walt disney life biography

Biography of Walt Disney, Animator and Film Producer

Love of drawing, laugh-o-gram films, mickey mouse, sound and color, feature-length cartoons, union strikes, world war ii, more movies, plans for disneyland, disneyland opens, plans for walt disney world, florida.

Walt Disney (born Walter Elias Disney; December 5, 1901–December 15, 1966) was a cartoonist and entrepreneur who developed a multibillion-dollar family entertainment empire. Disney was the renowned creator of Mickey Mouse, the first sound cartoon, the first Technicolor cartoon, and the first feature-length cartoon. In addition to winning 22 Academy Awards in his lifetime, Disney also created the first major theme park: Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

Fast Facts: Walt Disney

• Known For: Disney was a pioneering animator and film producer who won 22 Academy Awards and built one of the largest media empires in the world.
• Born: December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois
• Parents: Elias and Flora Disney
• Died: December 15, 1966 in Burbank, California
• Awards and Honors: 22 Academy Awards, Cecil B. DeMille Award, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Congressional Gold Medal
• Spouse: Lillian Bounds (m. 1925-1966)
• Children: Diane, Sharon

Walt Disney was born the fourth son of Elias Disney and Flora Disney (née Call) in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1901. By 1903, Elias, a handyman and carpenter, had grown weary of crime in Chicago; thus, he moved his family to a 45-acre farm he purchased in Marceline, Missouri. Elias was a stern man who administered “corrective” beatings to his five children; Flora soothed the children with nightly readings of fairy tales.

After the two eldest sons grew up and left home, Walt Disney and his older brother Roy worked on the farm with their father. In his free time, Disney made up games and sketched the farm animals. In 1909, Elias sold the farm and purchased an established newspaper route in Kansas City, where he moved his remaining family.

It was in Kansas City that Disney developed a love for an amusement park called Electric Park, which featured 100,000 electric lights illuminating a roller coaster, a dime museum, penny arcade, swimming pool, and a colorful fountain light show.

Rising at 3:30 a.m. seven days a week, 8-year-old Walt Disney and brother Roy delivered the newspapers, taking quick naps in alleyways before heading to Benton Grammar School. In school, Disney excelled in reading; his favorite authors were Mark Twain and Charles Dickens.

In art class, Disney surprised his teacher with original sketches of flowers with human hands and faces. After stepping on a nail on his newspaper route, Disney had to spend two weeks in bed recuperating. He spent his time reading and drawing newspaper-style cartoons.

Elias sold the newspaper route in 1917 and bought a partnership in the O-Zell Jelly factory in Chicago, moving Flora and Walt with him (Roy had enlisted in the U.S. Navy). Sixteen-year-old Walt Disney attended McKinley High School, where he became the school newspaper’s junior art editor. To pay for evening art classes at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, he washed jars in his father’s jelly factory.

Wanting to join Roy, who was fighting in World War I, Disney tried to join the Army but at age 16 he was too young. Undeterred, he joined the Red Cross’ Ambulance Corps, which took him to France and Germany.

After spending 10 months in Europe, Disney returned to the U.S. In October 1919, he got a job as a commercial artist at the Pressman-Rubin Studio in Kansas City. Disney met and became friends with fellow artist Ub Iwerks at the studio.

When Disney and Iwerks were laid off in January 1920, they formed Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists. Due to a lack of clients, however, the duo only survived for about a month. After getting jobs at the Kansas City Film Ad Company as cartoonists, Disney and Iwerks began making commercials for movie theaters.

Disney borrowed a camera from the studio and began experimenting with stop-action animation in his garage. He shot footage of his animal drawings using different techniques until the pictures actually “moved” in fast and slow motion. His cartoons (which he called Laugh-O-Grams) eventually became superior to the ones he was working on at the studio; he even figured out a way to merge live action with animation. Disney suggested to his boss that they make cartoons, but his boss flatly turned down the idea, content with making commercials.

In 1922, Disney quit the Kansas City Film Ad Company and opened a studio in Kansas City called Laugh-O-Gram Films. He hired a few employees, including Iwerks, and sold a series of fairy tale cartoons to Pictorial Films in Tennessee.

Disney and his staff began work on six cartoons, each one a seven-minute fairy tale that combined live action and animation. Unfortunately, Pictorial Films went bankrupt in July 1923; as a result, so did Laugh-O-Gram Films.

Next, Disney decided he would try his luck at working in a Hollywood studio as a director and joined his brother Roy in Los Angeles, where Roy was recovering from tuberculosis.

Having no luck getting a job at any of the studios, Disney sent a letter to Margaret J. Winkler, a New York cartoon distributor, to see if she had any interest in distributing his Laugh-O-Grams. After Winkler viewed the cartoons, she and Disney signed a contract.

On October 16, 1923, Disney and Roy rented a room at the back of a real estate office in Hollywood. Roy took on the role of accountant and cameraman of the live action; a little girl was hired to act in the cartoons; two women were hired to ink and paint the celluloid, and Disney wrote the stories and drew and filmed the animation.

By February 1924, Disney had hired his first animator, Rollin Hamilton, and moved into a small storefront with a window bearing the sign “Disney Bros. Studio.” Disney’s "Alice in Cartoonland" reached theaters in June 1924.

In early 1925, Disney moved his growing staff to a one-story, stucco building and renamed his business “Walt Disney Studio.” Disney hired Lillian Bounds, an ink artist, and began dating her. On July 13, 1925, the couple married in her hometown of Spalding, Idaho. Disney was 24; Lillian was 26.

Meanwhile, Margaret Winkler also married, and her new husband, Charles Mintz, took over her cartoon distribution business. In 1927, Mintz asked Disney to rival the popular “Felix the Cat” series. Mintz suggested the name “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit” and Disney created the character and made the series.

In 1928, when costs became increasingly high, Disney and Lillian took a train trip to New York to renegotiate the contract for the popular Oswald series. Mintz countered with even less money than he was currently paying, informing Disney that he owned the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and that he had lured most of Disney’s animators to come work for him.

Shocked, shaken, and saddened, Disney boarded the train for the long ride back. In a depressed state, he sketched a character and named him Mortimer Mouse. Lillian suggested the name Mickey Mouse instead.

Back in Los Angeles, Disney copyrighted Mickey Mouse and, along with Iwerks, created new cartoons with Mickey Mouse as the star. Without a distributor, though, Disney could not sell the silent Mickey Mouse cartoons.

In 1928, sound became the latest in film technology. Disney pursued several New York film companies to record his cartoons with this new novelty. He struck a deal with Pat Powers of Cinephone. Disney provided the voice of Mickey Mouse and Powers added sound effects and music.

Powers became the distributor of the cartoons and on November 18, 1928, "Steamboat Willie" opened at the Colon Theater in New York. It was Disney’s (and the world’s) first cartoon with sound. "Steamboat Willie" received rave reviews and audiences everywhere adored Mickey Mouse.

In 1929, Disney began making “Silly Symphonies,” a series of cartoons that included dancing skeletons, the Three Little Pigs, and characters other than Mickey Mouse, including Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto.

In 1931, a new film-coloring technique known as Technicolor became the latest in film technology. Until then, everything had been filmed in black and white. To hold off the competition, Disney paid to hold the rights to Technicolor for two years. He filmed a Silly Symphony titled "Flowers and Trees" in Technicolor, showing colorful nature with human faces, and the film won the Academy Award for Best Cartoon of 1932.

On December 18, 1933, Lillian gave birth to Diane Marie Disney, and on December 21, 1936, Lillian and Walt Disney adopted Sharon Mae Disney.

Disney decided to add dramatic storytelling to his cartoons, but making a feature-length cartoon had everyone (including Roy and Lillian) saying it would never work; they believed audiences just wouldn’t sit that long through a dramatic cartoon.

Despite the naysayers, Disney, ever the experimenter, went to work on the feature-length fairy tale "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Production of the cartoon cost $1.4 million (a massive sum in 1937) and was soon dubbed “Disney’s Folly.”

When it premiered in theaters on December 21, 1937, though, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was a box office sensation. Despite the Great Depression, it earned $416 million.

A notable achievement in cinema, the movie won Disney an Honorary Academy Award. The citation read, "For 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field."

After the success of "Snow White," Disney constructed his state-of-the-art Burbank Studio, deemed a worker’s paradise for a staff of about 1,000 workers. The studio, with animation buildings, sound stages, and recording rooms, produced "Pinocchio" (1940), "Fantasia" (1940), "Dumbo" (1941), and "Bambi" (1942).

Unfortunately, these feature-length cartoons lost money worldwide due to the start of World War II. Along with the cost of the new studio, Disney found himself in debt. He offered 600,000 shares of common stock, sold at five dollars apiece. The stock offerings sold out quickly and erased the debt.

Between 1940 and 1941, movie studios began unionizing; it wasn’t long before Disney’s workers wanted to unionize as well. While his workers demanded better pay and working conditions, Disney believed that his company had been infiltrated by communists.

After numerous and heated meetings, strikes, and lengthy negotiations, Disney finally became unionized. However, the whole process left Disney feeling disillusioned and discouraged.

With the union question finally settled, Disney was able to turn his attention back to his cartoons; this time for the U.S. government. The United States had joined World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and it was sending millions of young men overseas to fight.

The U.S. government wanted Disney to produce training films using his popular characters ; Disney obliged, creating more than 400,000 feet of film (about 68 hours).

After the war, Disney returned to his own agenda and made "Song of the South" (1946), a movie that was 30 percent animation and 70 percent live action. "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" was named the best movie song of 1946 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, while James Baskett, who played the character of Uncle Remus in the movie, won an Oscar.

In 1947, Disney decided to make a documentary about Alaskan seals titled "Seal Island" (1948). It won an Academy Award for best two-reel documentary. Disney then assigned his top talent to make "Cinderella" (1950), "Alice in Wonderland" (1951), and "Peter Pan" (1953).

After building a train to ride his two daughters around his new home in Holmby Hills, California, Disney began formulating a dream in 1948 to build Mickey Mouse Amusement Park across the street from his studio. He visited fairs, carnivals, and parks around the world to study the choreography of people and attractions.

Disney borrowed on his life insurance policy and created WED Enterprises to organize his amusement park idea, which he was now referring to as Disneyland. Disney and Herb Ryman drew out the plans for the park in one weekend. The plan included an entrance gate to "Main Street" that would lead to Cinderella’s Castle and off to different lands of interest, including Frontier Land, Fantasy Land, Tomorrow Land, and Adventure Land.

The park would be clean and innovative, a place where parents and children could have fun together on rides and attractions; they would be entertained by Disney characters in the “happiest place on earth.”

Roy visited New York to seek a contract with a television network. Roy and Leonard Goldman reached an agreement where ABC would give Disney a $500,000 investment in Disneyland in exchange for a weekly Disney television series.

ABC became a 35 percent owner of Disneyland and guaranteed loans up to $4.5 million. In July 1953, Disney commissioned the Stanford Research Institute to find a location for his (and the world’s) first major theme park. Anaheim, California, was selected since it could easily be reached by freeway from Los Angeles.

Previous movie profits were not enough to cover the cost of building Disneyland, which took about a year to build at a cost of $17 million. Roy made numerous visits to the Bank of America's headquarters to secure more funding.

On July 13, 1955, Disney sent out 6,000 exclusive guest invitations, including to Hollywood movie stars, to enjoy the opening of Disneyland. ABC sent cameramen to film the opening. However, many tickets were counterfeited and 28,000 people showed up.

Rides broke down, food stands ran out of food, a heat wave caused freshly poured asphalt to capture shoes, and a gas leak caused temporary closings in a few themed areas.

Despite the newspapers referring to this cartoon-ish day as "Black Sunday," guests from all over the world loved it and the park became a major success. Ninety days later, the one-millionth guest passed through the park's turnstile.

In 1964, Disney’s "Mary Poppins" premiered; the film was nominated for 13 Academy Awards. With this success, Disney sent Roy and a few other Disney executives to Florida in 1965 to purchase land for another theme park.

In October 1966, Disney gave a press conference to describe his plans for building an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) in Florida. The new park would be five times the size of Disneyland, and it would include shopping, entertainment venues, and hotels.

The new Disney World development would not be completed, however, until five years after Disney’s death. The new Magic Kingdom (which included Main Street USA; Cinderella's Castle leading to Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland) opened on October 1, 1971, along with Disney's Contemporary Resort, Disney's Polynesian Resort, and Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground. EPCOT, Walt Disney’s second theme park vision, which featured a future world of innovation and a showcase of other countries, opened in 1982.

In 1966, doctors informed Disney that he had lung cancer. After having a lung removed and several chemotherapy sessions, Disney collapsed in his home and was admitted to St. Joseph’s Hospital on December 15, 1966. He died at 9:35 a.m. from an acute circulatory collapse and was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Disney left behind one of the largest media empires in the world. Since his death, the Walt Disney Company has only grown; today, it employs more than 200,000 people and generates billions in revenue each year. For his artistic achievements, Disney amassed 22 Oscars and numerous other honors. In 1960, he was given two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one for his film and one for his television work).

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Biography Online

Walt Disney Biography

Early Life – Walt Disney

Walt Disney was born on 5 December 1901, in Chicago. His parents were of German/English and Irish descent. As a child, the Disney family moved between Marceline in Missouri, Kansas City and back to Chicago. The young Walt Disney developed an interest in art and took lessons at the Kansas City Institute and later Chicago Art Institute. He became the cartoonist for the school magazine.

When America joined the First World War, Walt dropped out of school and tried to enlist in the army. He was rejected for being underage, but he was later able to join in the Red Cross and in late 1918 was sent to France to drive an ambulance.

In 1919, he moved back to Kansas City where he got a series of jobs, before finding employment in his area of greatest interest – the film industry. It was working for the Kansas City Film Ad company that he gained the opportunity to begin working in the relatively new field of animation. Walt used his talent as a cartoonist to start his first work.

The success of his early cartoons enabled him to set up his own studio called Laugh-O-Gram. However, the popularity of his cartoons was not matched by his ability to run a profitable business. With high labour costs, the firm went bankrupt. After his first failure, he decided to move to Hollywood, California which was home to the growing film industry in America. This ability to overcome adversity was a standard feature of Disney’s career.

“All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”

– The Story of Walt Disney (1957)

With his brother, Roy, Walt set up another company and sought to find a distributor for his new film – Alice Comedies – based on the adventures of Alice in Wonderland.

Mickey Mouse

In 1927, the Disney studio was involved in the successful production of ‘Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’, distributed by Universal Pictures. However, with Universal Pictures controlling the rights to ‘Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’, Walt was not able to profit from this success. He rejected an offer from Universal and went back to working on his own.

The Mickey Mouse cartoons with soundtracks became very popular and cemented the growing reputation and strength of Disney Productions. The skill of Walt Disney was to give his cartoons believable real-life characteristics. They were skillfully depicted and captured the imagination of the audience through his pioneering use of uplifting stories and moral characteristics.

In 1932, he received his first Academy Award for the Best Short Subject: Cartoons for the three coloured ‘Flowers and Trees’ He also won a special Academy Award for Mickey Mouse.

In 1933, he developed his most successful cartoon of all time ‘The Three Little Pigs’ (1933) with the famous song ‘Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.”

In 1924, Walt Disney began his most ambitious project to date. He wished to make a full length animated feature film of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Many expected it to be a commercial failure. But, using new techniques of filming, the production was met with glowing reviews. It took nearly three years to film – coming out in 1937 after Disney had run out of money. But, the movie’s strong critical reception, made it the most successful film of 1938, earning $8 million on its first release. The film had very high production values but also captured the essence of a fairy tale on film for the first time. Walt Disney would later write that he never produced films for the critic, but the general public. Replying to criticism that his productions were somewhat corny, he replied:

“All right. I’m corny. But I think there’s just about a-hundred-and-forty-million people in this country that are just as corny as I am.” – Walt Disney

Disney always had a great ability to know what the public loved to see.

After the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the studio produced several other successful animations, such as ‘Pinocchio’, ‘Peter Pan’, ‘Bambi’ and ‘The Wind in the Willows’. After America’s entry into the Second World War in 1941, this ‘golden age’ of animation faded and the studio struggled as it made unprofitable propaganda films.

Political and religious views

In 1941, Disney also had to deal with a major strike by his writers and animators. This strike left a strong impression on Disney. He would later become a leading member of the anti-Communist organisation ‘Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals’ (the right-wing organisation was also considered to be anti-semitic.) At one point, he (unsuccessfully) tried to brand his labour union organisers as Communist agitators.

However, in the 1950s, Disney distanced himself from the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. However, by associating with the organisation, he was often associated with the anti-labour and anti-semitic philosophy it expressed. Disney was a Republican, though was not particularly involved in politics. It is often asked whether Walt Disney was anti-semitic.

His biographer, Neal Gabler stated:

“…And though Walt himself, in my estimation, was not anti-semitic, nevertheless, he willingly allied himself with people who were anti-semitic, and that reputation stuck. He was never really able to expunge it throughout his life.”

Walt Disney believed in the benefits of a religious approach to life, though he never went to church and disliked sanctimonious teachers.

“I believe firmly in the efficacy of religion, in its powerful influence on a person’s whole life. It helps immeasurably to meet the storms and stress of life and keep you attuned to the Divine inspiration. Without inspiration, we would perish.”

Ch. 15: Walt Lives!, p. 379

He respected other religions and retained a firm faith in God.

Post-war success

During the war, there was much less demand for cartoon animation. It took until the late 1940s, for Disney to recover some of its lustre and success. Disney finished production of Cinderella and also Peter Pan (which had been shelved during the war) In the 1950s, Walt Disney Productions also began expanding its operations into popular action films. They produced several successful films, such as ‘Treasure Island’ (1950), ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ (1954) and ‘Pollyanna’ (1960)

In another innovation, the studio created one of the first specifically children’s shows – The Mickey Mouse Club. Walt Disney even returned to the studio to provide the voice. In the 1960s, the Disney Empire continued to successfully expand. In 1964, they produced their most successful ever film ‘Mary Poppins.’

In the late 1940s, Walt Disney began building up plans for a massive Theme Park. Walt Disney wished the Theme Park to be like nothing ever created on earth. In particular, he wanted it to be a magical world for children and surrounded by a train. Disney had a great love of trains since his childhood when he regularly saw trains pass near his home. It was characteristic of Walt Disney that he was willing to take risks in trying something new.

“Courage is the main quality of leadership, in my opinion, no matter where it is exercised. Usually, it implies some risk, especially in new undertakings. Courage to initiate something and to keep it going, pioneering and adventurous spirit to blaze new ways, often, in our land of opportunity.”

– The Disney Way Fieldbook (2000) by Bill Capodagli

After several years in the planning and building, Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955. Disney spoke at the address.

“To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past …. and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America … with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”

The success of Disneyland encouraged Walt to consider another park in Orlando, Florida. In 1965, another theme park was planned.

Walt Disney died of lung cancer on December 15, 1966. He had been a chain smoker all his life. An internet myth suggested Walt Disney had his body cryonically frozen, but this is untrue. It seems to have been spread by his employers, looking for one last joke at the expense of their boss.

After his death, his brother Roy returned to lead The Disney Company, but the company missed the direction and genius of Walt Disney. The 1970s were a relatively fallow period for the company, before a renaissance in the 1980s, with a new generation of films, such as ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ (1988) and ‘The Lion King’ (1994)

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of Walt Disney”, Oxford, UK.  www.biographyonline.net , 8th August 2014. Last updated 1st March 2019.

Walt Disney

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Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American entrepreneur, business magnate, animator, voice actor, producer, director, writer, and the eponymous founder of The Walt Disney Company . One of the most famous and well-known motion picture producers in the world, and a pioneer of the animation and entertainment industries, Walt co-founded his namesake company, Walt Disney Productions , with his brother, Roy in 1923 .

Walt Disney is in particular noted for being a successful storyteller, a hands-on film producer, and a popular showman. He and his staff created a number of the world's most popular animated properties; including the one creation that many consider Disney's alter-ego, Mickey Mouse .

Walt Disney was also the original voice of Mickey Mouse from 1928 to 1947 and again from 1955 and 1962 . He also did the original voices of Minnie Mouse and Pete as well.

• 1 1901-1919: Childhood
• 2.1 Kansas City animation studios
• 2.2 Alice Comedies: Contract and new California studio
• 2.3 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
• 2.4 The Creation of Mickey Mouse
• 2.5 Disney's daughters
• 3.1 Disney's Folly: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• 3.2 Wartime troubles
• 3.3 A dark chapter
• 4.1 Carolwood Pacific Railroad
• 4.2 Planning Disneyland
• 4.3 Expanding into new areas
• 4.4 Early 1960s successes
• 4.5 Plans for Disney World and EPCOT
• 5.1 The Epcot theme park
• 5.2 The Disney entertainment empire
• 5.3 Disney theme parks today
• 5.4 Disney animation today
• 5.5 CalArts
• 9 References
• 10 See also
• 11 External links

1901-1919: Childhood [ ]

Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois to Elias Disney and Flora Call. He was named after his father's close friend, Walter Parr, a minister at St. Paul Congregational Church. In 1906, his family moved to a farm near Marceline, Missouri. The family sold the farm in 1909 and lived in a rented house until 1910 when they moved to Kansas City. Disney was nine years old at the time.

According to the Kansas City Public School District records, Disney began attending the Benton Grammar School in 1911, and graduated on June 8, 1917 . During this time, Disney also enrolled in classes at the Chicago Art Institute. He left school at the age of sixteen and became a volunteer ambulance driver in The Red Cross during World War I after he changed his birth certificate to show his year of birth as 1900 in order to be able to enlist in The Red Cross. He set sail for France in November but when he came, the fighting was over. He stayed in France until 1919.

1920-1936: Early years in animation [ ]

Kansas city animation studios [ ].

Disney returned to the USA, moved to Kansas City and, with Ub Iwerks , formed a company called "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists" in January 1920 . The company faltered and Disney and Iwerks soon gained employment at the Kansas City Film Ad Corporation, working on primitive animated advertisements for local movie houses.

In 1921 , Disney started Laugh-O-grams, Inc ., which produced short cartoons based on popular fairytales and children's stories. Among his employees were Iwerks, Hugh Harman , Rudolf Ising , Carman Maxwell , and Friz Freleng . The shorts were popular in the local Kansas City area, but their costs exceeded their returns. After creating one last short, the live-action/animation Alice's Wonderland , the studio declared bankruptcy in July 1923 . Two of Disney's brothers, Roy Oliver Disney and Raymond Arnold Disney, were employed as bank tellers in the First National Bank in downtown Kansas City during this time when Walt was developing his Laugh-O-grams, Inc. Studio. Roy later invited Walt to move to Hollywood, California, and Disney earned enough money for a one-way train ticket to California, leaving his staff behind, but taking the finished reel of Alice's Wonderland with him.

Alice Comedies: Contract and new California studio [ ]

Disney set up shop with his brother Roy, started the Disney Brothers Studio in their Uncle Robert's garage, and got a distribution deal with New York City states-rights distributors Margaret J. Winkler and her fiancé Charles Mintz (via Winkler Pictures ). Virginia Davis , the live-action star of Alice's Wonderland , was sequestered from Kansas, as was Ub Iwerks. By 1926 , the Disney Brothers Studio had its name changed to Walt Disney Studio ; the name Walt Disney Productions would be adopted in 1929 . One of the studio's employees, Lillian Bounds, became Walt Disney's wife; they married on July 13, 1925 .

The Alice Comedies were reasonably successful and featured both Dawn O'Day and Margie Gay as Alice after Virginia Davis' parents pulled her out of the series because of a pay cut. Lois Hardwick also briefly assumed the role. By the time the series ended in 1927 , the focus was more on the animated characters, in particular, a cat named Julius who recalled Felix the Cat, rather than the live-action Alice.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit [ ]

In January 1927, Mintz told Disney to create a cartoon character they could sell to Universal Pictures - Universal wanted to re-enter the cartoon business and needed a character of its own. Disney had Iwerks design a rabbit character, and when Universal approved the design, their publicity department named it Oswald.

In January 1928, Iwerks warned Walt that several of the animators at his studio were signing contracts with Winkler Pictures. George Winkler, one of the Winkler heads, had been talking with the animators during pick-up runs of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. In the following month, Disney went to New York to negotiate a higher fee per short from Mintz. Mintz announced that not only did he want to reduce the fee he paid Disney per short, but that he had most of his main animators, including Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng under contract. Mintz' final deal was for Walt and Roy become his employees. Disney declined, and it resulted in his contract for the Oswald series not being renewed. Disney, Iwerks, and the few non-defecting animators secretly began work on a new mouse character during the production of the last contracted Oswald cartoons.

The Creation of Mickey Mouse [ ]

Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.

Christened by Lillian Disney, Mickey Mouse made his film debut in a short called Plane Crazy , which was, like all of Disney's previous works, a silent film. After failing to find distributor interest in Plane Crazy or its follow-up, The Gallopin' Gaucho , Disney created a Mickey cartoon with sound called Steamboat Willie . A businessman named Pat Powers provided Disney with both distribution and the Cinephone, a bootlegged sound-synchronization process. Steamboat Willie became a success, and Plane Crazy , The Galloping Gaucho , and all future Mickey cartoons were released with soundtracks. Disney himself provided the vocal effects for the earliest cartoons and performed as the voice of Mickey Mouse until 1947 and replaced by sound effects technician Jimmy MacDonald .

Joining the Mickey Mouse series in 1929 were a series of musical shorts called Silly Symphonies , which began with The Skeleton Dance . Although both series were successful, the Disney studio was not seeing its rightful share of profits from Pat Powers, and in 1930 , Disney signed a new distribution deal with Sony/Columbia Pictures, leaving behind Powers and Ub Iwerks, who had been lured into an exclusive contract with Powers. After heading the only mildly successful Ub Iwerks Studio, Iwerks would return to Disney in 1940 and, in the studio's research and development department, pioneer a number of film processes and specialized animation technologies.

By 1932 , Mickey Mouse became the most popular cartoon character on the screen, and many competing studios, such as Van Beuren and Screen Gems created Mickey Mouse clones in hopes of cashing in on Disney's success. After moving from Sony/Columbia to MGM/United Artists in 1932, Walt began producing the Silly Symphonies in the new three-strip Technicolor process, making them the first commercial films presented in a true-color process. The first color Symphony was Flowers and Trees , which won the first Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons in 1932. The same year, Disney received a special Academy Award for the creation of Mickey Mouse, whose series was moved into color in 1935 and soon launched spin-off series for supporting characters, such as Donald Duck , Goofy , and Pluto .

Disney's daughters [ ]

As Mickey's co-creator and producer, Disney was almost as famous as his mouse cartoon character but remained a largely private individual. His greatest hope was to give birth to a child — preferably a son — but he and Lillian tried with no luck. Lillian finally gave birth to a daughter, Diane Disney Miller , on December 18, 1933 ; and the couple would adopt a second, Sharon Mae Disney, who was born December 21 , 1936 . Walt loved both of his children.

1937-1954: Animated feature films [ ]

Disney's folly: snow white and the seven dwarfs [ ].

Walt Disney introduces each of the seven dwarfs.

Although his studio produced the two most successful cartoon series in the industry, the returns were still dissatisfying to Disney, and he began plans for a full-length feature in 1934 . When the rest of the film industry learned of Disney's plans to produce an animated feature-length version of Snow White , they dubbed the project "Disney's Folly" and were certain that the project would destroy the Disney studio. Both Lillian and Roy tried to talk Disney out of the project, but he continued plans for the feature. He employed Chouinard Art Institute professor Don Graham to start a training operation for the studio staff, and used the Silly Symphonies as a platform for experiments in realistic human animation, distinctive character animation, special effects, and the use of specialized processes and apparatus, such as the multiplane camera .

Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This film was his studio's full-length feature production and the first commercially-successful animated feature film.

All of this development and training was used to elevate the quality of the studio so that it would be able to give the feature the quality Disney desired. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , as the feature was named, was in full production from 1935 until mid- 1937 , when the studio ran out of money. To acquire the funding to complete Snow White , Disney had to show a rough cut of the motion picture to loan officers at the Bank of America, who gave the studio the money to finish the picture. The finished film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater on December 21 , 1937 ; at the conclusion of the film the audience gave Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a standing ovation. The very first animated feature in English and Technicolor, Snow White was released in February 1938 under a new distribution deal with RKO Radio Pictures. The film became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and earned over $8 million (today $98 million) in its original theatrical release. The success of Snow White allowed Disney to build a new campus for the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank , which opened for business on December 24, 1939 . The feature animation staff, having just completed Pinocchio , continued work on Fantasia and Bambi , while the shorts staff continued work on the Mickey Mouse , Donald Duck , Goofy , and Pluto cartoon series, ending the Silly Symphonies at this time.

Wartime troubles [ ]

Pinocchio and Fantasia followed Snow White into movie theaters in 1940 , but both were financial disappointments. The inexpensive Dumbo was planned as an income generator, but during the production of the new film, most of the animation staff went on strike, permanently straining the relationship between Disney and his artists.

Shortly after Dumbo was released in October 1941 and became a successful moneymaker, the United States entered World War II. The U.S. Army took over most of the Disney studio's facilities and had the staff create training and instructional films for the military, as well as home-front propaganda, such as Der Fuehrer's Face and the feature film Victory Through Air Power in 1943 . The military films did not generate income, however, and Bambi underperformed when it was released in April 1942 . Disney successfully re-issued Snow White in 1944 , establishing the seven-year re-release tradition for Disney features.

Inexpensive package films, containing collections of cartoon shorts, were created and issued to theaters during this period as well. The most notable and successful of these were Saludos Amigos ( 1942 ), its sequel The Three Caballeros ( 1945 ), Song of the South (the first Disney feature to feature dramatic actors, 1946 ), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). The latter had only two sections: the first based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving and the second based on The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

By the late 1940s, the studio had recovered enough to continue production on the full-length features: Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan , which had been shelved during the war years and began work on Cinderella . The studio also began a series of live-action nature films, entitled True-Life Adventures , in 1948 with On Seal Island .

A dark chapter [ ]

In 1947, during the dark early years of the Cold War, Walt Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and he named several of his employees as Communist sympathizers. Some historians believe that the animosity from the 1941 strike of Disney Studio employees caused him to bear a grudge. His dislike and distrust of labor unions may have also led to his testimony.

1955-1966: Theme Parks and Beyond [ ]

Carolwood pacific railroad [ ].

In 1949, when Disney and his family moved to a new home on large piece of property in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles, California, with the help of his friends Ward and Betty Kimball , owners of their own backyard railroad, Disney developed the blueprints and immediately set to work creating his own miniature railroad in his backyard. The name of the railroad, Carolwood Pacific Railroad, originated from the address of his home which was located on Carolwood Drive. The railroad's half-mile long layout included a 46-foot-long trestle, loops, overpasses, gradients, an elevated dirt berm, and a 90-foot tunnel underneath Mrs. Disney's flower bed. He even named the miniature working steam locomotive built by Roger E. Broggie of the Disney Studios Lilly Belle in his wife's honor.

Planning Disneyland [ ]

Walt and his Animated Family.

On a business trip to Chicago in the late 1940s, Disney drew sketches of his ideas for an amusement park where he envisioned his employees spending time with their children. These ideas developed into a concept for a larger enterprise which was to become Disneyland . Disney spent five years of his life developing Disneyland and created a new subsidiary of his company, called WED Enterprises, to carry out the planning and production of the park. A small group of Disney studio employees joined the Disneyland development project as engineers and planners and were dubbed Imagineers.

When presenting his plan to the Imagineers, Disney said: "I want Disneyland to be the most amazing place on Earth, and I want a train circling it". Entertaining his daughters and their friends in his backyard and taking them for rides on his Carolwood Pacific Railroad had inspired Disney to include a railroad in the plans for Disneyland.

Expanding into new areas [ ]

As Walt Disney Productions began work on Disneyland, it also began expanding its other entertainment operations. 1950 's Treasure Island became the studio's first all-live-action feature, and was soon followed by successes, such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (in CinemaScope, 1954 ), The Shaggy Dog ( 1959 ), and The Parent Trap ( 1960 ). The Walt Disney Studio was one of the first to take full advantage of the then-new medium of television, producing its first TV special, One Hour in Wonderland, in 1950. Walt Disney began hosting a weekly anthology series on ABC named Disneyland after the park, where he showed clips of past Disney productions, gave tours of his studio, and familiarized the public with Disneyland as it was being constructed in Anaheim , California . In 1955 , he debuted the studio's first daily television show, the popular Mickey Mouse Club , which would continue in many various incarnations into the 1990s.

As the studio expanded and diversified into other media, Disney devoted less of his attention to the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, whom he dubbed the Nine Old Men. During Disney's lifetime, the animation department created the successful Lady and the Tramp (in CinemaScope, 1955 ) and One Hundred and One Dalmatians ( 1961 ) and the financially disappointing Sleeping Beauty (in Super Technirama 70 mm, 1959 ) and The Sword in the Stone ( 1963 ).

Production on the short cartoons had kept pace until 1956, when Disney shut down the shorts division. Special shorts projects would continue to be made for the rest of the studio's duration on an irregular basis.

The Disneyland Plaque.

These productions were all distributed by Disney's new subsidiary Buena Vista Distribution , which had assumed all distribution duties for Disney films from RKO by 1955 . Disneyland , one of the world's first theme parks, finally opened on July 17 , 1955 , and was immediately successful. Visitors from around the world came to visit Disneyland, which contained attractions based upon a number of successful Disney properties and films. After 1955, the Disneyland TV show became known as Walt Disney Presents , went from black-and-white to color in 1961—changing its name to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color —and eventually evolved into what is today known as The Wonderful World of Disney , which continues to air on ABC as of 2005 .

During the mid-1950s, Disney produced a number of educational films on the space program in collaboration with NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun: Man in Space and Man and the Moon in 1955 , and Mars and Beyond in 1957. The films attracted the attention of not only the general public but also the Soviet Union’s space program.

Early 1960s successes [ ]

By the early 1960s, the Disney Empire was a major success, and Walt Disney Productions had established itself as the world's leading producer of family entertainment. After decades of trying, Disney finally procured the rights to P.L. Travers' books about a magical nanny . Mary Poppins , released in 1964, was the most successful Disney film of the 1960s, and many hailed the live-action/animation combination feature as his greatest achievement. The same year, Disney debuted a number of exhibits at the 1964 New York World's Fair , including Audio-Animatronic figures, all of which later were integrated into attractions at Disneyland and a new theme park project, to be established on the east coast, which Disney had been planning since Disneyland opened.

Plans for Disney World and EPCOT [ ]

In 1964 , Walt Disney Productions began quietly purchasing land in central Florida west of Orlando in a largely rural area of marginal orange groves for Disney's "Florida Project". The company acquired over 27,000 acres (109 square kilometers) of land and arranged favorable state legislation which would provide unprecedented quasi-governmental control over the area to be developed in 1966 , founding the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Disney and his brother Roy then announced plans for what they called "Disney World". Disney World was to include a larger, more elaborate version of Disneyland to be called the Magic Kingdom, and would also feature a number of golf courses and resort hotels. The heart of Disney World, however, was to be the Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow, or EPCOT for short. EPCOT was designed to be an operational city where residents would live, work, and interact using advanced and experimental technology, while scientists would develop and test new technologies to improve human life and health.

However, Disney's involvement in Disney World ended in late 1966, when he was diagnosed with lung cancer in his left lung, after a lifelong habit of chain-smoking (where his dreams of advancements in the improvement of human health would have come in handy) since World War 1. He was checked into the St. Joseph's Hospital across the street from the Disney Studio lot and his health eventually deteriorated. His dedication to his projects was still visible while lying in his deathbed. On the evening of December 14, Roy came to visit him. Here, Walt pointed up to the ceiling using the tiles as a grip map. He then signaled Roy about the roads and major places in EPCOT and Disney World. Even sick and near death, Walt's mind was clear, active, and vibrant; his imagination fully engaged and his voice enthusiastic.

It came as a complete shock to the Disney Family and to the whole world when Walt passed away the next morning. He was pronounced dead at 9:35 AM PST on December 15, 1966 having just celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday two weeks earlier. The official cause of death was "acute circulatory collapse." His heart simply stopped beating.

Contrary to urban legend, he was not cryogenically frozen. He was cremated and his ashes were interred in the Disney family garden in the Court of Freedom section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

It was truly unthinkable. Walt Disney was dead. Roy, who had always been supportive to Walt, looking for and helping him, had lost his reason for living. After an hour or so, Walt's foot was sticking out from under the blanket. Roy was by the bed, gently rubbing Walt's foot and said "Well kid, it looks like the end of the road." Roy was still the older brother to the end.

Roy Disney carried out the Florida project, insisting that the name becomes Walt Disney World in honor of his brother. Roy O. Disney died only three months after that resort's opening in 1971.

The Epcot theme park [ ]

When the second phase of the Walt Disney World theme park was built, EPCOT was translated by Walt Disney's successors into the Epcot theme park, which opened in 1982 . The Epcot Park that currently exists is essentially a living world's fair, a far cry from the actual functional city that Disney had envisioned. However, the Celebration, Florida town built by the Walt Disney Company adjacent to Walt Disney World harkens back to the EPCOT vision that Walt would have wanted.

The Disney entertainment empire [ ]

The famous "Partners" featuring Walt and Mickey at the Magic Kingdom park.

Today, Walt Disney's animation/motion picture studios and theme park have developed into a multi-billion dollar television, motion picture, vacation destination and media corporation that carries his name. The Walt Disney Company today owns, among other assets, four vacation resorts, nine theme parks, two water parks, thirty-two hotels (and counting), eight motion picture studios, six record labels, eleven cable television networks, and one terrestrial television network.

Disney theme parks today [ ]

Today, what was known as the Florida Project is now the largest and most popular private-run tourist destination on the planet, but Walt Disney's spirit and shine is still there. From the 'Partners' statue at the Magic Kingdom to the Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom , Walt Disney is still remembered and loved by guests, Theme Park Characters and Cast Members alike, and his vision is still continued. His fascination with mass transportation lives in the Walt Disney World Monorail which runs through two theme parks and four hotels, and his dreams of the future live on at Epcot in ahead-of-their-time attractions and technological breakthroughs. His Skyway, long since closed, is now reborn as the Disney Skyliner gondola system.

Disneyland has developed from a cramped theme park to an open resort of two theme parks, three hotels, and a large shopping complex. Walt Disney World is a popular destination for vacations by tourists worldwide, and Tokyo Disneyland is the most visited theme park in the world (its sister park Tokyo Disneysea is the second). In September 2005, The Walt Disney Company opened Hong Kong Disneyland Resort in China, with another Chinese theme park followed— Shanghai Disneyland .

On May 5 , 2005 , the Walt Disney Company kicked off the Happiest Homecoming on Earth celebration in front of Walt's Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland , celebrating fifty years of the world's most famous theme park. Walt Disney Parks and Resorts are renowned over the world for their attentions to detail, hygiene and standards, all set by Walt Disney at Disneyland.

Disney animation today [ ]

Traditional hand-drawn animation , with which Walt Disney started his company, was, for a time, no longer produced at the Walt Disney Animation Studios . After a stream of financially unsuccessful traditionally animated features in the early 2000s, the two satellite studios in Paris and Orlando were closed, and the main studio in Burbank was converted to a computer animation production facility. In 2004 , Disney released what was announced as their final "traditionally animated" feature film Home on the Range . However, since the 2006 acquisition of Pixar , and the resulting rise of John Lasseter to Chief Creative Officer, that position has changed, and the largely successful 2009 film The Princess and the Frog has marked Disney's return to traditional hand-drawn animation.

CalArts [ ]

Disney devoted substantial time in his later years funding The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), which was formed in 1961 through a merger of the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and the Chouinard Art Institute, which had helped in the training of the animation staff during the 1930s. When he died, one-fourth of his estate went towards CalArts, which greatly helped the building of its campus. Walt also donated 38 acres (154,000 m²) of the Golden Oaks ranch in Valencia for the school to be built on. CalArts moved onto the Valencia campus in 1971 .

Lillian Disney devoted a lot of her time after Walt died to pursuing CalArts and organized hundreds of fundraising events for the university in her late husband's honor (as well as funding the Walt Disney Symphony Hall). After Lillian's passing, the legacy continued with daughter Diane and husband Ron continuing the tradition. CalArts is one of the largest independent universities in California today, mostly because of the contributions of the Disneys.

Gallery [ ]

• The phrase "keep moving forward" is constantly used during the film in reference to Walt Disney's quote.
• In the ABC television series Once Upon a Time , August Booth reveals to them that the fairy tale storybook was created by a series of authors and names one past author as "Walt". The implication that Disney himself is an author is further proved in a flashback to 1966 when the sorcerer 's Apprentice approaches Isaac Heller and offers him the position of author, citing that the previous author had passed away; 1966 is the year that Walt passed away, and his death date of December 15 was written on a letter from the Apprentice to Isaac.
• Disney had very simple tastes in food. According to his daughter Diane , "He liked fried potatoes, hamburgers, western omelets, hotcakes, canned peas, hash, stew, roast beef sandwiches. He doesn't go for vegetables, but loves chicken livers or macaroni and cheese." Lillian Disney would complain, "Why should I plan a meal when all Disney really wants is a can of chili or a can of spaghetti?" [1]
• Hell's Bells ( November 11 , 1929 ) features Satan.
• Father Noah's Ark ( April 8 , 1933 ) features Noah, Ham, Japheth, Shem, and their respective wives.
• The Goddess of Spring ( November 3 , 1934 ) features Persephone and a version of her uncle/husband Hades / Pluto identified here with Satan.
• Noah's Ark ( November 10 , 1959 ) features Noah, Ham, Japheth, Shem, and their respective wives; not officially released as a Silly Symphony , but very similar to them.
• Several of the films he produced have also been noted for characters praying to God, such as Swiss Family Robinson and in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , where Snow White is seen in one scene praying beside her bed, representing Christianity as a religion; the same for Geppetto wishing upon the wishing star in Pinocchio , not to mention the final segment of the Fantasia musical Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria , a clear homage to Christianity.
• In 1940 , the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), recruited Disney as an official informant. He was later designated as a special agent in charge contact. He testified against employees of his company that he took issue with, alleging them to be communists.
• "Uncle Walt" could be seen around Disneyland in the 1950s doing menial chores, such as getting strollers for people, tinkering under the hood of a car on Main Street, U.S.A. , fishing in Rivers of America or piloting the Mark Twain Riverboat .
• One of the audio animatronic pirates on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride introduced in 1967 has Walt Disney's face. It was taken from the same life cast mold that was used in the "Partners" statue in Fantasyland in Disneyland.
• According to Richard Sherman , Walt would ask him how his progress on a week was then ask him to play the song " Feed the Birds ", his favorite song from Mary Poppins . After Walt passed away in 1966, Richard played the song frequently in his honor.
• Tom Hanks portrayed Walt in the 2013 live-action film Saving Mr. Banks . Hanks is a distant cousin of Walt Disney, but this marks the first time that Walt is portrayed in film.
• A cameo also appears in Ferdinand the Bull , wherein the bullring workers are based on Disney staffers, while the matador is based on Walt.
• In Epic Mickey , Oswald 's line: "I'm starting to see why he liked you more," is a clear reference to Walt.
• Howard Stark 's appearance in Iron Man 2 is a reference to Walt Disney.
• Amongst the detractors who kept this constantly debunked false rumor alive were Seth MacFarlane and Meryl Streep .
• Walt also made lots of anti-Nazi/Hitler/Axis propaganda through his cartoons.
• Disney's child daughter, Diane Disney-Miller, also passed away during the 2010s in November 2013 respectively.

References [ ]

• ↑ " Food for Thought ". Jim Hill Media ( Jul 16 , 2003 ).
• ↑ " The Gospel According to Walt ". Mouse Planet ( Feb 14 , 2007 ).
• ↑ " Walt Disney and Religion ". Mickey News ( Feb 13 , 2017 ).
• ↑ " How Walt Disney’s Faith Was Central to His Groundbreaking Career in Entertainment ". Movie Guide .

See also [ ]

• List of Disney animated features
• Walt Disney Quotes Video

External links [ ]

• The Walt Disney Family Museum

• Genealogy of Walt Disney on WikiTree
• 2 Inside Out 2
• 3 I Wanna Dance With My Buddy

• World Biography

Walt Disney Biography

Born: December 5, 1901 Chicago, Illinois Died: December 15, 1966 Los Angeles, California American animator, filmmaker, and businessman

An American filmmaker and businessman, Walt Disney created a new kind of popular culture with feature-length animated cartoons and live-action "family" films.

Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1901, the fourth of five children born to Elias and Flora Call Disney. His father, a strict and religious man who often physically abused his children, was working as a building contractor when Walter was born. Soon afterward, his father took over a farm in Marceline, Missouri, where he moved the family. Walter was very happy on the farm and developed his love of animals while living there. After the farm failed, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where Walter helped his father deliver newspapers. He also worked selling candy and newspapers on the train that traveled between Kansas City and Chicago, Illinois. He began drawing and took some art lessons during this time.

Disney dropped out of high school at seventeen to serve in World War I (1914–18; a war between German-led Central powers and the Allies—England, the United States, and other nations). After a short stretch as an ambulance driver, he returned to Kansas City in 1919 to work as a commercial illustrator and later made crude animated cartoons (a series of drawings with slight changes in each that resemble movement when filmed in order). By 1922 he had set up his own shop as a partner with Ub Iwerks, whose drawing ability and technical skill were major factors in Disney's eventual success.

Off to Hollywood

Initial failure with Ub Iwerks sent Disney to Hollywood, California, in 1923. In partnership with his older brother, Roy, he began producing Oswald the Rabbit cartoons for Universal Studios. After a contract dispute led to the end of this work, Disney and his brother decided to come up with their own character. Their first success came in Steamboat Willie, which was the first all-sound cartoon. It also featured Disney as the voice of a character first called "Mortimer Mouse." Disney's wife, Lillian (whom he had married in 1925) suggested that Mickey sounded better, and Disney agreed.

Branching out

Disney rapidly expanded his studio operations to include a training school where a whole new generation of artists developed and made possible the production of the first feature-length cartoon, Snow White (1937). Other costly animated features followed, including Pinocchio, Bambi, and the famous musical experiment Fantasia. With Seal Island (1948), wildlife films became an additional source of income. In 1950 Treasure Island led to what became the studio's major product, live-action films, which basically cornered the traditional "family" market. Disney's biggest hit, Mary Poppins, was one of his many films that used occasional animation to project wholesome, exciting stories containing sentiment and music.

In 1954 Disney successfully invaded television, and by the time of his death the Disney studio had produced 21 full-length animated films, 493 short subjects, 47 live-action films, 7 True-Life Adventure features, 330 hours of Mickey Mouse Club television programs, 78 half-hour Zorro television adventures, and 280 other television shows.

Construction of theme parks

On July 18, 1957, Disney opened Disneyland in Anaheim, California, the most successful amusement park in history, with 6.7 million people visiting it by 1966. The idea for the park came to him after taking his children to other amusement parks and watching them have fun on amusement rides. He decided to build a park where the entire family could have fun together. In 1971 Disney World in Orlando, Florida, opened. Since then, Disney theme parks have opened in Tokyo, Japan, and Paris, France.

Disney also dreamed of developing a city of the future, a dream that came true in 1982 with the opening of Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT). EPCOT, which cost an initial $900 million, was planned as a real-life community of the future with the very latest in technology (the use of science to achieve a practical purpose). The two principle areas of EPCOT are Future World and World Showcase, both of which were designed for adults rather than children.

Disney's business empire

Furthermore, Disney created and funded a new university, the California Institute of the Arts, known as Cal Arts. He thought of this as the peak of education for the arts, where people in many different forms could work together, dream and develop, and create the mixture of arts needed for the future. Disney once commented: "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."

Disney's parks continue to grow with the creation of the Disney-MGM Studios, Animal Kingdom, and an extensive sports complex in Orlando. The Disney Corporation has also branched out into other types of films with the creation of Touchstone Films, into music with Hollywood Records, and even into vacations with its Disney Cruise Lines. In all, the Disney name now covers a multi-billion dollar enterprise, with business ventures all over the world.

In 1939 Disney received an honorary (received without meeting the usual requirements) Academy Award, and in 1954 he received four more Academy Awards. In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) presented Disney with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in the same year Disney was awarded the Freedom Foundation Award.

Walt Disney, happily married for forty-one years, was moving ahead with his plans for huge, new outdoor recreational areas when he died on December 15, 1966, in Los Angeles, California. At the time of his death, his enterprises had brought him respect, admiration, and a business empire worth over $100 million a year, but Disney was still mainly remembered as the man who had created Mickey Mouse almost forty years before.

For More Information

Barrett, Katherine, and Richard Greene. Inside the Dream: The Personal Story of Walt Disney. New York: Disney Editions, 2001.

Green, Amy Boothe. Remembering Walt. New York: Hyperion, 1999.

Logue, Mary. Imagination: The Story of Walt Disney. Chanhassen, MN: Child's World, 1999.

Thomas, Bob. Walt Disney: An American Original. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976.

Watts, Steven. The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.

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Read more stories about Walt Disney here .

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.

Mickey Mouse was created in 1928, and his talents were first used in a silent cartoon entitled Plane Crazy . However, before the cartoon could be released, sound burst upon the motion picture screen. Thus Mickey made his screen debut in Steamboat Willie , the world’s first fully synchronized sound cartoon, which premiered at the Colony Theatre in New York on November 18, 1928.

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.

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.

Walt Disney (1901-1966)

Additional crew.

IMDbPro Starmeter See rank

• 66 wins & 47 nominations total

• Producer (uncredited)

• producer (uncredited)

• executive producer
• 38 episodes

• Mickey Mouse (voice, uncredited)
• 147 episodes
• Mickey Mouse (voice)

• Walt Disney (uncredited)

• producer adviser

• conception (uncredited)

• In-development projects at IMDbPro

Personal details

• The Walt Disney Company
• Mr. Walt Disney
• 5′ 10″ (1.78 m)
• December 5 , 1901
• Chicago, Illinois, USA
• December 15 , 1966
• Los Angeles, California, USA (complications from lung cancer)
• Lillian Disney July 13, 1925 - December 15, 1966 (his death, 2 children)
• Diane Disney
• Parents Flora Disney
• Relatives Robert Disney (Aunt or Uncle)
• Other works Grand Marshal, Tournament of Roses parade
• 5 Biographical Movies
• 29 Print Biographies
• 7 Portrayals
• 29 Articles
• 2 Pictorials
• 1 Magazine Cover Photo

Did you know

• Trivia Personally disliked Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953) because of the lack of "heart" and "warmth" in their main characters. Was very sad about the unfavorable reception of Fantasia (1940) as he was proud of the film. Ironically, the first re-issue of Fantasia (1940) after his death was the first time it turned a profit.
• Quotes I don't make pictures just to make money. I make money to make more pictures.
• Trademarks Happy endings on all pictures produced by himself (also posthumous and actual works).
• Salaries One Hundred and One Dalmatians ( 1961 ) $5,166 /week
• When did Walt Disney die?
• How did Walt Disney die?
• How old was Walt Disney when he died?

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Walt Disney

Walt Disney   Biography

Walter Elías Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 5, 1901, and died in Burbank, California, on December 15, 1966. Walter was a director, producer, animator, cartoonist and screenwriter from the United States, winner of the Oscar Award 22 times, plus 4 honorary awards of the Academy, and of the Emmy in 7 opportunities .

Walt Disney is known for his famous children’s characters such as Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck , and for founding one of the most important animations, film, and entertainment companies, Walt Disney Productions.

Walt Disney is the son of Elias Disney, a farmer of Irish ascendancy who had come from Canada, and Flora Call, a school teacher. Walt was the fourth of five children. When he was five years old, the family moved to Marceline, Missouri, where Walt spent a happy childhood drawing and playing with his sister Ruth. However, in 1909, his father became ill with typhoid fever and was unable to work in the field, so he had to sell the farm and go to Kansas City to work as a delivery boy for the Kansas City Star, with the help of his children Walt and Roy. Due to this work, Walt graduated from the Benton Grammar School in 1911. Then he did several jobs while studying at the Art Institute of Chicago and at McKinley High School, where he was a school newspaper cartoonist.

“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” Walt Disney

During the First World War, Walt Disney wanted to imitate his brother, who was in the Navy, and he appeared in the army after leaving the Institute but was not admitted because of his age. Preventing the same thing happening, he presented himself to the Red Cross lying about his age, and this organization sent him to Europe when Germany had already signed the armistice. In Germany, he drove ambulances in which he drew and took some officers from one place to another until in 1919 he returned to America, to Kansas City.

While in Kansas City and thanks to his brother Roy, he got a job where he had to create ads for magazines, cinemas, and newspapers. In this job, he met Ubbe Iwerks, with whom he founded an advertising company in 1920, which they had to leave shortly afterward because of the lack of clients. Later, they both were hired at Kansas City Films Ad, where they learned basic animation techniques.

After studying anatomy and physics, and experimenting with his work team, Walt Disney started his own studio called Laugh-O-Gram Films. In it, he dedicated himself to producing animated short stories of popular stories , but that cost them more than they earned. This is why his studio went bankrupt in 1923 and Disney traveled to Hollywood in search of opportunities.

In Hollywood after knocking on doors looking for an opportunity without success , so he decided to send the last short film he had produced in his previous studio, Alice’s Wonderland , to the distributor Margaret Winkler, who hired him to make more films. To do this, Walt set up a studio in his uncle’s garage and entrusted his brother Roy with the financial issues , founding the Disney Brother’s Studio, which would be the beginning of Walt Disney Productions.

After successfully exhibiting nine Alice films, Disney created Oswald, a character whose show, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, quickly triumphed when it was distributed by Universal Pictures. Before this, the husband of Margaret Winkler asked Disney to continue working on this new series for a lower salary, and that it did not really matter if he refused because he and Universal Studios had the rights of the character. Walt Disney refused and preferred to create a new character, Mickey Mouse . This one appeared for the first time in 1928, but in its beginnings, it did not attract much attention . It was not until the implementation of sound that became a resounding success, having the voice of Walt Disney himself.

After 1930, there were already different products of Mickey Mouse, and several personalities had admitted their sympathy for the character, among which were politicians such as Jorge V, Roosevelt, and Mussolini. By 1935, all Disney short films already had sound and color image.

“Ask yourself if what you’re doing today will get you where you want to go tomorrow.” Walt Disney

After two years of production, from 1935 to 1937, Snow White was released, managing to raise more than six times the enormous sum that the production had cost. With the income, Disney opened some studios in Burbank and hired more employees. However, in 1941 several workers called a strike to complain about the poor salary and the lack of prominence they had in the credits. Disney, which refused to recognize the demands at the beginning, had to agree at the end because of the bad image that the strike was having on his name and his company.

In the forties, the company was economically affected by the World War II, but he was able to recover thanks to the adaptation he made of the market, which now asked for different formats than the short film. By the 50s, Disney was introduced in the market of the television and the action movies. In 1955, the Disneyland amusement park was completed. Already by the 1960’s, Walt Disney’s company was considered to be the most important family training company in the world and after receiving 26 Oscar Awards for his productions, 10 feature films, 12 short films and 4 honorary awards, one of them for having created Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney died on December 15, 1966, due to cardiorespiratory arrest.

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Fernando Botero

Fernando Botero Biography

Fernando Botero Angulo (April 19, 1932 – September 15, 2023) was a sculptor, painter, muralist, and draftsman, hailing from Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia. He was a Colombian artist known and celebrated for infusing a substantial volume to human and animal figures in his works.

Early Years and Beginnings

Fernando Botero was born into an affluent Paisa family , composed of his parents, David Botero and Flora Angulo, along with his older brother Juan David, who was four years his senior, and his younger brother, Rodrigo, who would be born four years after Fernando, in the same year that their father passed away. In 1938, he enrolled in primary school at the Ateneo Antioqueño and later entered the Bolivariana to continue his high school education. However, he was expelled from the institution due to an article he published in the newspaper El Colombiano about Picasso , as well as his drawings that were considered obscene. As a result, he graduated from high school at the Liceo of the University of Antioquia in 1950.

In parallel to his studies, Fernando attended a bullfighting school in La Macarena at the request of one of his uncles. However, due to an issue related to bullfighting, Botero left the bullring and embarked on a journey into painting. In 1948, he held his first exhibition in Medellín. Two years later, he traveled to Bogotá where he had two more exhibitions and had the opportunity to meet some intellectuals of the time. He then stayed at Isolina García’s boarding house in Tolú, which he paid for by painting a mural. Once again in Bogotá, he won the second prize at the IX National Artists Salon with his oil painting “Facing the Sea” .

“Ephemeral art is a lesser form of expression that cannot be compared to the concept of art conceived with the desire for perpetuity. What many people fail to understand is that Picasso is a traditional artist”- Fernando Botero

Due to the prize from the IX Salon and the sale of several of his works, Fernando Botero traveled to Spain in 1952 to enroll at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid. There, he lived by selling drawings and paintings in the vicinity of the Prado Museum. In 1953, he went to Paris with filmmaker Ricardo Irrigarri, and later, they both traveled to Florence. Here, he entered the Academy of San Marco, where he was heavily influenced by Renaissance painters such as Piero della Francesca, Titian, and Paolo Uccello.

Career and Personal Life

In 1955, Botero returned to Colombia to hold an exhibition featuring several of his works created during his time in Europe, but it was met with a lukewarm reception from the public.

Woman With a Mirror / Foto:Luis García (Zaqarbal) / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Spain (CC BY-SA 3.0 ES)

In 1956, he married Gloria Zea, with whom he would later have three children: Fernando, Juan Carlos, and Lina. The couple traveled to Mexico City, where Fernando Botero was eager to see the works of Mexican muralists, but this experience left him disillusioned. Consequently, he began searching for his own artistic style, drawing influence from both the Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo and the Colombian artist Alejandro Obregón . In this quest, he started experimenting with volume, initially in still lifes, and gradually extending this approach to other elements.

In 1957, he successfully exhibited in New York, showcasing his new artistic sensibility. The following year, he returned to Bogotá, where he was appointed as a professor at the School of Fine Arts at the National University of Colombia . He presented his work “La Camera Degli Sposi” at the X Colombian Artists Salon , winning the first prize and becoming the country’s most prominent painter. This piece sparked some controversy as it was initially censored for being almost a parody of Andrea Mantegna’s “La Cámara de los Esposos”. However, it was later reinstated in the exhibition on the advice of Marta Traba. Subsequently, Fernando Botero exhibited his works in various spaces in the United States, where a businessman from Chicago purchased “La Camera Degli Sposi” .

“Fernando Botero and his works are the finest ambassadors of our country in this land of navigators and discoverers, of poets and fado singers”- Juan Manuel Santos

In 1960, Botero separated from Gloria Zea and traveled to New York. He led a modest life here as the New York art scene was primarily inclined towards abstract expressionism. Consequently, Botero was influenced by artists like Pollock, which led him to experiment with color, brushwork, and format, to the point of nearly abandoning his distinctive style characterized by the manipulation of volume. Aware of this, Botero returned to his usual style of flat colors and figurative representations.

Starting in 1962, he began a series of exhibitions in both Europe and the United States, as well as in Colombia. By 1970, the year his son Pedro was born to his second wife, Cecilia Zambrano, Fernando Botero had already become the world’s most sought-after sculptor. However, in 1974, his son Pedro tragically died in a traffic accident, leading to his second divorce and leaving significant marks on his artistic endeavors.

In 1978, the Colombian painter married Sophia Vari , a renowned Greek artist with whom he shared a significant part of his life, until sadly, she passed away in May 2023.

Since 1983, Fernando Botero has been exhibiting his works and donating them to various cities around the world. As a result, we can find his pieces in the streets of Medellín, Barcelona, Oviedo, Singapore, and Madrid, among others. In 2008, the Autonomous University of Nuevo León in Mexico conferred upon him an honorary Doctorate.

Renowned Colombian artist, Fernando Botero, died on September 15, 2023 , in Monaco at the age of 91 due to pneumonia . His artistic legacy will endure forever. In his hometown, seven days of mourning were declared.

Pedrito a Caballo, Fernando Botero (1975).

Top 10 Famous works by Fernando Botero

Some of the most recognized works by Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero:

• “Pedrito on Horseback” / “Pedrito a Caballo” (1974): This is an oil painting on canvas measuring 194.5 cm x 150.5 cm. For Botero, this work is his masterpiece and a refuge during a personal tragedy. The child depicted is Pedro, his son from his second marriage, who tragically passed away in an accident when he was young.
• “Mona Lisa at 12 Years Old” / “Mona lisa a los 12 años” (1978): This piece stands out as a unique version of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting, the Mona Lisa . Painted in oil on canvas and measuring 183 cm x 166 cm, Botero incorporates his characteristic style of voluptuous and rounded figures into this work, which has become one of his most distinctive pieces.
• “Woman’s Torso” / “Torso de Mujer” (1986): It is a majestic bronze sculpture that rises to an impressive height of approximately 2.48 meters. It is often affectionately referred to as “La Gorda” (“The Fat One”). This artwork finds its home in Parque de Berrío, located in the captivating city of Medellín.
• “Woman with Mirror” / “Mujer con Espejo” (1987): An imposing bronze sculpture weighing 1000 kg. It is located in Plaza de Colón, in the heart of Madrid, Spain. The artwork captivates the gaze with the portrayal of a woman peacefully lying face down on the ground, holding a mirror in her hands. Her expression reflects deep introspection and enigmatic melancholy.
• “The Orchestra” / “La Orquesta” (1991): In this oil on canvas artwork, measuring 200 cm x 172 cm, Botero presents a band of musicians with a singer, all immersed in a spirit of celebration. The artist aims to convey a sense of harmony and joy through his portrayal.
• “Woman Smoking” / “Mujer Fumando” (1994): It is a creation executed in watercolor, spanning dimensions of 122 cm x 99 cm. In this work, Maestro Botero skillfully captures the essence of a woman elegantly holding a cigarette between her fingers. His meticulous focus on voluptuous forms, posture, and the serene expression of the figure masterfully combine to emphasize the sensuality and profound intimacy of the moment captured in the artwork.
• “Man on Horseback” / “Hombre a Caballo” (1996): This bronze sculpture is one of the most iconic works in the artist’s career. It depicts a rider in a majestic and proud posture. Over the years, this imposing work has been exhibited in multiple cities around the world, solidifying its place as a prominent piece in the sculptor’s body of work.
• “The Horse” / “El Caballo” (1997): This iconic sculpture showcases a horse of majestic presence and a distinctive rounded form, sculpted in bronze and measuring approximately 3 meters in height. This masterpiece reflects Botero’s profound passion for horses while also serving as a powerful representation of the mythical Trojan Horse.
• “The Death of Pablo Escobar” / “La muerte de Pablo Escobar” (1999): This artwork, created using the oil on canvas technique, has dimensions of 58 cm x 38 cm. While not considered a masterpiece, this artistic piece represents one of the most significant moments in Colombia’s history. Fernando Botero captures, in his distinctive style, the moment of the death of the drug lord Pablo Escobar , addressing issues related to violence and criminality that have marked the country’s history. An interesting detail is that, although Pablo Escobar admired Fernando Botero’s art, it cannot be said that the admiration was mutual. The painter created two works depicting the death of the drug trafficker.
• “Boterosutra Series” / “Serie Boterosutra” (2011): This work by Botero is part of an erotic art collection called Boterosutra , marking a milestone in the history of Colombian art as the first artistic representation of sexual intimacy between lovers. This series comprises around 70 small-sized pieces created using various techniques, including colored drawings, watercolors, brushstrokes, and also black and white, all of which constitute one of the most contemporary works by the painter.

Gustave Courbet

Biography of Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet, Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was a painter. Courbet was born in the French town of Ornans. His parents and family were landowners in Ornans. Courbet was influenced by his parents to study law, but his true passion was drawing. Therefore, while studying law, he began drawing under the tutelage of a student named Flajoulot. When he turned 20, he withdrew from his law studies and moved to Paris to complete his artistic training with the teachings of Steuben, Bonvin, and Père Baud, a student of Gros. There he became interested in the works of Chardin, the Le Nain brothers, and the Spanish painters Ribera, Zurbarán, Murillo, and Velázquez.

Based in Paris since 1839, he delved into the Realist painting trend of the 19th century. He studied at the Swiss Academy and extensively analyzed the works of some artists from the Flemish, Venetian, and Dutch schools of the 16th and 17th centuries. He achieved artistic maturity when he discovered the works of Rembrandt on a trip he took to the Netherlands in 1847. From then on, works such as L’après diner a Ornans (1849), El entierro en Ornans (1849) or Los paisanos de Flagey volviendo del campo (1850) emerged, where the characters are represented with all their vulgarity or a compromising sensuality.

Courbet’s works caused a stir and controversy because the public was faced with a new realistic vision of everyday events. Additionally, his style as a revolutionary and provocative man, follower of the anarchist philosophy of Proudhon, and participant in the 1871 Paris Commune, led to his imprisonment for six months, until he sought refuge in Switzerland in 1873. All of this scandalized the public, who often criticized him but also admired him. His self-portraits were based on Romanticism. In 1846, he wrote a manifesto against Romantic and neoclassical tendencies with Bouchon. Courbet’s realism was a protest against the sterile academic painting and exotic motifs of Romanticism. He focused on the revolutionary environments of the 19th century.

He traveled to Holland to study the works of Hals and Rembrandt and participated indirectly in the military uprising. During this period, two of his most important realist works were created: The Burial at Ornans and The Stone Breakers, this work was lost due to World War II. Courbet’s paintings elicited all types of comments due to their realistic portrayal of the lives of ordinary people. After the coup d’etat of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte in 1852, the painter returned to his hometown.

While there, Courbet opened his own exhibition titled “Realism.” It was born as a protest against the rejection of his works at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1855. The central work was the enormous painting: “The Painter’s Studio” (1855). It was presented as a “realistic allegory.” Later, other figure and portrait paintings emerged: “Ladies by the Seine” (1857), the self-portrait “The Cellist” (1849) and “The Beautiful Irishwoman” (1866). The artist also created works related to the sea, landscapes of forests and mountains with their fauna, flowers and still lifes.

Courbet became a representative of the emerging realism of the time. Courbet was described as a conceited man, who claimed to be the most handsome and seductive of humans, due to his Assyrian profile, he boasted of his ability to illuminate new forms of truth and beauty to end the outdated trends of Paris. For this reason, we can understand why he was such a controversial painter and was often hated. Nevertheless, the magnificent works that this painter conceived during his life could not be denied.

Let’s return to The Burial at Ornans (1849), it is his work of greatest dimensions and complexity, he wanted to bring a huge fragment of rural reality from his land to the refined environment of Paris. This composition can be seen as disordered and with little hierarchy. Courbet manages to make the viewer sit at the same level as the villagers of Ornans and symbolically attend the funeral of a humble peasant. In addition, the diversity of individual expressions tries to make a critical description and a study of the social categories of a population. This work is admired for its formal and coloristic stylization, and its horizontal composition.

Another great work of this French painter is Bonjour, monsieur Courbet (1854). The painting shows in great detail the local environment, as well as the light and characters, reflecting a real event with great objectivity. This painting has become a kind of standard-bearer of realistic art for many artists in recent decades. Courbet broke the mold with the work Señoritas a orillas del Sena (1857), because the Parisian public was used to paintings on mythological or historical themes; on the contrary, in Courbet’s canvas, the two women represented in showy clothes are two prostitutes resting by the river.

Also impressive was the way it was painted, in opposition to the tastes and rules of the time; the thick brushstrokes, the color tones and the disregard for the canons of beauty. In that work both the composition and the color, want to reflect reality, each of the elements reflect the same importance, transmitting a certain sense of imperceptible objectivity. Courbet showed total uninhibitedness in front of the female sex. A reflection of this is the work The Origin of the World (1866), was made by order of Bey, this was the most transgressive painting of the 19th century.

Other paintings by this French painter include: Self-Portrait with Black Dog (1842), The Desperate Man (1845), The Meeting (1854), The Painter’s Studio (1855), Woman with Parrot (1866), The Trout (1871) among others. These are just a few of the many works that this artist left for posterity and for future generations interested in realistic art. Courbet’s radical stance, reflected in the realm of politics, specifically with the Paris Commune, led to him being accused of participating in the demolition of the Vendôme Column. He had to go into exile in 1875 in Switzerland, where he died two years later in solitude and poverty.

Anime history

Japanese anime or animation emerged at the beginning of the 20th century influenced by animation and the world of cinema developed in the United States, later it was modified and claimed Japanese culture. The anime-style as we know it began to develop in the late 1950s, when the production company Toei Studios and the different series based on short sleeves or cartoons, such as Tetsuwan Atomu, also known as Astro Boy. From the 1980s and 1990s, the anime became popular, appearing large cult series such as Dragon Ball, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Sailor Moon, Detective Conan, Rurouni Kenshin, and Cowboy Bebop, among others. In the new millennium, the Japanese animated industry has been booming, providing new content every season based on successful manga, light novels, video games, and music.

The earliest surviving Japanese animated short made for cinemas, produced in 1917

The first Japanese animations were small short films developed at the end of the 1910s, largely inspired by American animation, in these, folk and comic themes were addressed. The first short film was Namakura Gatana by Junichi Kouchi, it was two minutes long, the story told the story of a man with his katana (Japanese sword or saber) . In the following decade, the duration of the short films was extended to ten or fifteen minutes, in which typical oriental tales were represented. Among the pioneer artists of this era are Oten Shimokawa, Junichi Kouchi, Seitaro Kitayama and Sanae Yamamoto; by this time the short film Obasuteyama (The Mountain Where Old Women Are Abandoned) by Yamamoto was published.

During the 30s and 40s, the Japanese animated industry went through a series of changes, the stories were neglected and western stories were taken into account. A short time later the anime Norakuro (1934) of Mituyo Seo, one of the first animations based on a manga. Since then this became a frequent practice. By the end of the 1930s, World War II broke out, a warlike confrontation in which Japan was involved as a member of the Axis powers, at which time the animations became war propaganda. At the end of the war, the country was occupied by the allied powers led by the United States, which seriously affected the country that was going through a deep economic crisis.

Industry development and international boom

In the course of the crisis, the manga and anime industry became popular in the country, thus establishing the basis for the development of the own animated style that occurred around the middle of the 20th century. It was around this time that Toei Studios, an animation film producer, emerged as one of the key figures in the history of anime. This company was a pioneer in the animation of Japan, provided various productions that allowed the advancement of animation in the country. The company’s first animation was Koneko no rakugaki, a short thirteen-minute film published in 1957. The following decade the company grew by focusing on the development of feature films. Other companies such as Mushi Pro, a producer that made the animation of Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy) by Osamu Tezuka, mangaka and animator, one of the most relevant artists of the Japanese animated industry of the 20th century.

Between the 1960s and 1970s, the anime of robots (mecha) became popular appearing iconic series such as Tetsujin 28-gō and Mazinger Z or Gundam, for this same period the popular Doraemon series (1973), based on the homonymous anime, began to air Fujiko Fujio, a series that tells the story of a cosmic robot cat that has attached to its body a bag from which it subtracts various artifacts which are used in the adventures of Doraemon and his human friend Nobita. In the 1980s and 1990s, Japanese animation boomed internationally, which led to many series beginning to dub into English and Spanish, in these years cult series such as Dragon Ball, based on the manga of Akira Toriyama. Saint Seiya also known as The Knights of the Zodiac, Captain Tsubasa, exported as Super champions; Rurouni Kenshin, known in the west as Samurai X, Neon Genesis Evangelion of Hideaki Anno; Pokémon, Ranma ½, and Sakura Card Captor, among others.

In 2000, the already booming anime is largely massified by the acceptance and the huge fan base that it had acquired at the time, these followers known as otakus, boosted the Japanese animated industry. Since then there have been numerous animated productions that have been distributed worldwide, among the most prominent series of the new millennium are One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, Inuyasha, Yu-Gi-Oh, Rozen Maiden, Kuroshitsuji, and Death Note, all are ace based on sleeves that when becoming successful, allowed the development of the animated series.

At present, any manga that has a large number of followers is very likely to have adapted in an animated series, such as Hunter x Hunter, Pandora Hearts, Ao no Exorcist, Mirai Nikki, Bakuman and Shingeki no Kyojin, among many others, light novels have been adapted that have become popular as Durarara!!, Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, Sword Art Online, and My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected, among others. In recent years, the Yaoi and Yuri genres have been popularized in which romantic relationships between people of the same sex are addressed, among these series it is possible to rescue Junjō Romantica, Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, No. 6, Aoi Hana, Sasameki Koto and Yagate Kimi ni Naru

At present, the Japanese animated industry produces numerous series, ova, and films per year, becoming one of the strongest industries in the world of animation. Among the most prominent people in this industry is Hayao Miyazaki, founder of Studio Ghibli, a studio where films such as My Neighbor Totoro, The Incredible Vagabond Castle, The Journey of Chihiro, and Ponyo, among others, likewise, stand out in the present, artist Makoto Shinkai, creator of 5 centimeters per second, Hoshi Wo Ou Kodomo, Kotonoha no Niwa and Kimi no Na Wa.

John Ruskin

John Ruskin Biography

John Ruskin (February 8, 1819 – January 20, 1900) writer, painter, art critic, and reformer. He was born in London, England. His parents were Margaret Cox and John James Ruskin, a rich merchant who instilled in him a passion for art, literature, and adventure. He studied at the University of Oxford. In 1837, he entered the University of Oxford. Then, he founded a drawing school for students: the Company of St George, for social improvement, useful arts, and the defense of an ornamentalism linked to the reform of society.

He received socialist influences, especially from the group of “Sheffield socialists,” as did William Morris. He advanced a postulate regarding the relationship between art and morals, these dissertations appear in the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), a work that provided an important place among art critics. Later, he published The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1851-1853), where the moral, economic and political importance of architecture were analyzed. In 1851 he became interested in pre-Raphaelist painters such as Dante Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, and John Everett Millais.

His ideas denounce the aesthetic numbness and the pernicious social effects of the Industrial Revolution. His work at Oxford ended in the rejection of the vivisection practices carried out in the laboratories of that institution. After marrying Effie Gray, he published Conferences on architecture and painting (1854), Conferences on the political economy of art (1858) and Fors Clavigera (1871-1884).

Ruskin suffered some psychiatric episodes and little by little he lost the sense of reality. Finally, he died in Lancashire on January 20, 1900. He aroused the admiration of generations of Victorian artists, especially as an introducer of the neo-Gothic taste in England, the greatest champion of pre-Raphaelism. Currently, part of his works is preserved between drawings of nature and different Gothic cathedrals at the University of Oxford.

• Modern painters
• The seven lamps of architecture
• The stones of Venice
• Conferences on architecture and painting
• The political economy of art
• Sesame and lilies
• The morale of dust
• The crown of wild olive
• Fors Clavigera
• The Amiens Bible

John Harvey McCracken

John Harvey McCracken Biography

John Harvey McCracken (December 9, 1934 – April 8, 2011) minimalist artist. He was born in Berkeley, California, United States. He excelled in sculpture and was a reference to the Minimalist Movement. He dedicated four years of his youth to serve in the United States Navy. Subsequently, he entered the California School of Arts and Crafts in Oakland.

Obtaining a BFA in 1962 and completing most of the work for an MFA. Academic life allowed him to meet characters like Gordon Onslow Ford and Tony DeLap. He was hired at several recognized universities where he taught different art subjects, worked at the University of California, School of Visual Arts, University of Nevada, University of California, Santa Barbara, among others.

His first sculptural work was done with the minimalists John Slorp and Peter Schnore, and the painters Tom Nuzum, Vincent Perez, and Terry StJohn. Dennis also known Oppenheim, enrolled in the MFA program at Stanford. He began to experiment with increasingly three-dimensional canvases, McCracken began producing art objects made with industrial techniques and materials such as plywood, spray lacquer, pigmented resin, resulting in striking minimalist works with highly reflective and soft surfaces. He applied similar techniques in the construction of surfboards.

Later, McCracken was part of the Light and Space movement composed by artists such as James Turrell, Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, and others. The biggest influences of the art circle were Barnett Newman and the minimalists like Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Carl Andre. Thanks to this space, his sculptural work began to walk between the material world and design. He was the first to conceive the idea of ​​the plank. The artist combined aspects of painting and sculpture in his work and many experimented with impersonal and elegant surfaces. In addition to the planks, the artist also created independent wall pieces and sculptures with different shapes and sizes, worked in highly polished stainless steel and bronze.

In McCracken’s work, it is usual to see solid colors in bold with its highly polished finish, it is a way that takes work to another dimension. His palette included pink gum, lemon yellow, deep sapphire and ebony, which he applied as a monochrome. He also made objects of stained wood, highly polished bronze and reflective stainless steel. For several years he relied on Hindu and Buddhist mandalas to make a series of paintings, they were exhibited at Castello di Rivoli in 2011.

His wife was the artist Gail Barringer, she revived to a certain extent her husband’s artistic career, and earned her the recognition of a younger generation of artists, merchants, and curators. Unfortunately, he died on April 8, 2011. Years before, his work had been honored in Documenta 12 in Kassel.

EXHIBITIONS

• “Primary structures” in the Jewish Museum (1966)
• “American sculpture of the sixties” at the Los Angeles County Museum (1967).
• “Inverleith House” at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2009)

His top ten auction prices exceed $ 200,000, including his high auction mark for a Black Plank, in polyester resin, fiberglass and plywood, which sold for $ 358,637 at Phillips de Pury & Company London in June 2007. More recently, Flash (2002), a red-board piece of firefighters, sold for $ 290,500 at Christie’s New York in 2010.

Nine Planks V, Blue column, Plank, Don’t tell me when to stop, Mykonos, Pyramid, Blue Post and Dintel I, Love in Italian, Right, Blue Post and Dintel, Yellow pyramid, The Absolutely Naked Fragrance, Violet Block in two parties, you won’t know which one until you’ve been to All of Them, Red Plank, Ala (Aile), among others.

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Walt Disney

• Occupation: Entrepreneur
• Born: December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois
• Died: December 15, 1966 in Burbank, California
• Best known for: Disney animated movies and theme parks
• Nickname: Uncle Walt

• Tom Hanks played the role of Walt Disney in the 2013 movie Saving Mr. Banks .
• The original name for Mickey Mouse was Mortimer, but his wife didn't like the name and suggested Mickey.
• He won 22 Academy Awards and received 59 nominations.
• His last written words were "Kurt Russell." No one, not even Kurt Russell, knows why he wrote this.
• He was married to Lillian Bounds in 1925. They had a daughter, Diane, in 1933 and later adopted another daughter, Sharon.
• The robot from Wall-E was named after Walter Elias Disney.
• The sorcerer from Fantasia is named "Yen Sid", or "Disney" spelled backwards.
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

Walt Disney A Short Biography

(a condensed version of the Long Biography)

Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago Illinois, to his father Elias Disney, and mother Flora Call Disney. Walt was one of five children, four boys and a girl.

After Walt’s birth, the Disney family moved to Marceline Missouri, Walt lived most of his childhood here.

Walt had very early interests in art, he would often sell drawings to neighbors to make extra money. He pursued his art career, by studying art and photography by going to McKinley High School in Chicago.

Walt began to love, and appreciate nature and wildlife, and family and community, which were a large part of agrarian living. Though his father could be quite stern, and often there was little money, Walt was encouraged by his mother, and older brother, Roy to pursue his talents.

During the fall of 1918, Disney attempted to enlist for military service. Rejected because he was under age, only sixteen years old at the time. Instead, Walt joined the Red Cross and was sent overseas to France, 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 Disney cartoons.

Once Walt returned from France, he began to pursue a career in commercial art. He started a small company called Laugh-O-Grams, which eventually fell bankrupt. With his suitcase, and twenty dollars, Walt headed to Hollywood to start anew.

After making a success of his “Alice Comedies,” Walt became a recognized Hollywood figure. On July 13, 1925, Walt married one of his first employees, Lillian Bounds, in Lewiston, Idaho. Later on they would be blessed with two daughters, Diane and Sharon .

Walt Disney in his office

In 1932, the production entitled Flowers and Trees (the first color cartoon) won Walt the first of his studio’s Academy Awards. In 1937, he released The Old Mill , the first short subject to utilize the multi-plane camera technique.

On December 21, 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , the first full-length animated musical feature, premiered at the Carthay Theater in Los Angeles. The film produced at the unheard cost of $1,499,000 during the depths of the Depression, the film is still considered one of the great feats and imperishable monuments of the motion picture industry. During the next five years, Walt Disney Studios completed other full-length animated classics such as Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi.

Walt Disney, on his daily rounds through Disneyland

Walt Disney’s dream of a clean, and organized amusement park, came true, as Disneyland Park opened in 1955. Walt also became a television pioneer, Disney began television production in 1954, and was among the first to present full-color programming with his Wonderful World of Color in 1961.

Walt Disney is a legend; a folk hero of the 20th century. His worldwide popularity was based upon the ideals which his name represents: imagination, optimism, creation, and self-made success in the American tradition. He brought us closer to the future, while telling us of the past, it is certain, that there will never be such as great a man, as Walt Disney.

Walt Disney's Rocky Road to Success

Disney had a strained relationship with his father

Born in Chicago in 1901 and raised in Missouri, Disney was the fourth son among five siblings. His father, Elias, was a domineering figure who was allegedly abusive as he tried, unsuccessfully, to make ends meet for the family. To escape from his stressful circumstances, Young Disney found solace in drawing. Still, he'd watch his older brothers, one by one, runoff from home to escape their father, and soon he'd follow suit by lying about his age to become an ambulance driver during World War I. (Years later when his father died, Disney reportedly refused to cut a business trip short and therefore missed his dad's funeral.)

READ MORE: Is Walt Disney's Body Frozen?

His first cartoon business went bankrupt

When he returned home from war, Disney became an apprentice at a Kansas City commercial art studio. Itching to set off on his own, he and his older brother Roy launched their own cartoon business, Laugh-O-Gram Studios, in 1920, but the company went bankrupt a couple of years later.

With the loss of his first business, Disney packed his bags, and with just $40 to his name, took off to Los Angeles to try his hand at acting. But he failed at that, too. Still, there was a silver lining to his move. Noticing there weren't any animations studios in California, Disney convinced Roy to join him out West so they could set up shop. Not so long after, Disney found his first major success with the creation of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Disney's character Oswald was plenty lucky, becoming a huge star in one-reel animation, but Disney himself would find his luck had run out. Traveling to New York to renegotiate his contract, he discovered that his producer had taken his team of animators from under him and that he no longer had any legal rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

But instead of fighting the loss or plotting his revenge, Disney decided to walk away and start over again. It was on the train ride back to California that he created Mickey Mouse.

READ MORE: Walt Disney Building Disneyland: 8 Photos of the Theme Park Coming to Life

Disney had a nervous breakdown after creating Mickey Mouse

After years of eating beans and driving up his debts, Disney finally brought Mickey Mouse to life on film starting in the late 1920s and earned his way back to the top of his industry. But it wasn't easy. Bankers rejected the concept of his famous mouse over 300 times before one said yes.

Even with the success of Mickey Mouse, Disney still faced challenges in keeping his business afloat. Not only was he overworked, but tensions with his employer — who eventually stole his longtime and best animator from him — led to Disney having a nervous breakdown.

After taking some time off with his wife to recuperate, Disney returned with a bold new idea: He would develop a full-length animation feature, which he'd call Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). It would become a huge success at the box office, yet the films that followed — Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940) and Bambi (1942) — would end up being duds.

His animators went on strike during World War II

If Disney didn't already have enough burdens to shoulder, more were on the way. His animators went on strike at the start of World War II and contributed to his mounting debt that ran upwards of $4 million dollars. After the war was over, his company was slow to rebuild, but during this time, Disney learned to diversify his business by turning to television, despite pressures from the film studios to stay on the big screen.

His gamble paid off. With the success of TV shows like The Mickey Mouse Club and Davy Crockett , Disney was able to harness enough capital to launch his biggest venture yet: Disneyland.

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The opening of Disneyland was called 'Black Sunday'

Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, in Anaheim, California. Like most of Disney's enterprises, it got off to a rocky start. Forged tickets were bringing more visitors than anticipated, adding to a line that trailed seven miles long. With temps soaring up to 100 degrees, the new asphalt was melting women's high heels, drinking fountains were defunct (thanks to a plumber's strike) and some of the rides malfunctioned. Critics blasted the opening of Disneyland, calling it "Black Sunday."

But as always, Disney's tenacity and perseverance turned his latest endeavor around. Disneyland became a colossal success, clearing out his financial debts, and to this day, operates as an integral part of his business empire.

Commenting on the benefits of failure, Disney once said: "All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all the troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me. You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you."

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Disney 100th anniversary: Celebrate the Mouse's house with some of our favorite things

Disney turned 100 Monday, so hopefully Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Buzz Lightyear, Moana, Cruella de Vil and the Hulk blew out the candles on one extremely large birthday cake.

On Oct. 16, 1923, Walt Disney was a fledgling filmmaker in LA when he signed a distribution deal for a series of live-action/animated comedy shorts about a girl in a cartoon world based on "Alice in Wonderland," and the company was born. Originally called Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt and sibling Roy Disney soon changed it to what we all know: the Walt Disney Studio.

A century later, the Mouse House has given us, of course, Mickey (who debuted in the 1928 short "Steamboat Willie") but also countless characters, movies, TV shows and theme parks, making Disney a part of pretty much everyone's life at some point.

Disney has created the celebratory short film " Once Upon a Studio ," now streaming on Disney+ and featuring many of the company's iconic personalities assembling for the mother of all group photos. But we're also digging into our own Disney history to shout out some of our favorite things:

Live-action movies have revamped Disney classics for fans new and old

Generations have grown up with the classic Disney animated movies, dating back to 1937's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." And another one is on the way: "Wish," starring Oscar winner Ariana DeBose, is a culmination of the Disney 100 celebration.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

In recent years, though, Disney has reached back into the vault and revamped its most legendary movies with live-action redos for today's kiddos. They haven't all been winners – looking directly at you, "Alice Through the Looking Glass" – but standouts like "Cruella," "Cinderella" and "Maleficent" have added nuance to familiar tales and characters.

'The Little Mermaid': A definitive ranking of the Disney live-action remakes

Nothing compares to a classic Disney song – and there are plenty of them

What do you get with a classic Disney movie? A classic Disney song. Everyone from Elton John to Christina Aguilera has contributed to the Mouse House's musical canon, and the company still commands the best talent. For example, "Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda collaborated with Alan Menken on new tunes for this year's "Little Mermaid," plus wrote songs for "Moana" and "Encanto." (In this case, it's definitely all right to talk about "Bruno.")

Looking through Disney history, there are a few that top our charts – like "Feed the Birds" from "Mary Poppins," a fave of Walt's back in the day, and the title love song of "Beauty and the Beast." And if you don't dig them, well ... let it go.

Ranked: The 25 best classic Disney songs, from 'Mary Poppins' to 'The Lion King'

'Monsters, Inc.,' 'Coco' are top-notch Pixar animation outings

Since Woody, Buzz and the crew first stole our hearts in 1995's "Toy Story," Disney's Pixar has launched a slew of great animated movies. To date, the studio has won 23 Academy Awards – including 11 for best animated feature – and two films, "Toy Story 3" and "Up," were nominated for best picture.

While the "Cars" movies have never exactly been our speed, "Monsters, Inc.," "Coco" and "The Incredibles" rank high on our all-time Pixar list . And the studio is rolling into the next 100 years without a hiccup: "Elemental" (now streaming on Disney+ ) was a word-of-mouth summer hit – and Pixar's first rom-com – and next year brings the out-of-this-world original "Elio" (in theaters March 1) and the sequel "Inside Out 2" (June 14).

'Elemental': The definitive ranking of all 27 Pixar movies

Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy lead the Marvel superhero business

No one puts comic book icons on screen like the Marvel Cinematic Universe . The MCU started with 2008's "Iron Man," yet it really soared when Disney took over with 2012's "Avengers" film. Dozens of movies later, the MCU has delivered cinematic phenomenons and worldwide hits like "Avengers: Endgame," "Black Panther" and "Spider-Man: No Way Home."

For us, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and "Guardians of the Galaxy" are top-tier MCU choices in a universe that continues to grow. The upcoming pipeline includes new films such as "The Marvels," starring Brie Larson, "WandaVision" standout Teyonah Parris and "Ms. Marvel" actress Iman Vellani.

Ranked: Every Marvel superhero movie (including 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3')

'The Force Awakens' was a Disney 'Star Wars' phenomenon

"Star Wars" has been a pop-culture powerhouse for more than 40 years but the franchise is one of the newer additions to the Disney portfolio: The company purchased Lucasfilm (also the home of the "Indiana Jones" movies ) from George Lucas in 2012.

The Force has been strong with Disney, with a new "Star Wars" sequel trilogy – 2015's "The Force Awakens" is the all-time domestic box-office champ with a $936.7 million haul – and an expansion into streaming with Disney+ series including "The Mandalorian" and "Ahsoka." But the best stuff is still Lucas' old-school "The Empire Strikes Back" and original 1977 "Star Wars," proving alongside other Disney classics of the past 100 years that vintage is often a good thing.

Contributing: Patrick Ryan and Kelly Lawler

'Return of the Jedi' turns 40! Celebrate with our ultimate 'Star Wars' movie ranking

LGBTQ+ Pride

A Smithsonian magazine special report

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

What disney theme parks tell us about ourselves.

An American History Museum exhibition looks at how the resorts have changed over time to reflect a broader image of what it means to be American

Roger Catlin

Museums Correspondent

When the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History asked patrons for family photos taken at Disney theme parks last February, more than 30,000 shots came in. After a week and a half, staff had to shut submissions down because they were so inundated.

“And the stories that poured in were just as incredible,” says Bethanee Bemis, curator of the exhibition “ Mirror, Mirror: Reflections of America in Disney Parks ,” which opened this spring.

About 100 of the submitted photos made it into the exhibition; about 200 others will be featured on an accompanying website . Along with the more than 45 artifacts and graphics from the Smithsonian’s own collection, they help tell the story of how Disneyland and Disney World have reflected the country and, in turn, how the American people have influenced the parks over the decades.

In the making for six years, the show in the museum’s Albert H. Small Documents Gallery had its origins in a big democracy exhibition elsewhere on the museum’s second floor.

“We were installing it, and there was a section on national narratives: Who gets to tell the story of America? Does everyone need to know the same story?” Bemis says. “And I kept thinking: It’s Disney.” Other academics and historians had come to similar conclusions, taking the creator of Mickey Mouse seriously as an arbiter of culture and history in the United States.

When Disneyland opened with great hoopla in 1955, it was dedicated to “the dreams and ideals and the hard facts that have created America,” Bemis says. Walt Disney was already a successful animator and feature filmmaker, but he conjured up the theme park idea as a clean place he could take his daughters. “But he also had this patriotic streak, and he wanted to create a place where he could both have fun and learn about what it meant to be an American.” For Disney, she says, that vision is “Main Street, it’s free enterprise, it’s the excitement of new technologies, the optimism of forward progress in Tomorrowland.”

Half of the new exhibition showcases those original park values; the other half shows how Disney’s approach evolved. For instance, older versions of the elaborate Disneyland map specified “Friendly Indians” and an “Unfriendly Indian Village” in Frontierland, an area that later became Bear Country and is now called Critter Country. The story of a cabin set on fire by a hostile tribe on Tom Sawyer Island has also been changed to blame a moonshiner.

The last ride Disney himself oversaw before his death in 1966, The Pirates of the Caribbean, originally had scenes of women being chased and a “wench auction.” “We wants the redhead!” the pirate figures used to shout. A concept drawing of the scene, included in the exhibition, shows a redhead bound in ropes. “Today, she is a pirate herself,” Bemis says. “Her name today is still Redhead, but now she gets to have some agency.”

It’s an example, she says, of “how they’re taking things that are already there, figuring out how they can adjust it—rather than getting rid of it completely—so that it still tugs at the nostalgia of people who grew up in the ’50s to the ’70s, but isn’t offensive to the culture of today.”

The ride Splash Mountain, meanwhile, was based on Song of the South , a 1946 Disney film that was picketed by the NAACP when it was released because of its Old South depiction of the formerly enslaved Uncle Remus telling his tales of Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox. (The film was never issued on VHS or DVD and can be rarely found today.) In 2019, Disney announced that Splash Mountain would be adapted to tie into a more recent film. “It’s changing over to be Tiana’s Bayou Adventure,” Bemis says, “featuring the first Black princess” in the Disney film roster, from The Princess and the Frog .

The exhibition’s artifacts include 1950s relics like the coonskin Davy Crockett cap actor Fess Parker wore in a popular five-episode TV series that was later edited into a pair of theatrical movies, Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier and Davy Crockett and the River Pirates , and a 1955 certificate from the Rocket to the Moon ride that belonged to then-Vice President Richard Nixon. Almost 14 years before the first actual moon landing, Nixon—a native of Orange County, California—went to the theme park and brought home a certificate stating, “Vice President Nixon has rocketed round trip to the moon from the Disneyland Spaceport.”

These museum pieces sit alongside the photos and stories that flooded in from the public. Some pictures include Walt Disney himself. One Japanese American family sent in a shot of themselves with Disneyland’s founder from the park’s opening weekend in 1955. “It would have been a noteworthy submission already,” Bemis says. “But the story that they sent was about how much this visit meant to them because 10 years before this, they had been incarcerated.” For the family, going from a Japanese internment camp in Yuma County, Arizona, to a moment that felt so quintessentially American represented a real sense of belonging, Bemis says.

“That was a thread that I saw in a lot of the stories, particularly from immigrants,” she says. “Coming to Disneyland, being able to take your family to Disneyland, really marked a sort of arrival as part of the American public.”

One pair of twin brothers visited the park in 1965 and had their picture taken with Mickey Mouse. Later in life, the brothers had a long falling out. But when their mother was dying and wanted them to reconcile, they returned to Disneyland as adults—wearing similar clothes and striking the same pose from their visit as kids decades before, with Mickey presiding over the picture once again.

“We got a lot of photos that people would send in that said, ‘My grandmother took this photo here, so I go back and I take this photo,’” Bemis says. “It was really indicative of the legacy that Disney has now in American families. It’s become part of our familial identities, as well as a place that we go to just to have fun.”

The Smithsonian collection also includes a button that says “I Danced at Disneyland,” a donation from Andrew Exler. In September 1980, when he was 19, Exler was kicked out of Disneyland Date Night for dancing with another man. He filed a lawsuit that eventually led Disney to drop its ban against same-sex dance couples in 1985. He had the button made when he returned to the park in 1989.

Since 1991, says Bemis, unofficial Gay Days have been held at the Disney parks, inviting once unwelcome members of the LGBTQ+ community to show up with friends, family and allies “just to say: ‘Hey, we’re just like you; we’re all having fun at Disneyland.’” This month, Disneyland marks its first official Pride Night in California, at a time when its Florida park is at odds with the state’s governor over restrictive LGBTQ+ laws.

“It doesn’t play a part in this exhibit,” Bemis says of the headline-making Florida confrontations, but “it only goes to show, as this exhibit does, that Disney has always been and will continue to be a space where we negotiate what it means to be an American. It reinforces the importance of that space in our culture and our identity.”

As Bemis writes in the book accompanying the exhibition, Disney Theme Parks and America’s National Narratives: Mirror, Mirror for Us All , “A major factor in the Disney theme parks’ ability to remain relevant for over 60 years as places of collective memory of the national narrative is that they adjust the narrative they present to reflect changes in prevailing cultural attitudes.” And specific changes in the parks often come at the behest of the public, she says.

“I’m hoping that people will see that they’re participating in creating and understanding American identity and history every day,” Bemis says. “I think that we all understand that when we come to a place like the Smithsonian, that it’s set up to do that. But we’re doing it when we’re going to Disney, too.”

Like museums, the Disney Parks have become a kind of repository of cultural history for millions of visitors to absorb. “There’s been a lot of debate about edutainment—how much should we entertain people, and how much should we straightforwardly be letting them learn?” Bemis says. “I see the Smithsonian and Disney as two halves of that, where Smithsonian has to entertain a little bit in order to do a lot of educating, and Disney entertains a lot to do a little bit of educating. So maybe together we tell one big story.”

“Mirror, Mirror: Reflections of America in Disney Parks” is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History through March 2024.

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Roger Catlin | | READ MORE

Washington, D.C. freelancer Roger Catlin has written about the arts for AARP The Magazine,   The Washington Post and other outlets. He writes mostly about TV on his blog rogercatlin.com.