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Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Walt Disney Biography

Walt Disney photo


Walt Disney Biography (Walter Elias Disney) : The Walt Disney Company
Famous for : Creating Mickey Mouse, Disney Land, many much loved cartoons, and for being one of the first powerful media moguls.
Disney details : Born - December 5 , 1901 USA / Died - December 15, 1966 United States of America.
Walt Disney was the founder of the Walt Disney Company and creator of some of the world's most loved cartoon characters.His media empire grew from the success of a small animated mouse called Mickey Mouse. The Disney empire went on to include many popular cartoon characters, feature films, theme parks, Hollywood studios, television networks, and numerous other media assets.

Walter Elias Disney was born on the 5th of December, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois. His father Elias Disney was of Irish/Canadian descent and his mother Flora Call Disney was of German/American descent. Walt Disney had three brothers and one sister. The Disney family were raised on a farm in Missouri, USA where the young Walter developed an interest in drawing and trains.

The Disney family moved back to Chicago where Walt attended the McKinley High School and took night classes at the Chicago Art Institute. At sixteen years of age Walt Disney dropped out of school to join the army but was knocked back because of his age. Instead, he joined the Red Cross and was shipped to France for one year, where he drove an ambulance.

When Walt Disney returned from France he moved to Kansas City where his brother Roy Disney was working at a bank. Walt went to work at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio where he created commercial works for magazines, newspapers, and movie theaters.

Disney briefly started a company with the cartoonist Ub Iwerks, called "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists". The venture did not take off and the pair were forced to seek alternative paths to put food on the table. Disney and Iwwerks would later work together in creating some of the earliest popular Disney cartoon characters, including "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" and "Mickey Mouse".

After the failure of the Iwwerks-Disney Commercial Artists venture, Walt moved to Hollywood in Los Angeles. He went into partnership with his brother Roy and started what would eventually become the Walt Disney Company. His friend and previous business partner Ub Iwerks also came to Los Angeles and played an important role in the success of the company. It was here that Walt also met the young Lillian Bounds, who would later become his wife.

The first success the company had was with the "Alice Comedies" series, which featured animated animals with a real life girl. "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" was their second big success. The "Lucky Rabbit" brought success, but it also created a lot of problems in the company, which saw Disney lose many of his animators and the rights to the Oswald trademark which was owned by Universal. ("Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" did eventually return to the Disney company more than seventy years later when the Walt Disney Company bought the rights from NBC Universal in 2006.)

It was a squeaky sounding mouse with big ears that would go on to be Walt Disney's biggest success. "Mickey Mouse" was born on the 18th of November, 1928. Mickey first appeared in a silent short called "Plane Crazy", but it would be the "Steamboat Willie" cartoon with sound that made Mickey Mouse famous. Even though Walt Disney gets much of the credit and acknowledgment for creating the famous mouse, it is believed that his friend Ub Iwerks actually created Mickey Mouse. Walt Disney was the voice of Mickey Mouse up until 1946.

Mickey Mouse would go on to become a symbol for the Walt Disney Company. The little mouse that started the company appeared in many cartoons, full feature films, comic strips, books, video games, toys, and was made into every piece of merchandise imaginable. Mickey Mouse became bigger than just the Walt Disney Company, and even came to symbolize the country of America. The mouse went on to become a cultural icon.

Other popular cartoon characters that the Walt Disney Company went on to create include Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, Butch the Bulldog, Scrooge McDuck, Clarabelle Cow, and many more. The company also animated other characters like Bambi, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Dumbo, Hercules, and more.

The Walt Disney company received many Academy award nominations and was nominated for seven Emmys while Walt was alive. Disney's company had to overcome challenges like the workers strike in 1940, but the company mostly grew forward in leaps and bounds. The company went public in 1957 and continues to be a listed company on the New York Stock Exchange to this day.

Disney was working on plans for a theme park when he died from lung cancer complications in 1966. His brother Roy would follow his plans through and the Walt Disney World theme park was opened to the public in 1971. The company continued to grow after the death of Walt Disney and is now one of the largest media and entertainment conglomerates in the world.

Walt Disney and Lilly Disney had two children together. They gave birth to Diane Marie Disney in 1933 and later adopted their other daughter, Sharon Mae Disney who was born in 1934.

Walt Disney Quotes


Give the public everything you can give them, keep the place as clean as you can keep it, keep it friendly.
Walt Disney - Customers -
Success

I'd say it's been my biggest problem all my life.. it's money. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true.
Walt Disney - Challenges -
Money.


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