Walt Disney

"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." Walt Disney is known as the pioneer of family entertainment. But it wasn't easy to accomplish. Walt had many failures and was broke most of the time. But he persevered and accomplished many great things. Walter Elias Disney was born Dec. 5, 1901 in Chicago Illinois. At an early age Walt got into art. He sold his sketches to his neighbors to earn spending money. Walt studied art and photography at McKinley High School and attended night classes at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. At 16, Walt left school hoping to fight in World War 1, but was too young to enlist. So he joined the Red Cross and went to France as an ambulance driver. His ambulance was not covered in camouflage but instead was completely covered with Disney Cartoons! After returning from France Disney returned to Kansas City where he met commercial artist Ub Iwerks. Together they started an animation studio, which went bankrupt in the early 1920's. In 1923, Disney moved to Hollywood, California. He, his brother Roy, and Ub Iwerks began producing short animated films. In 1927 Walt created Oswald the Rabbit. Oswald was a big success but was stolen by his film distributor in 1928. And so came the creation of Mickey Mouse. Mickey was a big hit in the first cartoon with synchronized sound, Steamboat Willie. In which Walt provided the voice of Mickey. By the 1930's one million audiences were watching Mickey Mouse cartoons. Later came the other popular characters, Donald, Goofy, Daisy, Pluto, and Minnie. On July 13, 1925 Walt married one of his employees, Lillian Bounds. Later they would be graced with two daughters, Diane and Sharon. In December 1937 Walt released the first full-length animated musical feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which premiered at the Carthay Theater in Los Angeles. The filmed was created at the unbelievable cost of almost 1.5 million dollars during the Depression. In 1955 Walt opened Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California. It was a huge success. But Walt wanted to start from scratch on untouched land. Therefore, he bought 43 square miles of untouched land in the center of Florida where they built Walt Disney World. In Disney World, Walt planned an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, along with many other breakthrough attractions. Walt unfortunately did not live to see the finished Disney World. Walt Disney died of lung cancer on December 15,1966. After Walt passed away E. Cardon Walker was named chief executive of the Walt Disney Company. Walt received over 950 honors in his lifetime. Including 48 academy awards and 7 Emmys, degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California, and UCLA, the Showman of the World award and many others. Walt was also producer of 576 different movies and cartoons, director of 101 different movies and cartoons, was an actor in nine movies, cartoons, television shows, and wrote one cartoon and one movie. From the beginning Walt was meant to become great. Even as a child he was creating new ideas and had great expectations for his future. Despite his many failures Walt kept on trying to achieve his many dreams. In the end Walt accomplished what he set out to do. He brought joy to the world through movies and theme parks. Walt Disney was a great man and is revered by many around the world. But Walt only hopes we "that we don't lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse."

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Kailyn K.