Walter Elias Disney was born on
December 5, 1901 in Chicago,
United States.
He was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor,
animator, businessman, entertainer, international icon, and generous donor. Walt Disney is famous for his influence
in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. As the co-founder (with
his brother Roy O. Disney) of Walt
Disney Productions, Disney became one of the best-known motion picture
producers in the world. The corporation he co-founded, now known as The Walt
Disney Company, today has annual revenues of approximately U.S. $35 billion.
In 1906, when Walt Disney was four, Walt Disney
developed his love for drawing. One of their neighbors, a retired doctor named
“Doc” Sherwood, paid him to draw pictures of Sherwood’s horse, Rupert.
1911, he attended Saturday
courses as a child at the Kansas City Art Institute. While they were living in Kansas City, Walt and his younger sister Ruth Disney were
also regular visitors of Electric
Park, 15 blocks from
their home. Walt Disney would later
acknowledge the amusement park as a major influence of his design of Disneyland.
During the fall of 1918, Walt Disney attempted to join for military service. He was rejected
because he was under age. He was only sixteen years old at the time. Instead, Walt Disney joined the Red Cross and
was sent overseas to France,
where he spent a year driving an ambulance.
When Walt Disney returned from France
in 1919, he moved back to Kansas City
to start a career as a newspaper artist. His brother Roy got him a job at the
Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio, where he met cartoonist Ubbe Iwerks. Disney worked at
the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cutout
animation. Around this time, Disney began experiment with a camera, doing
hand-drawn cell animation, and decided to open his own animation business. From
the ad company, he recruited Fred Harman as his first employee.
Walt Disney had created the animated character of Oswald the Lucky
Rabbit along with two other men. After a few cartoons, Disney asked for more
money to be able to draw more and better Oswald cartoons. The studio that Walt Disney was working for fired him
and hired other people to draw the animated rabbit. Unfortunately for Disney,
he didn't own the rights to his creation.
In a moment of inspiration,
Disney created a cartoon mouse that he wanted to call Mortimer. Walt's wife
talked him out of it, and the mouse got the name Mickey. (One story says that Walt Disney got the idea for a cartoon
mouse from a real mouse that he had trained.)
Mickey
Mouse first appeared in comics in Plane Crazy, a
short animated film that also starred Minnie Mouse and Clarabelle Cow.
Audiences were not impressed, and neither were distributors. Walt Disney went back to the drawing
board and produced another short film, this one called The Gallopin' Gaucho again.
The response was the same, however, mainly because
most people seemed to think that Mickey
Mouse looked so much like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit that they were not seeing
anything new character.
Frustrated but not willing to
give up, Walt Disney again went back
to the drawing board. This time, he delivered something that audiences liked.
This time, he gave us Mickey Mouse,
a Mickey Mouse that we would
recognize. The vehicle for the first real introduction of Mickey Mouse was Steamboat Willie, and it was a resounding success.
Audiences loved it, critics loved it, and Mickey
Mouse was off and running.
Walt Disney is particularly noted for being a film producer and a
popular showman, as well as a leader in animation and theme park design. He and
his staff created some of the world’s most well-known fictional characters
including Mickey Mouse, a character
for which Walt Disney himself was
the original voice. He has been awarded four honorary Academy Awards and has won twenty-two competitive Academy Awards out of fifty-nine
nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and
nominations than any other individual. He also won seven Emmy Awards. He is the namesake for Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States,
as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney, Disneyland Paris, and
Disneyland Hong Kong.
Walt Disney died of lung cancer in California, on December 15, 1966. The
following year, construction began on Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.
No comments:
Post a Comment