Walter Elias Disney
By: Kevin • Research Paper • 1,426 Words • March 2, 2009 • 1,766 Views
Essay title: Walter Elias Disney
Walter Elias Disney
At a time in American history when jobs were scarce and money was hard to
come by, one mouse and his group of animated friends, with their comical antics brought
smiles to the faces of children and adults alike. The mouse's name was Mickey, and with
his creation came the birth of a multibillion dollar corporate empire, all because of one
man's dream.
Walt Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois on December 5, 1901, and was brought
up on a small farm in a town called Marceline, Missouri, but later moved to Kansas City.
It was in Kansas City that Walt first began experimenting with his artistic capabilities on
Saturday mornings when he would go to a local museum and take drawing classes. The
instruction was not exactly great, but it was a beginning. At the age of seventeen, Disney
dropped out of school to become an ambulance driver overseas in W.W.I, but returned to
America in 1919, when he applied his desire for art to a lucrative career. He became an
apprentice as a commercial illustrator, creating advertising cartoons. By 1922, Walt had
joined forces with Ub Iwirks, and they began their own commercial advertising firm. It
didn't last long however, by 1923, Disney backed out of the business. Although the
venture was a failure, Iwirk's talent was one of the main reasons for Disney's later
success. (Gale Group)
Walt, now living in Hollywood, began production immediately on his first
animation, Steamboat Willy, which featured a cheeky little mouse named, "Mortimer,"
voiced by Walt. The mouse however was later renamed by Disney's wife, Lillian, to,
"Mickey." The production was the first ever to synchronize audio and visual effects. Walt
looked at animation as a new way of telling stories through a medium that had no
boundaries. This initial success led Walt to invest his own profits into newer and better
productions featuring Mickey's new gang of wacky characters; Goofy, Donald Duck,
Pluto, and Minnie. The productions were an overnight worldwide success, which led
Disney and his, at the time, small team to go even further, expanding their studios and
payroll, and releasing the first-ever full-length fully-animated feature presentation in 1937
entitled, Snow White. With the country still trying to recover from the economic disasters
of the Great Depression, the production of Snow White was completely astonishing, and
the fact that it was successful was even more astonishing, to many of Walt's colleagues,
including one animator named Bill Peet, a longtime animator and production assistant of
Walt's. Peet described Walt as a man of many faces. He could be on the highest of spirits
one day and in the lowest of spirits the very next, and you never could tell just which
Walt you might run into on any given day. (Peet, Bill)
The success of Snow White, in combination with Walt receiving an honorary
academy award in 1939, led to the production of other full-length movies such as,
Pinnochio, Fantasia, and the classic tale of Bambi. Disney's studios also took in earnings
from smaller, less-notable wildlife films in the late 30's and early 40's. In 1950 however
Disney's studios began experimenting with a new medium: live-action video, which they
used to produce the movie, Treasure Island, in 1950, the success of which led to the even
more successful, and possibly the most beloved live-action Disney