Walter Elias Disney, born in 1901 in Chicago, was a famous American producer, director, screenwriter and animator who, together with his brother Roy O. Disney, founded “The Walt Disney Company“, a multi-million dollar entertainment company now known around the world.
Peasant’s son Elias disney (of Irish ancestry), and the teacher Flora Call, Disney started attending school “Benton grammar”In 1910, but he was not a great student, since having to work delivering newspapers he used to fall asleep in the middle of class.
Finally he left this school the following year, as his family would start a new life in Chicago, where he attended the “McKinley High School”.
At the same time, Walter he worked with his father and attended classes at the town’s Art Institute in the afternoons. During his stay at the school, the owner of “The Walt Disney Company“He was in charge of making the comics for the institute’s newspaper,”The Village Voice”.
The comics that made it up were patriotic and political in nature, focused mainly on the First World War. In 1918, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the army, like his brother Roy. Despite his attempts to join the American infantry, he was fervently rejected for being too young. Nevertheless, Walter He did not surrender and, upon learning that the Red Cross ambulance corps was admitting 17-year-olds, he falsified his document to enter the body.
From that moment, he was appointed as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in France, transferring officers wounded in combat. Finally in 1919, he requested to be relieved of his position and returned to the United States.
Back to his homeland, Disney decided to start an artistic career, moving to Kansas City, where he got a new job at the “Pesemen-Rubin Art Studio”. It is there where Walt he set about creating his first advertisements for newspapers, magazines and cinemas.
In that same place he met the one who would be his great friend, Ubbe iwwerks, who drew with him in the company. With Iwwerks, they started their own project “Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists“, which did not have the expected success.
In 1922, he founded the company “Laugh-O-Gram Films, Inc.“, Dedicating himself to making animated short films based on the classic fairy tales such as”Cinderella“Or”The cat with boots”.
In 1925, Disney met a young woman named Lillian bounds, with whom he married on July 15 of that same year. After trying a lot of times, Lillian gave birth to her daughter, Diane marie disney, in 1933. After a while, due to the difficulty of both having more children, they decide to adopt a second daughter in 1936, whom they called Sharon Mae Disney.
In 1927, a producer named Charles B. Mintz took control of the film distribution company “Winkler PicturesWhen marrying Margaret J. Winkler. It is there that the character created and drawn by Iwerks “Oswald the lucky rabbit“It was a massive success.
This allowed Walter rehiring his old friends from Kansas City to work on his new project.
After a fight between Walter Y Mintz, The rights of “Oswald”Were left in the hands of Winkles Pictures.
After losing the prized rights of this successful character, Disney and his friend decide to create a new one that was undoubtedly the masterpiece of society. The character in question is “Mickey Mouse“who first appeared in film on May 15, 1928 in”Plane Crazy”, Being a silent short film.
From that moment, a prosperous stage in the creative life of this American producer began, where he made very successful animations such as “Silly Symphonies“,”Donald Duck“,”Goofy“,”Dumbo“,”Pluto“,”Bambi” Y “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, Which was the first animated feature film in history in the English language.
From the age of 40, Disney He dreamed of building an amusement park for his employees and their families to have fun in their spare time. Although his plan was to build it near the studios, the city of Burbank denied him permission.
It was then that the company acquired a 730,000 m² piece of land, where originally orange and walnut trees were planted, in Anaheim, in Orange County, neighboring Los Angeles and it was there that this great city of games began to take shape, which began Its construction on July 21, 1954 and opened its doors to the public on July 18, 1955.
In 1966, Walt disney he was diagnosed with cancer in his left lung. Despite the efforts of doctors to cure this ferocious disease, the famous creator died on December 15, 1966. Although several myths surround the death of the animator (it is believed that he was frozen in life to be able to cure him when science get it), the body of Walter was cremated on December 17 in the “Glendale Forest Lawn Cemetery”, California.
After the death of the famous animation scriptwriter, his brother Roy went ahead with the Florida amusement park project, naming it “Mundo de Walt Disney“in honor of his deceased brother.