Who was Walt Disney?

Answer 1

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer and the founder of the Walt Disney Company. He is most well-known for creating Mickey Mouse and Disneyland, as well as his advances in animated film technology. Walt was married to Lillian Marie Bounds for forty-one years. They had two children, Diane and Sharon (who was adopted).

Walt was born in Chicago, IL on December 5, 1901, the fourth of five children. From a young age, he was interesting in drawing, taking night classes at the Kansas City Art Institute and Chicago Art Institute. He drew political cartoons for his school's newspaper. Walt become increasingly interested in joining the army to fight in World War 1 but was rejected for being underage. He instead served as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross.

After returning from France, Walt moved back to Kansas City and became a commercial artist, creating advertisements for magazines and newspapers. He worked briefly at the Kansas City Film Ad Company where he first experimented with animation using cardboard cutouts. Walt soon founded his own company, Laugh-O-Gram Studios, creating animated shorts for local movie theaters. Unfortunately the studio went bankrupt after just 14 months.

Walt and his brother Roy moved to California in 1923 and founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Burbank. Ub Iwerks, an animator who had worked with Walt in Kansas City, soon followed. Together they created the Alice Comedies and the popular Oswald the Lucky Rabbit series. However, the rights to Oswald were owned by Universal Pictures, who distributed the shorts. When Walt met with producer Charles Mintz to negotiate a higher budget, Mintz took Oswald and most of Disney's animators and started his own studio.

With the help of Iwerks and Les Clark, Walt created Mickey Mouse in 1928 to replace Oswald. Steamboat Willie, the first Disney short with synchronized sound, was an instant success. Mickey soon became the most popular cartoon character in world. Walt then began work on the Silly Symphonies series but did not get near as much audience response. In 1932 Disney released Flowers and Trees, the first commercially released film in three-strip Technicolor. All future released from Walt Disney Productions were created in full color.

In 1934, Walt began development of a feature length animated film. Although several international animated features had already been produced, they all used cardboard cutouts or stop-motion puppeteering, not cel animation. William Garity built the multiplane camera for use on the feature, creating more dimensional and realistic animated effects. Both Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and The Old Mill, the first films to use this new technique, were given Academy Awards. The success of Snow White led to the building of a new studio in Burbank.

During World War 2, Walt Disney Productions was contracted by the US government to create a series of instructional and training films, as well as pro-America propaganda. Post-war, Disney continued to produce a number of educational shorts. With animated films earning low profits and short films losing popularity, Walt chose to pursue live-action films beginning in 1950. This period also produced some of the most well-known Disney animated features, including Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan.

Walt began exploring new ways to promote his films as profits continued to drop. After visiting Children's Fairyland in Oakland with his children, Walt gathered a team of designers and engineers to plan a theme park. He also produced a television series for promotion. Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955. The Disneyland TV show became Walt Disney Presents, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, and finally The Wonderful World of Disney. 1955 also saw the debut of the Mickey Mouse Club, a variety show featuring child actors in musical and comedy sketches.

Walt Disney Productions was well-known by this time for their quality family programming, impeccably designed products, and highly imaginative concepts. Walt was chosen as the Head of Pageantry for the 1960 Winter Olympics and designed four pavilions at the 1964 New York World's Fair. The World's Fair attractions featured Audio-Animatronic figures, which Disney had created for the 1963 live-action film Mary Poppins. He began including them in Disneyland rides.

Walt had even bigger plans in mind for his theme parks. Disappointed by sudden development around Disneyland, he started buying land (a total of 30,000 acres) in Florida for a totally inclusive themed resort. The highlight of Disney World would be EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Before construction began, Walt was diagnosed with lung cancer from his lifelong smoking habit. He died on December 15, 1966, ten days after his sixty-fifth birthday.

Roy Disney pushed for the completion of the "Florida Project", dubbing it Walt Disney World in honor of his late brother. Walt Disney World opened on October 1, 1971. Diane and Sharon's husbands took over the major responsibilities at the studios after Roy's death in 1971. The Walt Disney Company has grown to become to largest entertainment company in the world.