Walt Disney Biography

Walter Elias Disney

Born: December 5, 1901
Died: December 15, 1966
Place of Birth: Chicago, Illinois

Major Notes:

Walt Disney spent his early years living on a 45 acre farm with his three brothers and a sister.
Although the farm provided a good growth environment for the budding artist, his father Elias contacted typhoid and the family had to move to Kansas City.
Elias then set up a paper route business and used Walt and his brother Roy to deliver the papers.
Walt found delivering papers to the standard of perfection insisted upon by his father difficult at times.
In school, Walt Disney showed signs of exhaustion from going to school after his papers were delivered but on occasion acted in class skits he wrote.
He also liked to draw cartoons and even drew his own version of a popular comic strip called "Maggie and Jiggs."
His father had invested profits made from the paper route into a jelly company called O'Zell which wanted to produce a carbonated beverage.
Liking the idea of a carbonated drink, his father sold the paper route business and invested his time and money by working for O'Zell.
O'Zell required that Walt's father and mother to move to Chicago and Walt was able to attend the Chicago Institute of Art.
During World War I, at the age of 16, Walt Disney lied about his age and was accepted into the Ambulance Corps to go to France.
After the war, he and another artist, Ub Iwerks, started a commercial art business called "Iwerks-Disney ."
This business did not last and Walt Disney went to work for a Kansas City animation company; before long he had invented what he called "Laugh-O-Grams" for a local theater.
Again he could not make profits at cartooning and had to salvage and sell whatever he could from the business and then took steps to move to California.
Here with financial help from his parents, he and Roy set up a cartooning business called the "Disney Brothers Studio."
They developed a successful cartoon character called "Oswald the Rabbit" but it turned out that Universal Studio convinced Disney's staff to go to work directly for Universal which had the actual rights to the Oswald character.
Walt Disney was on his way to tell Roy about these circumstances when he came up with the idea for what was to be known as "Mickey Mouse."
He also envisioned using sound for the first time with cartoon voices to enhance the movie strips.
So it was in 1928 that the public accepted their new character and history was made.
Further cartoon characters, movies, and entertainment parks led to "Disney" becoming a name for a man who considered a legend.

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Major Notes:

Walt Disney spent his early years living on a 45 acre farm with his three brothers and a sister.

Although the farm provided a good growth environment for the budding artist, his father Elias contacted typhoid and the family had to move to Kansas City.

Elias then set up a paper route business and used Walt and his brother Roy to deliver the papers.

Walt found delivering papers to the standard of perfection insisted upon by his father difficult at times.

In school, Walt Disney showed signs of exhaustion from going to school after his papers were delivered but on occasion acted in class skits he wrote.

He also liked to draw cartoons and even drew his own version of a popular comic strip called "Maggie and Jiggs."

His father had invested profits made from the paper route into a jelly company called O'Zell which wanted to produce a carbonated beverage.

Liking the idea of a carbonated drink, his father sold the paper route business and invested his time and money by working for O'Zell.

O'Zell required that Walt's father and mother to move to Chicago and Walt was able to attend the Chicago Institute of Art.

During World War I, at the age of 16, Walt Disney lied about his age and was accepted into the Ambulance Corps to go to France.

After the war, he and another artist, Ub Iwerks, started a commercial art business called "Iwerks-Disney ."

This business did not last and Walt Disney went to work for a Kansas City animation company; before long he had invented what he called "Laugh-O-Grams" for a local theater.

Again he could not make profits at cartooning and had to salvage and sell whatever he could from the business and then took steps to move to California.

Here with financial help from his parents, he and Roy set up a cartooning business called the "Disney Brothers Studio."

They developed a successful cartoon character called "Oswald the Rabbit" but it turned out that Universal Studio convinced Disney's staff to go to work directly for Universal which had the actual rights to the Oswald character.

Walt Disney was on his way to tell Roy about these circumstances when he came up with the idea for what was to be known as "Mickey Mouse."

He also envisioned using sound for the first time with cartoon voices to enhance the movie strips.

So it was in 1928 that the public accepted their new character and history was made.

Further cartoon characters, movies, and entertainment parks led to "Disney" becoming a name for a man who considered a legend.