Walter Elias Disney
You’ve all heard of the wonderful Walt Disney. When you were young you most likely watched and adored his Disney classics. But do you know all of the effort and work that was put into making the stories? There was a lot more going on behind the scenes while you were bouncing around singing the “Winnie the Pooh” theme song than you think.
Walter Elias Disney, also called Walt Disney, was born at the turn of the century, 1901. At age 7, Disney was drawing cartoons and selling them to neighbors. 7 years later, Walt found himself attending the Kansas City Art Institute. But he wouldn’t have been able to attend those nighttime classes without the encouragement of his mother (Flora Call Disney) and older brother (Roy Disney). Walt’s father was stern, but always ready to help.
Along one of Walt’s daily trips, he encountered Ub Iwerks, Walt’s future life-long business partner. Together with Disney’s brother Roy, Ub and Walt the joined a studio called Laugh-O-Grams. This is where the cartoon business began. The excellent success of Laugh-O-Grams inspired Disney to make his own art studio, to begin the unknown, but future Walt Disney Studio. In 1923, Walt, Ub, and Roy packed-up and moved to Hollywood to start their drawing once again.
The first order they got was from New York to make the very popular “Alice Comedy”; it is now known as “Alice in Wonderland”. Since the men did such a wonderful job, Disney and Ub created Oswald Rabbit, though they soon lost rights over Oswald due to problems with the distributor. So a year later they came up with a new character. Mortimer Mouse, or shall I say Mickey Mouse, was called a “symbol of the ever-increasing Disney empire and of American success and capitalism”. Walt actually used his own voice for this furry creature. Disney felt that Mickey Mouse was becoming too much of an idol and that Mickey was too-trusting and over-optimistic to be an interesting cartoon character. The problem was that if he changed Mickey Mouse, Walt could disappoint fans and would become open to widespread criticism. So he just stopped using him for a while. Consider this as a temporary retirement.
Since no one had ever tempted to use sound before, Mickey Mouse’s first short, “Plane Crazy”, was a silent cartoon. Although that was no barrier for Walt Disney, because in the black mouse’s next cartoon, “Steamboat Willie,” not only sound was used, but the concept of making a separate cartoon for each movement was also started.
Daredevil Walt Disney was not only the first to use sound and a separate cartoon for each movement, but he also was the first with many other things. In his short, “Skeleton Dance,” he was among the first to use music. With “Silly Symphony”, he used Technicolor. He shot “The Tortoise and the Hare” using the portrayal of speed. In the hit, “The Old Mill”, Disney was the first to “utilize the multiplane camera technique” (also known as 3-D shooting). Finally, Walt Disney was the first ever to use color in his short “Flowers and Trees”. This won him his first of 32 personal Academy Awards.
Not too long after all of Walt’s innovations, did he and his partners create Mickey Mouse’s sweetheart Minnie Mouse. Also Mickey’s dog Pluto, who was previously going to be named Dippy Dang. And don’t forget Mickey’s pal, Goofy. Also don’t forget Mickey’s rival, Donald Duck. This crazy quacker was designed by Dick Lundy, and first appeared in “Silly Symphony” with Mickey Mouse.
Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck both were two of Disney’s biggest animated stars. As you might have all heard, Dick drew Donald with no pants, so this stirred up Scandinavia about a decade later. But aside from that, the only thing Donald brought to Disney were Academy Awards, over 150 shorts, numerous guest appearances, and feature films.
The next big thing that happened in this 20th Century American icon’s cartoon animating days, was the making of the first full-length feature, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”. This incredible film was finished 3 years and 1,499,000 dollars later. Let me remind you, this was all during the Great Depression (1938). Money like that was unheard of. But making a movie isn’t as easy as you think. Especially when all of your workers believe no one will like the movie because it will be too long. Even so, the next 5 years were full of enjoyment. The full-length features continues with Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi.
After the movies, Walt Disney built his Burbank Studio, which held well over 1,000 artists, animators, storymen, and technicians. Although it’s a shame because more than half of his staff resigned due to Disney’s insistence on absolute artistic control. In fact, Walt was so controlling that he formed Buena Vista. Walt wasn’t a control freak though, because he allowed some remaining staff to produce cartoons for the armed services to use as training tools and morale builders.
Over the next few years, 81 features were released, Walt Disney was presented with 29 Oscars, 48 Academy Awards, seven Emmys, and more than 950 honors and citations from every nation. Before his death on December 15, 1966 from acute circulation collapse after the removal of a lung tumor, Disney took interest in establishing the California Institute of Arts. Walt said that new school “was a place where all 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”. The school was founded 5 years before his death.
Even after his death, Walter Elias Disney held the title of the King of American Entertainment. David Low mentioned how Disney was “the most significant figure in graphic arts since Leonardo”. Others, including myself, think this... “Walt Disney is a legend, a folk hero of the 20th Century. He did more than touch the hearts, minds, and emotions of millions of Americans than any other man did in the past Century. Through his work he brought joy, happiness, and universal means of communication to people of every nation. He brought us closer to the future, while telling us of the past. His legacy lives on in a new generation of Disney animated features. Our world shall never know but one Walt Disney.”
'Donald Duck' All Movie Guide
'Mickey Mouse' All Movie Guide
'Walt Disney' All Movie Guide
'Walt Disney: A Biography'
'Disney, Walt' Columbia Encyclopedia
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Copyright © 2001 Aurora Lykos. All Rights Reserved