The Story Behind The Man
Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago Illinois. His parents Elias, a building contractor, and Flora, a teacher, moved the family to Marceline, Missouri shortly after his birth. His father bought a farm but within a few years they tired of farming and moved to Kansas City, Missouri. With the help of Walt and his brother Roy, Elias supported the family by delivering the morning newspaper. When he wasn’t delivering papers, Walt went to public school, took a correspondence course in cartooning, and briefly attended the Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design.
At age 15 his family resettled in Chicago; Disney went to high school during the day and attended the Art Institute of Chicago at night in the hope of becoming a newspaper cartoonist. In 1918 he dropped out of school and lied about his age to serve as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross during World War I, but the war ended before he ever fought in a battle. After the war he returned to Kansas City, finding work as an artist with the Pesman-Rubin Commercial Art Studio and then as an animator with the Kansas City Film Ad Company. After a while, he moved his operation to Hollywood in 1923 and opened a movie studio dedicated specifically to cartoons. Together with his brother Roy Disney, the Disney brothers' studio began producing cartoons featuring a girl named Alice. These early cartoons became known as the Alice movies. By 1926, the brothers had produced more than 50 short films.
The next cartoon character he created was Oswald the Rabbit, under contract with Universal Studios, and his cartoons became very successful. But he lost the Oswald copyright and had to create a new character. He developed Mickey Mouse after watching mice scurry around his studios. The mouse’s original name was Mortimer but thanks to Disney's wife, the name Mickey was chosen instead. After a couple of short films, Mickey Mouse starred in his first hit, Steamboat Willie. It was the first cartoon with a sound track that Disney produced, and the film became very successful. Mickey Mouse became popular with moviegoers, and Disney began to produce a series of film cartoons called "Silly Symphonies" that established him as one of Hollywood's most successful animators. In 1937, Disney had formed his Disney Studios production company and produced his first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was his first successful movie of many.
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