Walt Disney: Facts, Stories, And Trivia About The King Of Cartoons

 

Walter Elias Disney, better known as Walt Disney, was born on December 5, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois, to Elias Disney, an Irish-Canadian laborer, and Flora Call Disney, a German-American teacher. He was the fourth of their five children, four boys and one single girl. The family moved to Marceline, Missouri, shortly after Walt was born, and spent most of his childhood there, where he developed an interest in drawing, painting, and most importantly, selling his creations to anyone who would buy them. .

Young Disney

When Disney was 10 years old, his family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where his father started a newspaper route and Disney learned the discipline that would go a long way in aiding him in life. He also developed a greater appreciation of trains; His uncle, who was an engineer, also got him a summer job in the railways selling snacks and newspapers. In 1917, Disney moved back to Chicago, where Walt attended McKinley High School, taking drawing and photography classes and drawing cartoons for the school newspaper, as well as taking night classes at the Art Institute of Chicago.

When Disney was 16, he dropped out of school to join the military, but after being rejected for being too young, he drove an ambulance for the Red Cross in France and Germany for a year. After he returned, his brother, Roy, got him a job at Pesmin-Rubin Art Studio, where he met Ubi Iwerks. In 1922, Disney and Iwerks opened their own animation studio, where they created commercials, animated sketches called "Laugh-O-Grams", and a series of short fairy tale films called Alice in Cartoonland. However, within a year, a bad deal with a New York distributor drove the studio into bankruptcy, so at just 21 years old, Disney dragged his partner and his brother to Hollywood to open the Disney Brothers cartoon studio. , soon it was renamed Walt Disney Studios. where he began to develop cartoons featuring a certain spirited mouse.

On Top (Disney)  Of The World

Two years after founding their studio, Disney hired an ink-and-paint artist named Lillian Bonds, and she must have been influential since he married her later that year. The couple had two children: Diane Disney, born in 1933, and Sharon Disney, adopted in 1936. After putting his family in order, Disney premiered its first full-length film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in Los Angeles on December 21. , 1937. The film was a costly gamble during the Great Depression, costing about $1.5 million to make, but making nearly four times as much at the box office and winning eight Oscars.

In 1954, Disney turned to television. His Sunday night show, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Colour, became an instant hit. It was also a prime opportunity to advertise their new theme park, Disneyland, which opened on July 17, 1955 in Anaheim, California. Disney World was still under construction in 1966, when Disney died of lung cancer at age 65, but Roy Disney carried out his plan to finish the park, which opened in 1971.