Famous People
Walt Disney
Walt
Disney was an American who developed the animated film into an art form. A
brilliant businessman, he also created Disneyland which proved to be as much an
innovation in the world of outdoor entertainment as Disney films were in the
world of motion pictures.
Walt
Disney was born in December 5, 1901. As Walt grew older he wandered far
away from the family farm and learned to watch animals that lived in the woods.
Walt
was almost
7
when he was enrolled at the Park School. He read the standard texts, studied
arithmetic, writing, geography and spelling. His grades were only fair, because
he always found things that interested him more than schoolwork. One
of his discoveries was the movie house that had just opened in Marceline.
Walt
helped his father on the farm as much as he could. When he had time Walt loved
to draw, but he didn't have any paper and pencils of his own. His Aunt Maggie
knew that Walt needed to play as well as work, and she gave him a pad of paper
and a box of pencils.
In 1911, when Walt was ten
years old, the family moved to Kansas City. Mr. Disney bought a newspaper
delivery business, and the father expected Walt to help him with the newspaper
business and deliver newspapers. On Saturday mornings Walt took classes in
painting and drawing at the Kansas City Art Institute.
In 1917 Walt Disney moved
to Chicago and took a job at the post office. He worked long hours delivering
mail, going to school and taking classes at Chicago's Academy of Fine Arts.
Some
of his teachers were cartoonists on the Chicago newspapers. They drew comic
pictures of politicians and people in the news.
The
summer of
1918
was the best that Walt had known. For the first time in his life Walt had
enough money to buy a movie camera. A war was being fought in Europe. Walt was
too young to be a soldier or a sailor. He joined the Red Cross as an ambulance
driver. On September
3, 1919,
the American Ambulance Corps was disbanded and Walt Disney boarded the ship for
the voyage back to America and the start of his career.
He was
full of hope and optimism. He went back to Kansas City. He was sure he would
find a job on the Kansas Star, the best newspaper in Mid-West at that
time.
Walt
didn't get a newspaper job, but he got a job with an advertizing company. It
lasted only six weeks, but it taught him many things about working in the art
field.
His
next job was drawing cartoons for screen advertisement in movie theatres.
By 1923 Hollywood had
become a company town, and movie makers started arriving in California.
W. Disney
asked for work as a director and was turned away. There were no cartoonists to
help him in Hollywood. The animation business was centered in New York. Walt
Disney found a man in New York to buy his films and find cinemas to show them.
He hired some art students to work for him. Together they made seven animated
cartoons, but the man in New York ran off with the money made from the
cartoons. Walt was forced to close his company but he wasn't discouraged. He
loved cartoons and was full of ideas. He decided to start all over again in
California.
In
Hollywood Walt rented an old camera and a garage which he turned into a small
studio. Walt's brother Roy helped him with money and they became partners.
Walt
believed that "Alice in Wonderland", which he had made in Kansas
City, might still provide his entree into the cartoon business. Walt made
series of "Alice in Cartoonland" cartoons. Cinema owners bought them
as quickly as he could make them. Walt had to hire cartoonists to help him. One
of them was a young woman named Lilian Bounds. She was fond of cartooning and
spent a lot of hours after work talking to Walt about his new ideas.
In 1924, when Walt was 23, he and Lilian
were married. Walt worked harder than ever drawing new cartoon characters. In
those days movies and cartoons were silent. But in 1927 the first movie
with sound was shown. It was called a talkie. Walt decided to put his new
character Mickey Mouse into a talkie.
When
audiences saw Mickey Mouse and Walt's other new cartoons, they loved them.
By
January
1930
W. Disney had created 12 Mickey Mouse
cartoons. Walt set to work to create even more new cartoon characters. There
were "Minnie Mouse", "Pluto", "Cow", "Donald
Duck", and “The Three Little Pigs". They all were very popular with
children and adults all over the world.
Walt
wanted to make the first colour cartoon. He filmed "Flowers and
Trees" in colour. It won an Academy Award as the best cartoon in 1931. He also won an
Academy award for creating Mickey Mouse.
Walt's
fame and business were growing. So was his family. By 1936 he was the father
of two daughters, Diane and Sharon.
After
many years Walt decided to make a full-length cartoon movie, "Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs". It took him years to finish it and cost a great
deal of money. But it was a great success. In 1939 it earned Walt another Academy
Award.
After
"Snow White" Walt made many long animated films. These included
"Pinocchio", "Bambi", and the musical "Fantasia"
and, later, "Cinderella", "Alice in Wonderland", and many
others.
Instead
of making animated films only he now decided to make movies about real animals.
Walt sent some photographers to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska to watch and
photograph seals. Thus the film "Seal Island" was made. No one had
ever seen a nature film like this before.
For
years Walt had thought about creating a perfect amusement park. He wanted it to
have everything that people dreamed about. He decided to call it Disneyland.
Walt knew he would need a lot of money, so he went to television to earn it.
The
American Broadcasting Company agreed to give Walt a one-hour weekly television
programme called Disneyland. The show was a great success. Walt built the
biggest and most unusual amusement park in the world. All of Walt Disney's
cartoon characters walked through the streets of Disneyland to greet its many
visitors.
Disneyland
was Walt's biggest success. The idea of Disneyland is a simple one. It is a
place for parents and children, a place for teachers and pupils to discover
better ways of understanding and education.
Still
Walt went on doing movies. In 1964 Walt Disney produced the greatest of his successes
"Mary Poppins".
The
highest honour came to Walt Disney on September 14, 1964, when President
Johnson presented him with the Medal of Freedom at the White House.
Walt
died on December 14, 1966 at the age of 65.
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