Walter Elias Disney

Movie animator, producer, showman; born in Chicago. He spent most of his boyhood on a farm in Missouri, and at age 16 went to Chicago to study art. His first seriesAlice in Cartoonland (192426) and Oswald the Rabbit (192628)were not especially successful but in 1928 he introduced Mickey Mouse in the first sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie. Always quick to adopt the latest technology, his Flowers and Trees (1932) was the first film of any kind made in complete Technicolor. From 192939, he produced a series of full-color animated cartoons, Silly Symphonies, that featured his soon-to-become famous characters, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto. In 1937 he released the first full-length cartoon feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, to enormous financial and critical success; it would be followed by others such as Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942). During World War II his studio made educational films for the U.S. government. After the war, he began to produce True-Life Adventures, a series of short films showing hitherto unseen close-ups of animals in natural settings; his first full-length nature film was The Living Desert (1953). He also began to produce movies with live actors; his first was Treasure Island (1950), followed by others including Davy Crockett (1955) and Mary Poppins (1964). In 1955 he opened Disneyland, in Anaheim, Calif., an amusement park heavily drawing on his studio's productions; Disney World, in Orlando, Fla., did not open until 1971. Greatly honored in his lifetime, with numerous Oscarsincluding a special award for Mickey Mouse in 1932and an honorary degree from Harvard, he remains acknowledged as a true genius of popular entertainment. Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago Illinois, to his father, Elias Disney, an Irish-Canadian, and his mother, Flora Call Disney, who was of German-American descent. Walt was one of five children, four boy...