Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
He died on December 15, 1966, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Walt Disney’s father was Elias Disney, his mother was Flora Call Disney, and his wife was Lillian Disney.
Walt Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, and philanthropist.
The Walt Disney Company today, the company he co-founded, has annual revenues estimated at $ 30 billion, but how did all of that happen? Well, read on to find out a little more about Walt Disney.
Born in Chicago, at age 5, Walt Disney moved to a farm near Marceline, Missouri. Here Disney loved to draw and play with her younger sister Ruth, in the pond, with the animals, in the trees.
In 1910, Walt Disney moved to Kansas City and began attending the Benton Grammar School. He graduated on June 8, 1911. In 1917 he began his freshman year at McKinley High School, Chicago, Illinois and also enrolled in an evening course at the Chicago Art Institute.
At the age of 16, Walt Disney dropped out of school to join the military, but being too young he joined the Red Cross with a forged birth certificate from his mother (so that he was 17 and not 16). He drove an ambulance in France covered in Disney characters.
In 1922 Walt founded “Laugh-O-Grams”, selling animated shorts to local businesses in Kansas. The company ended, but Walt still had the job he had started on The Alice Comedies.
In Los Angeles, Walt Disney set up “Disney Brother’s Studio.” He hired Lillian Bounds to ink and paint celluloid and later became his wife. They were married on July 15, 1925.
Mickey Mouse was created in 1928, his birthday is November 18, Steamboat Willie release date. He was originally named “Mortimer”, but was later christened “Mickey Mouse” by Lillian Disney. Mickey changed colors in 1935 and soon gained minor characters like Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto. In 1932, Disney received a special Academy Award for the creation of Mickey Mouse.
Walt Disney worked on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs from 1934 to 1937. This was the first animated feature film in English and also in Technicolor. The premiere was on December 21, 1937 to a standing ovation. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became the most successful film of 1938 and made more than $ 8 which would be $ 98 today. Walt Disney later completed Pinocchio, Fantasy and Bambi.
Walt Disney began drawing plans for Disneyland, California, USA in the late 1940s. It opened on July 17, 1955 and is still open today. It’s now called Disneyland Park and has been since 1998.
In 1964 Mary Poppins, Walt Disney’s most successful film of the 1960s, was released.
Construction began on Walt Disney World Resort, Florida in 1967 and opened in 1971.
Walt Disney sadly died of lung cancer, after years of heavy smoking, in 1966. His brother, Roy O. Disney, continued with the Florida project but died in 1971, a few months after it opened.
Today, the Walt Disney Company owns, among other assets, two water parks, eleven theme parks, five vacation resorts, thirty-nine hotels, eight movie studios, six record labels, eleven cable television networks, and a terrestrial television network.