During a 43-year Hollywood career, which spanned the
development of the motion picture medium as a modern American art,
Walter Elias Disney, a modern Aesop, established himself and his product
as a genuine part of Americana.
David Low, the late British political cartoonist, called Disney “the
most significant figure in graphic arts since Leonardo.” A pioneer and
innovator, and the possessor of one of the most fertile imaginations the
world has ever known, Walt Disney, along with members of his staff,
received more than 950 honors and citations from throughout the world,
including 48 Academy Awards® and 7 Emmys® in his lifetime.
Walt Disney’s personal awards included honorary degrees from Harvard,
Yale, the University of Southern California, and UCLA; the Presidential
Medal of Freedom; France’s Legion of Honor and Officer d’Academie
decorations; Thailand’s Order of the Crown; Brazil’s Order of the
Southern Cross; Mexico’s Order of the Aztec Eagle; and the Showman of
the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners.
The creator of Mickey Mouse and founder of Disneyland and Walt Disney
World was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1901. His father,
Elias Disney, was an Irish-Canadian. His mother, Flora Call Disney, was
of German-American descent. Walt was one of five children, four boys
and a girl.
Raised on a farm near Marceline, Missouri, Walt early became
interested in drawing, selling his first sketches to neighbors when he
was only seven years old. At McKinley High School in Chicago, Disney
divided his attention between drawing and photography, contributing both
to the school paper. At night he attended the Academy of Fine Arts.
During the fall of 1918, Disney attempted to enlist for military
service. Rejected because he was only 16 years of age, Walt joined the
Red Cross and was sent overseas, where he spent a year driving an
ambulance and chauffeuring Red Cross officials. His ambulance was
covered from stem to stern, not with stock camouflage, but with drawings
and cartoons.
After the war, Walt returned to Kansas City, where he began his
career as an advertising cartoonist. Here, in 1920, he created and
marketed his first original animated cartoons, and later perfected a new
method for combining live-action and animation.
In August of 1923, Walt Disney left Kansas City for Hollywood with
nothing but a few drawing materials, $40 in his pocket and a completed
animated and live-action film. Walt’s brother Roy O. Disney was already
in California, with an immense amount of sympathy and encouragement,
and $250. Pooling their resources, they borrowed an additional $500 and
constructed a camera stand in their uncle’s garage. Soon, they
received an order from New York for the first “Alice Comedy” short, and
the brothers began their production operation in the rear of a Hollywood
real estate office two blocks away.
On July 13, 1925, Walt married one of his first employees, Lillian
Bounds, in Lewiston, Idaho. They were blessed with two daughters —
Diane, married to Ron Miller, former president and chief executive
officer of Walt Disney Productions; and Sharon Disney Lund, formerly a
member of Disney’s Board of Directors. The Millers have seven children
and Mrs. Lund had three. Mrs. Lund passed away in 1993.
Walt’s drive to perfect the art of animation was endless.
Technicolor® was introduced to animation during the production of his
“Silly Symphonies.” In 1932, the film entitled Flowers and Trees won Walt the first of his 32 personal Academy Awards®. In 1937, he released The Old Mill, the first short subject to utilize the multiplane camera technique.
On December 21 of that same year, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,
the first full-length animated musical feature, premiered at the
Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles. Produced at the unheard of cost
of $1,499,000 during the depths of the Great Depression, the film is
still accounted as one of the great feats and imperishable monuments of
the motion picture industry. During the next five years, Walt completed
such other full-length animated classics as Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi.
In 1940, construction was completed on Disney’s Burbank studio, and
the staff swelled to more than 1,000 artists, animators, story men and
technicians. During World War II, 94 percent of the Disney facilities
were engaged in special government work including the production of
training and propaganda films for the armed services, as well as health
films which are still shown throughout the world by the U.S. State
Department. The remainder of his efforts were devoted to the production
of comedy short subjects, deemed highly essential to civilian and
military morale.
Disney’s 1945 feature, the musical The Three Caballeros, combined live action with the cartoon medium, a process he used successfully in such other features as Song of the South and the highly acclaimed Mary Poppins. In all, 81 features were released by the studio during his lifetime.
Walt’s inquisitive mind and keen sense for education through
entertainment resulted in the award-winning “True-Life Adventure”
series. Through such films as The Living Desert, The Vanishing Prairie, The African Lion and White Wilderness,
Disney brought fascinating insights into the world of wild animals and
taught the importance of conserving our nation’s outdoor heritage.
Disneyland, launched in 1955 as a fabulous $17 million Magic Kingdom,
soon increased its investment tenfold and entertained, by its fourth
decade, more than 400 million people, including presidents, kings and
queens and royalty from all over the globe.
A pioneer in the field of television programming, Disney began
production in 1954, and was among the first to present full-color
programming with his Wonderful World of Color in 1961. The Mickey Mouse Club and Zorro were popular favorites in the 1950s.
Roy and Walt visit Marceline, Missouri in 1956, taking time to stand under the tree Walt used to sit beneath, dreaming of the future.
But that was only the beginning. In 1965, Walt Disney turned his attention toward the problem of improving the quality of urban life in America. He personally directed the design on an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or EPCOT, planned as a living showcase for the creativity of American industry.
Said Disney, “I don’t believe there is a challenge anywhere in the
world that is more important to people everywhere than finding the
solution to the problems of our cities. But where do we begin? Well,
we’re convinced we must start with the public need. And the need is not
just for curing the old ills of old cities. We think the need is for
starting from scratch on virgin land and building a community that will
become a prototype for the future.”
Thus, Disney directed the purchase of 43 square miles of virgin land —
twice the size of Manhattan Island — in the center of the state of
Florida. Here, he master planned a whole new Disney world of
entertainment to include a new amusement theme park, motel-hotel resort
vacation center and his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.
After more than seven years of master planning and preparation,
including 52 months of actual construction, Walt Disney World opened to
the public as scheduled on October 1, 1971. Epcot Center opened on
October 1, 1982.
Prior to his death on December 15, 1966, Walt Disney took a deep
interest in the establishment of California Institute of the Arts, a
college level, professional school of all the creative and performing
arts. Of Cal Arts, Walt once said, “It’s the principal thing I hope to
leave when I move on to greener pastures. If I can help provide a place
to develop the talent of the future, I think I will have accomplished
something.”
California Institute of the Arts was founded in 1961 with the
amalgamation of two schools, the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and
Chouinard Art Institute. The campus is located in the city of Valencia,
32 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Walt Disney conceived the
new school as a place where all the performing and creative arts would
be taught under one roof in a “community of the arts” as a completely
new approach to professional arts training.
Walt Disney is a legend, a folk hero of the 20th century. His
worldwide popularity was based upon the ideas which his name represents:
imagination, optimism and self-made success in the American tradition.
Walt Disney did more to touch the hearts, minds and emotions of
millions of Americans than any other man in the past century. Through
his work, he brought joy, happiness and a universal means of
communication to the people of every nation. Certainly, our world shall
know but one Walt Disney.
from D23
