Walt+Disney

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Walt Disney By Catherine J Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in a bedroom on the second floor of a small cottage on North Tripp Avenue in Chicago. His father’s name was Elias, which is where he got his middle name, and his mother’s name was Flora. One of Walt’s favorite things to do was to draw. When he turned 4 (1905), his family moved to a small farm in Marceline, Missouri. Then his family moved to Kansas, where Walt was a paper boy. He dropped out of school when he was 17. He wanted to be in the war but was too young so drove an ambulance in France to help after battles. When he was an adult, he started a cartoon business called Laugh-O-Grams, which made silent but funny cartoons. He worked for a long time on Alice’s Wonderland, but then his company went bankrupt and he had to sell most of the things he owned, including his movie camera. He decided if he wanted better business he would have to go where real movies were made - Hollywood. He moved to California’ where his brother Roy lived, and together they formed Disney Studios where they finished filming Alice’s Wonderland, and created the cartoon, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. It was a big success. After a while Walt wanted to change the company name to Walt Disney Studios and his brother was fine with it. Soon after that, a man named Charlie Mints bought Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Walt was very sad. He then decided he needed to create an even better cartoon, and he wouldn’t let anyone buy it from him. That cartoon was named Mickey Mouse. The mouse he created looks different than the one that everyone knows today. He also acted differently; he would play mean jokes on people, but still was very funny. Now there is a character named Donald Duck who does that sort of stuff, and Mickey is really friendly. On July 13, 1925 Walt Disney married Lillian Bounds, who worked for him at Walt Disney Studios. Soon after that he made the first cartoon to have sound in it. In the cartoon, Mickey whistles, Minnie says “Yoo-hoo!” and there were other sound effects and music. In the early 1930’s he started Silly Symphonies, where he made “Three Little Pigs” in 1933. Also in 1933, his first daughter was born whom he named Diane Marie Disney. After that, he made the first ever cartoon with color called “Flowers and Trees”, then “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, for which he had to draw over a quarter million drawings. The movie was 83 minutes long and it opened on December 21, 1937. He also adopted his second daughter named Sharon Mea, in 1937. Sadly, in 1938, his mother, Flora died from a gas leak in their house. From then until 1941, Walt Disney made “Fantasia”, “Pinocchio”, “Bambi”, and “Dumbo”. Then his dad died in 1941. Then, during the Great Depression, the people at his office started going on strike, because he wasn’t paying them enough and they thought they weren’t getting enough credit for the work they did. During the war the U.S. army took over his studio to make training films for the soldiers. To cheer people up after the war he made “Treasure Island”, “Swiss Family Robinson”, and “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, but they were not too successful. Then he made “Song of the Southland”, but that just made people angry. Walt Disney then got the idea of Disneyland, a theme park with rides, food, and Disney characters that you could meet. It was a place where families could have fun. All he needed was the money to build it. He decided to make money by making television shows, like “The Mickey Mouse Club”, and “Davey Crockett”. Disneyland opened on July 7, 1955, in Anaheim, California. At first it wasn’t that great, because rides broke, the characters weren’t what kids expected, and thousands of people had to stand in line for hours in the hot, sweaty weather. Walt Disney fixed the rides one at a time, and everyone had to graduate from “college” to learn how to treat the people who visited. Soon it was one of the best vacation spots. Walt Disney would secretly work there in disguise, but some kids recognized him, so he would whisper “Shhhhh,” and slip them an autograph. Sometimes, at night, he would take his daughters there and they would have the whole place to themselves. In 1966, Walt and Lillian went on a cruise together to celebrate their 41 anniversary. On the ship, Walt started to get sick, and when they got back he went to the hospital. There, he found out he had lung cancer, from smoking. In the hospital his brother Roy visited him, and Walt explained to him his next big scheme, Walt Disney World, including Epcot, which stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. He told exactly what he wanted, and pointed out where he wanted everything to be. The next day, December 15, 1966, Walt Disney died. He never got to see the opening of Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida (Epcot), but Roy was there. By making some of the world’s greatest cartoons that changed people’s lives, Walt Disney impacted the 20th century.

Fanning, Jim. __Walt Disney__. New York: Chelsea House, 1994.

Stewert, Whitney. __Who Was Walt Disney__. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 2009.