an eight-year hiatus, Walt Disney finally returned to the animated feature film genre in early 1950 with Cinderella. Both reviewers and theatergoers seemed to like it. Its first year earnings were approximately $8 million, despite its $2.2 million production cost. Since Disney was involved in his first live-action film, Treasure Island (1950), shot in Britain, as well as The Story of Robin Hood and His Merry Men (1952), he was less active than in earlier projects. Several more live-action films with patriotic themes followed. Additionally, he persisted in making feature-length animated films, such as Peter Pan (1953) and Alice in Wonderland (1951). Despite his constant presence at story sessions, Disney started to delegate more and more of the animation department's operations to his top animators, the Nine Old Men, in the early to mid-1950s. He shifted his focus to other endeavors instead. Disney also replaced his previous distributor, RKO Pictures, with his own film distribution division, Buena Vista, about the same time.
Disney has been thinking about constructing a theme park for a while. He envisioned a pristine, undeveloped park where families might enjoy themselves when he took his girls to Griffith Park in Los Angeles. The orderliness and structure of Copenhagen, Denmark's Tivoli Gardens had a profound impact on him. He successfully obtained the necessary zoning approvals to construct a theme park in Burbank, close to the Disney studios, in March 1952. Because it was too cramped, they went ahead and bought a bigger land in Anaheim, which is about 35 miles (56 km) south of the studio. In order to separate the project from the recording facility?—?which might result in shareholder criticism?—?The team of designers and animators that Disney personally funded through WED Enterprises (now Walt Disney Imagineering) came to be known as the "Imagineers" as they worked on the blueprints. He sent invitations to more investors, American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres?, after securing bank finance.—?under the umbrella of ABC?—?company that prints and lithographs western products. Around the middle of 1954, Disney dispatched his Imagineers to each amusement park in the United States to document the successes and failures of each park. He then used this information to inform his design. Around 70 million people tuned in to see the opening ceremony of Disneyland, which took place in July 1955, after construction had begun in July 1954. Central to the park's layout is Main Street, USA?, which connects a number of themed areas.—?just like the main street of Marceline, where he grew up. Four interconnected theme parks: Tomorrowland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Adventureland. The park also included the narrow gauge Disneyland Railroad, which connected the various zones; a high berm encircled the park's perimeter, creating a barrier between it and the outside world. The New York Times editorial board "tastefully combined some of the pleasant things of yesterday with fantasy and dreams of tomorrow" while evaluating Disney's work. Despite a few hiccups in the beginning, Disneyland was a smashing success. Within the first month of opening, the park was drawing in over 20,000 customers per day, and by the end of its first year, it had raked in 3.6 million.
Disney television shows were a prerequisite for the funding from ABC. The studio was involved in a Christmas Day 1950 TV special that was popular; it was about Alice in Wonderland's production. Roy thought the show made millions more for the movie. "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," he stated in a letter to shareholders in March 1951. Following the approval of funding for Disneyland in 1954, ABC aired Walt Disney's Disneyland, an anthology program featuring animated shorts, live-action films, and other studio archives. Having captured more than half of the target demographic, the show was financially and critically successful. Newsweek referred to the show as a "American institution" in April 1955. The Mickey Mouse Club, a children's variety show, was Disney's first daily television program, and ABC was happy with the numbers. Several firms created merchandise to go along with the program. Western Printing, which has been making coloring books and comics for more than 20 years, was one of them. They made a number of things related to the show. Davy Crockett, a five-episode serial that "became an overnight sensation" (Disney historian Neal Gabler), was a component of Disneyland. With ten million recordings sold, "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" became an international hit and the show's theme tune. Consequently, Disney established Disneyland Records, his own record manufacturing and distribution company.
Outside of the studio, Disney was involved in various initiatives, including the development of Disneyland. As a consultant to the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow, he oversaw the production of Disney Studios' America the Beautiful, a 19-minute video that was a hit in the 360-degree Circarama theater. In the following year, he oversaw the Pageantry Committee for the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California, and was responsible for creating the ceremonial backdrops for the beginning, end, and medal presentations. When the Celebrity Sports Center was opened in Glendale, Colorado in 1960, Walt was one of twelve investors. In 1962, he and Roy acquired out the other investors, leaving the Disney corporation as the sole owner.
Disney persisted in developing film and television projects despite the pressures of non-studio endeavors. The 1955 Disneyland series episode "Man in Space" featured him and NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun. We worked together on the production. The Sword in the Stone (1963), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), Sleeping Beauty (1959), Lady and the Tramp (1955), and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1955) were all full-length features that Disney oversaw in some way. Sleeping Beauty was the first animated feature film to use Technirama 70 mm film. One Hundred and One Dalmatians also used Xerox cels.
Mary Poppins was a 1964 Disney film adaptation of the children's book series by P. L. Travers; he'd been attempting to get the story's rights since the '40s. Although Travers regretted selling the rights to the film and strongly loathed it, it became the most popular Disney picture of the 1960s. During the same year, he also commissioned an architect to create designs for an expansion of the California Institute of the Arts, more often known as CalArts.
Disney secured funds from specific business sponsors to host four exhibitions at the 1964 New York World's Fair. In collaboration with PepsiCo, Disney created It's a Small World, a boat ride featuring audio-animatronic dolls representing children from around the globe. Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln featured an animatronic Abraham Lincoln reading passages from his speeches. Carousel of Progress highlighted the significance of electricity, while Ford's Magic Skyway depicted the advancements that humanity has made. All four display components?—?mostly ideas and tools?—?came back to Disneyland, however the attraction that has the best resemblance to the original is It's a Small World.
Mineral King is a glacier valley in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, and it was in the early to mid-1960s that Disney had plans for a ski resort there. Ski area designer Willy Schaeffler and Olympic ski coach were among the specialists he brought on board. Disney kept searching for locations for new attractions as the percentage of the studio's revenue coming from Disneyland grew. He proposed a theme park in downtown St. Louis, Missouri in 1963 and had an agreement with the Civic Center Redevelopment Corp, the landowner, but the venture fell through due to a lack of financing. "Disney World" (now Walt Disney World) was to be his second theme park, and he announced its development a few miles southwest of Orlando, Florida, in late 1965. There was supposed to be a "Magic Kingdom" in Disney World, right?—?a sprawling, multi-level Disneyland?—?in addition to vacation hotels and golf courses. He outlined the "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow" (EPCOT) as the centerpiece of Disney World and gave it the following description:
an experimental prototype village of the future that will model itself after the innovative ideas and technology already sprouting up throughout the United States' creative hubs of industry. The utopia of the future will be an ongoing process of creating, testing, and showcasing innovative systems and materials. Plus, the American spirit of free entrepreneurship will forever be on display at EPCOT.
In 1966, Disney actively sought for companies that might be interested in sponsoring EPCOT. The 1966 film Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. included him as Retlaw Yensid, his name written backwards, in a screenplay credit. A more active participant in the studio's film productions, he contributed significantly to the plot of 1967's The Happiest Millionaire, 1968's Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, and 1967's The Jungle Book, a live-action musical picture.
Since the end of World War I, Disney had been a heavy smoker; he had smoked pipes when he was younger and didn't use filter cigarettes. He had cobalt treatment after receiving a lung cancer diagnosis in early November 1966. He became ill on November 30 and was sent to St. Joseph Hospital by ambulance. On December 15, at the age of 65, he passed away from circulatory collapse induced by the malignancy. Two days after his death, he was cremated and laid to rest at Glendale, California's Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
In 1967, Disney's overall involvement in feature films reached 81 with the release of The Jungle Book and The Happiest Millionaire. Disney received a posthumous Academy Award for their 1968 short subject cartoon Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. His studios kept cranking out live-action flicks when Disney passed away, but they let the quality of their animated features deteriorate. The "Disney Renaissance" that started with The Little Mermaid in the late 80s started to turn this tendency around, according to the New York Times (1989). Disney's studios have a long history of making popular movies, TV shows, and theatrical productions.
The EPCOT metropolis that Disney had envisioned for the future never materialized. Roy Disney postponed retirement in order to assume complete leadership of the Disney enterprises following Walt Disney's death. Instead of concentrating on a settlement, he shifted the project's focus to an attraction. Roy presented Walt Disney World to his brother during the 1971 opening. With the launch of Epcot Center in 1982, Walt Disney World grew; however, instead of a working city, the park took the form of a permanent world's fair, rather than Walt Disney's original idea. Diane, Walt's daughter, and Walter E. D. Miller, Walt's son, were responsible for the design of the Walt Disney Family Museum, which opened in the Presidio of San Francisco in 2009. Among the thousands of items on exhibit are Disney's many accolades and other mementos from his life and work. About 134 million people visited Disney theme parks in 2014.
* One's private life and personality*
Disney recruited Lillian Bounds, an ink artist, in the beginning of 1925. In July of that year, they tied the knot at her brother's residence in Lewiston, Idaho, her hometown. Historian Steven Watts described Lillian as "content with household management and providing support for her husband," and Disney biographer Neal Gabler said that she did not "accept Walt's decisions meekly or his status unquestionably." Lillian had little interest in films and the Hollywood social scene, and she admitted that Walt was always telling people 'how henpecked he is.' The marriage was generally happy, according to Lillian. Diane, born in December 1933, and Sharon, born six weeks earlier and adopted in December 1936, were the two daughters born to their marriage. Neither Disney nor his wife concealed Sharon's adoption from family members, but they did get irritated when those outside the family brought it up. It was especially important for the Disneys to shield their girls from publicity after the Lindbergh kidnapping, so Walt Disney made sure the press didn't picture them.
A new house in Los Angeles's Holmby Hills neighborhood was Disney and his family's 1949 relocation. Disney drew up plans and got to work building a little live steam railroad in his garden with the assistance of his friends Ward and Betty Kimball, who had their own railroad in the backyard. His home on Carolwood Drive inspired the railroad's name, the Carolwood Pacific Railroad. When Disney's wife Lilly Belle was born, her husband named the tiny steam locomotive after her. However, after three years on the job, the engineer from Disney Studios, Roger E. Broggie, had to put the locomotive in storage because of a string of mishaps involving guests.
With age, Disney became increasingly politically conservative. He was a staunch backer of Thomas E. Dewey's 1944 presidential campaign after switching parties from the Democratic to the Republican after the 1940 election. When Disney faced organized labor movements, he resorted to red-baiting. After a cartoonist went on strike against him in 1941, he bought a whole page in Variety to accuse "Communistic agitation" of the problem. He joined the Movement to Preserve American Ideals in 1946, a group that "believed[ed] in, and liked, 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." And so it began. During the Second Red Scare in 1947, Disney gave a testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). In it, he accused three former animators and union organizers—Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman, and William Pomerance—of being communist agitators and said that the 1941 strike that Sorrell had led was part of a larger communist plot to influence Hollywood.
Supposedly, Disney had been an informant for the FBI, providing confidential material to J. in 1993, according to the New York Times. Edgar Hoover about communist endeavors in the entertainment industry. While Walt Disney was officially designated as a "Special Agent in Charge Contact" in 1954, the FBI asserts that this designation was mostly bestowed as an honorific to community people who may potentially benefit the bureau. According to the declassified and publicly available Walt Disney file on the FBI's website, the majority of Disney's correspondence with the bureau (through studio employees) concerned the creation of educational films. These films included an unfinished 1961 educational short that would have warned children about the dangers of child molestation and a specific episode of the "Career Day" newsreel segments on The Mickey Mouse Club that focused on the bureau (which aired in January 1958).
Disney's public image was drastically at odds with his true character. Robert E. Sherwood, a playwright, said he was "almost painfully shy... diffident" and had a love of making fun of himself. His biographer Richard Schickel claims that Disney's public character served as a mask for his introverted and insecure nature. Disney, according to Kimball, "played the role of a bashful tycoon who was embarrassed in public" and was fully aware of it. One critic, Otis Ferguson of The New Republic, described the private Disney as "common and everyday, not inaccessible, not in a foreign language, not suppressed or sponsored or anything. Just Disney." Many of Disney's coworkers noted that he seldom encouraged them because of his extraordinarily high standards, but Disney himself admitted the facade and told a friend, "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." According to Norman, Disney's phrase "That'll work" was a sign of great admiration. Instead of giving his stamp of approval, Disney would suggest people to others or provide financial bonuses to employees who performed very well.
Public Perception ==
Opinions on Walt Disney and his works have evolved and become more divided over the years. According to Mark Langer in the American Dictionary of National Biography, "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." Steven Watts said that some critics denounce Disney "as a cynical manipulator of cultural and commercial formulas," and PBS said that critics have criticized his work for having a "smooth façade of sentimentality and stubborn optimism, its feel-good re-write of American history."
The fact that a month following Kristallnacht, Disney granted Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl a studio tour has led to accusations of antisemitism. Hurbert "Jay" Stowitts, a painter and ballet dancer who was friendly with Riefenstahl and a former colleague of Leopold Stokowski, who was working with Disney on Fantasia at the time, asked Riefenstahl to invite him. Another month down the road, a Disney representative informed the New York Daily News, "Miss Riefenstahl got into the studio, but she crashed the gate. A Los Angeles man who is known to Disney obtained permission to take a party through the plant. Leni was in the party. If we had known in advance she wouldn't have gotten in." Jim Korkis, an animation historian, speculates that Disney might have met with Riefenstahl for financial reasons, trying to recover more than 135,000 Reichsmarks owed to his German film distributor and get the ban on Disney films lifted in Germany. The notoriously envious animator Art Babbitt, who was responsible for the studio walkout of 1941 and had a long-standing animosity against Walt Disney, said in his twilight years that he had witnessed the late-thirties conference of the pro-Nazi German American Bund and his lawyer. Though Disney's biographer Neal Gabler claims: "...that was highly unlikely, not only because Walt had little enough time for his family, much less political meetings, but because he had no real political leanings at the time." Neither Disney's office appointment book nor any other employee ever asserted that he went to Bund rallies. According to Gabler, Disney was apolitical and "something of a political naïf" during the 1930s and he had previously told one reporter – as tensions in Europe were brewing – that America should "let 'em fight their own wars" claiming he had "learned my lesson" from World War I. Disney also demonstrated his political naivete in an October 1933 article for Overland Monthly claiming: "Of course there must be millions of people who have a downright feeling of animosity for our M. Mouse. Mr. A. Hitler, the Nazi old thing, says that Mickey's silly. Imagine that! Well, Mickey is going to save Mr. A Hitler from drowning or something some day. Just wait and see if he doesn't. Then won't Mr. A. Hitler be ashamed!"
In late 1939, while Disney was planning to relocate his employees to a brand-new studio in Burbank, an employee inquired as to how the newly-started war in Europe would impact the building process. In response, Disney asked, "What war?" Throughout World War II, Disney produced anti-Nazi propaganda films for both the general audience (like Der Fuehrer's Face and Education for Death) and the United States government. Enlisting contracts from different branches of the US Armed Forces to produce training films began in October 1940, more than a year before America's entry into the war. In March 1941, Disney formally offered his services "...for national defence industries at cost and without profit." His motivation for making this offer was a desire to assist as best he could during the current emergency. Viewing these training films, which contained highly classified information, required the highest level of security clearance. U.S. policy would have been different if Disney had ever supported Nazism. He couldn't have made these movies if the government had let him.
Disney was voted "Man of the Year" in 1955 by the B'nai B'rith chapter in Beverly Hills, and the Walt Disney Family Museum notes that although some early cartoons did use ethnic stereotypes prevalent in 1930s cinema, Disney was also a regular donor to Jewish charities. There was no indication of antisemitism on Disney's side, according to the group. The plaque read: "For exemplifying the best tenets of American citizenship and inter-group understanding and interpreting into action the ideals of B'nai B'rith." Disney employed a large number of Jewish individuals, including those in prominent positions, and recognized their contributions. Even the most bitterly anti-Disney employee, animator Art Babbitt, never once accused Disney of using antisemitic insults or taunts. According to Joe Grant, a Jewish story man who was closely associated with Disney in the 1930s and 1940s, Disney was not antisemitic and had Jewish studio employees. Singer Robert B. Sherman recalled that when one of Disney's lawyers made antisemitic comments about him and his brother Richard, Disney defended them and fired the attorney. The first writer to have unfettered access to the Disney archives, Gabler, draws the conclusion that antisemitism claims lack evidence and that Disney's association with the rumored anti-Communist group Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (founded in 1944) is largely responsible for his reputation. To paraphrase Gabler, "...though Walt himself, in my estimation, was not antisemitic, nevertheless, he willingly allied himself with people who were antisemitic, and that reputation stuck. He was never really able to expunge it throughout his life." Disney severed ties with the Motion Picture Alliance and remained disassociated from the group after 1947.
The daughter of Disney, Diane Disney-Miller, claims that her sister Sharon had an affair with a Jewish man. Diane claims that her father approved of her relationship and even commented, "Sharon, I think it's wonderful how these Jewish families have accepted you."
Some of Disney's works from the 1930s through the 1950s have racially inappropriate content, which has led to accusations of various types of racism. According to Gabler, "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."
While the film Song of the South was panned by critics of the time and the NAACP for perpetuating racist stereotypes, Disney became fast friends with James Baskett, who starred in the picture, and praised him as "the best actor, I believe, to be discovered in years." The two remained in touch long after the film's release, with Walt even sending Baskett gifts. In addition to providing financial assistance for Baskett and his family as his health deteriorated, Disney spearheaded an effort to have Baskett made history as the first black actor to receive an Honorary Academy Award for his work. Shortly after, Baskett passed away. In a letter to Disney, his widow expressed her gratitude for his support, saying that he had been a "friend in deed and [we] certainly have been in need." Floyd Norman, the first Black animator at the studio and a close collaborator of Walt Disney's in the 1950s and 1960s, remarked, "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."
In his analysis of Disney's post-WWII films, Watts contends that these works "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." Film historian Jay P. Telotte agrees that many view Disney as a "agent of manipulation and repression," but notes that the studio has "labored throughout its history to link its name with notions of fun, family, and fantasy." In Cultural Imperialism, John Tomlinson analyzes the work of Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart. In their 1971 book Para leer al Pato Donald (transl. How to Read Donald Duck), the authors claim that "imperialist... values 'concealed' behind the innocent, wholesome façade of the world of Walt Disney." They contend that this is a potent tool because "it presents itself as harmless fun for consumption by children." However, Tomlinson finds their argument to be unfounded because "they simply assume that reading American comics, seeing adverts, watching pictures of the affluent... ['Yankee'] lifestyle has a direct pedagogic effect."
There have been many fictitious depictions of Disney. H. World Dictator Rud is terrified that Donald Duck is out to ridicule the dictator in G. Wells's 1938 book The Holy Terror, in which the author makes reference to Disney. The made-for-TV film A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story (1996) starred Len Cariou as Disney, while the 2013 film Saving Mr. Banks had Tom Hanks. The fictitious work of Disney's latter years, Der König von Amerika (trans: The King of America), released in 2001 by the German author Peter Stephan Jungk, reimagines him as a bigoted power-hungry figure. The Perfect American (2013) is an opera based on the novel by Philip Glass.
Many observers have praised Disney, calling them a cultural icon. Professor of journalism Ralph S. Izard writes in his obituary that Disney embodied ideals "held in high regard in American Christian society," such as "individualism, decency,... love for our fellow man, fair play and tolerance." "Wholehearted, warm-hearted and entertaining... of incomparable artistry and of touching beauty" are the words used to describe the films in Walt Disney's obituary. Reporter Alistair Cooke dubbed Disney a "folk-hero... the Pied Piper of Hollywood," and journalist Bosley Crowther compared his "achievement as a creator of entertainment for an almost unlimited public and as a highly ingenious merchandiser of his wares to the most successful industrialists in history." Gabler deemed Disney as someone who "reshaped the culture and the American consciousness." Langer states in the aforementioned encyclopedia:
In the annals of animation, Disney is still the man to beat. He turned a small studio in a niche medium into a global powerhouse in the entertainment sector through technical advancements and partnerships with governments and companies. Even while he had detractors, his idea of a business utopia that embodies traditional American values may have been more popular in the years after his passing.
The "Inspiring Walt Disney" tribute exhibition, which ran for three months beginning in December 2021, was a befitting tribute to the late Walt Disney.
Disney set a new record with 59 nominations and 22 wins at the Academy Awards. Even though he didn't take home a trophy from his three Golden Globe nominations, he did receive two Special Achievement Awards.—?regards to Bambi (1942) and The Living Desert (1953)?—?the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and others. In addition, the Disneyland TV series garnered four Emmy Award nominations from him, with one of those awards going to Best Producer. Steamboat Willie, The Three Little Pigs, A Christmas Carol, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo, Mary Poppins, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs are just a few of his films that the Library of Congress has included to the US National Film Registry due to its "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" qualities. Fantasia (at number 58) and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (at number 49) were both featured in the 1998 American Film Institute list of the 100 best American films, compiled from the opinions of industry insiders.
The Hollywood Walk of Fame acquired two stars for Disney in February 1960—one for his contributions to motion films and the other for his work in television. In 1978, Mickey Mouse gained his own star for motion pictures, and in 2005, Disneyland received one. Among Disney's many accolades are inductions into the following halls: the Television Hall of Fame in 1986, the California Hall of Fame in December 2006, the Anaheim Walk of Stars in 2014 as the first recipient, and the Orange County Hall of Fame in 2023 as a member of the first class.
He "along with members of his staff, received more than 950 honors and citations from throughout the world," according to the Walt Disney Family Museum. He received the Officer d'Academie, France's highest artistic honor, in 1952, and the Chevalier rank in the Légion d'honneur, France's highest military distinction, in 1935. In addition to the Order of the Crown (1960) from Thailand, the Order of Merit (1956) from Germany, the Order of the Southern Cross (1941) from Brazil, and the Order of the Aztec Eagle (1943) from Mexico are among the other national decorations. American officials presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on September 14, 1964, and posthumously bestowed the Congressional Gold Medal on May 24, 1968. His work in promoting the "appreciation and understanding of nature" through his True-Life Adventures nature films earned him the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners and the Audubon Medal, the highest accolade from the National Audubon Society, in 1955. A minor planet, 4017 Disneya, was named after him in 1980 by astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina. He also received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, USC, and UC Los Angeles.