Walt Disney

Disney Productions is one of the leading entertainment businesses, bringing tremendous profits not to mention the joy it brings many people. It has not always been this easy for Disney however. It took the mind of one man to bring it to what it is today, and that’s mans name is Walt Disney.

Walt Disney’s life was devoted to the arts and entertainment almost from birth. However, Walt’s fortunes and fame didn’t take form until his creation of Mickey

Mouse.

Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901 and was the fourth child of Elias and Flora Disney. He was an extremely talented child, exhibiting tremendous creativity at such a young age. Walt began drawing pictures in the 1st grade and continued until the day he died. Another of his exceptional talents was acting. Walt relished each opportunity to perform on stage or in class. While in elementary school "on Lincoln’s Birthday every year until he graduated, Walt was hauled from class to class by the principal to give the Gettysburg Address." (Fisher, 18)

Walt got bored with school however and dropped out at the age of 16. He immediately got a job as a waiter on a train line and kept this job until the U.S. entered the war.

Walt had a great desire to join the army, but was rejected because he was to young. Since he still desired to have some role in the war he became a volunteer with the Red

Cross. Within a week he was sent to the front and didn’t return for one to two years. When Walt returned from he war he told his father that he wanted to become an animator, but his father did not approve. Walt ignored his father’s advice and enrolled in art school.

Walt attended art school for several months in both

Missouri and Kansas City and then later found a job at an advertising firm in Kansas. There he met a talented artist named Ubbe Iwerks. Ubbe was a great animator and he and Walt became good friends. Walt and Ubbe worked all day for the advertising company, but at night they studied the art of animation and experimented with ways to make animation smoother by using light and a camera. Walt soon quit his job at the advertising firm because he was not satisfied with the work he was doing. He found a job in

Kansas City at a Film Ad Company. Walt was quickly fired from this job and having nowhere else to go, he returned home.

Walt and his brother Roy decided to form their own business available jobs did...

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...found 200-acre lot in

Anaheim, California and purchased it immediately.

Construction was completed and the park opened in 1955 and by that time Disney Productions was a financial success. People were so anxious to be the first ones in

Disneyland that when only 15,000 tickets were sold for opening day 33,000 people showed up, half of them had counterfeit tickets.

Certainly, Walt Disney was a man of vision. A man who had the creativity to develop ideas and then have the patience and perseverance to carry them out. Walt Disney showed courage and the desire you need to build a successful life. Even when all odds were against him, he still was able to find a way to conquer his dreams. He taught us many things and I hope we remember this man not only for his cartoons, but also for his work ethics and the contributions he made to society.

Bibliography

Fanning, Jim. Walt Disney. New York, NY: Chelsea

House Publishers, 1994.

Fisher, Maxine P. Walt Disney. New York, NY: A First

Book, 1988.

Greene, Katherine, and Greene,

Richard. The Man Behind The

Magic. New York, NY: Penguin

Books, 1991

Schroeder, Russell. Ed. Walt

Disney, His Life In Pictures.

New York, NY: Disney Press,

1996.