Walt Disney - Biography, Achievements and Quotes

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O. Disney, he was co-founder of Walt Disney Productions, which later became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. 

The corporation is now known as The Walt Disney Company and had an annual revenue of approximately US$36 billion in the 2010 financial year.Disney is particularly noted as a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original voice. 

During his lifetime he received four honorary Academy Awards and won 22 Academy Awards from a total of 59 nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual in history. Disney also won seven Emmy Awards and gave his name to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the U.S., as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney Resort, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland.

Achievements & Facts about Walt Disney

• His father, Elias Disney, moved from Huron County, Ontario, to the United States in 1878, seeking first for gold in California but finally farming with his parents near Ellis, Kansas, until 1884. He worked for Union Pacific Railroad and married Flora Call on January 1, 1888, in Acron, Florida. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1890, where his brother Robert lived. 
• For most of his early life, Robert helped Elias financially. In 1906, when Walt was four, Elias and his family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri, where his brother Roy had recently purchased farmland. 
• While in Marceline, Disney developed his love for drawing. One of their neighbors, a retired doctor named “Doc” Sherwood, paid him to draw pictures of Sherwood’s horse, Rupert. He also developed his love for trains in Marceline, which owed its existence to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway which ran through town. 
• Walt would put his ear to the tracks in anticipation of the coming train. Then he would look for his uncle, engineer Michael Martin, running the train.
• The Disneys remained in Marceline for four years, before moving to Kansas City in 1911. There, Walt and his younger sister Ruth attended the Benton Grammar School where he met Walter Pfeiffer. The Pfeiffers were theatre aficionados, and introduced Walt to the world of vaudeville and motion pictures. 
• Soon, Walt was spending more time at the Pfeiffers’ than at home. During this time he attended Saturday courses as a child at the Kansas City Art Institute. While they were living in Kansas City, Walt and Ruth Disney were also regular visitors of Electric Park, 15 blocks from their home (Disney would later acknowledge the amusement park as a major influence of his design of Disneyland).
• Once Disney lost the rights to Oswald, he then needed to create a new character, and this character would be Mickey Mouse.  The first animated short with Mickey was Plane Crazy, and this was followed up with The Gallopin' Gaucho, and Steamboat Willie.  Mickey soon became the most popular cartoon character around.
• Disney also had intentions of creating a theme park.  The first Disney theme park was Disneyland, which took five years to develop.  
• Disneyland officially opened on July 14, 1955.  By the time the 1960s came around, his empire was a success.  Walt Disney Productions had become the world's leading producer of entertainment for families.
• Disney is noted for becoming a popular showman and a film producer and has been an innovator in theme park designs and animation.  He has created many famous fictional animated characters, such as Mickey Mouse.  
• He has received fifty-nine Academy Award nominations as well as winning twenty-six Oscars.  He has a record of four of these awards in one year.  He additionally has won seven Emmy Awards.
• In 1966, Walt Disney was supposed to go through neck surgery for an old injury from polo.  While he was getting his X-rays on November 2, the doctors learned the the chain smoker had an enormous tumor that was on his left lung.  
• He went back to the hospital for surgery, and at the surgery, the doctors removed his entire left lung.  He was told that he had only about six months left to live.  He went to a few chemotherapy lessons, but he and his wife went home. 
• He collapsed on November 30, 1966 at his home, but he was revived by paramedics and taken to the hospital, where he died on December 15, 1966.  He died just a few years before the Walt Disney World Resort was opened.  After his death, Roy Disney went out of retirement in order to take control of Walt Disney Productions.
• Now his Walt Disney's animation and motion picture studios and theme parks have become a multi billion dollar company, which owns eleven theme parks, five vacation resorts, thirty-nine hotels, two water parks, eight motion picture studios, eleven cable television networks, six record labels, and even one terrestrial television network.
• Disney is particularly noted for being a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world’s most famous fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, a character for which Disney himself was the original voice. 
• He has been awarded four honorary Academy Awards and has won twenty-two competitive Academy Awards out of fifty-ninenominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual. 
• He also won seven Emmy Awards. He is the namesake for Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorttheme parks in the United States, as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney, Disneyland Paris, and Disneyland Hong Kong.
• Disney died of lung cancer in Burbank, California, on December 15, 1966. The following year, construction began on Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. His brother Roy Disney inaugurated the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971.
• When Walt was younger he was hired to work at the Kansas City Star newspaper. He was later fired from the paper because of lack of creativity. Years later The Disney Company bought ABC which owned The Kansas City Star. How strange that he was fired because he was not creative enough and years later you own them because of your creativness.
• Walt Disney produced a series of cartoons entitled "Alice in Cartoonland", which combined live action and animation. These cartoons were long before Mickey.
• In 1945 Walt Disney designed the insignia for Fighter Squadron VF-84 while the squad was getting ready for the attack on Japan. See the book.
• While stationed at the US Navy submarine base in New London, CT, a fellow sailor who worked at the USS Nautilus museum relayed an interesting piece of information to me. There had been some recent thefts at the museum. 
• Some older submarine insignias that were made of gold were removed along with other stuff. I commented that they must have been worth a lot of money due to gold and their age. The other sailor informed me that the thieves had no idea what they had passed up though. In one of the offices (The head honcho's, I believe) is an original drawing of the design for the insignia of the USS Nautilus. It shows a submarine reared up on its tail with a nuclear symbol and some other navy stuff. The kicker of it all is that it was designed by and signed by Walt Disney himself!!!
• There are many hidden Mickey's if you go to Walt Disney's former home in Beverly Hills. The iron gate to the mansion seems to have a curly design in the ironwork...but tilt your head slightly and notice that these curls are Mickey's head.
• Disney in the late 60's put out some educational films. I only know about two of them. One was describing a female's monthly cycle. The other was about syphillis, and gonorrhea. The one about syphillis and gonarrhea had both "VDs" grouped together like an army unit. They had oval bodies with berets on. Syphillis were red and they wore red berets and had an S somewhere on them. Gonorrhea were green and they wore green berets, they had a G somewhere on them too.
• About Disney producing the female reproduction film. Its totally true. When they rounded us (the girls) up in fifth grade, they showed us a film, and it was DISNEY!! It was old, too. I would say 60's or 70's. It kind of disturbed me that Disney was teaching me about my monthly cycle.
• Disney did produce educational films for sex ed classes, but not just for the women. In fifth grade we got to see two films, one geared toward female growth and development, one geared toward males. Both of these were produced by Disney.
• Story of Menstruation, The Educational film, made for International Cellucotton Co.; delivered on October 18, 1946. Through animation and diagrams, the film discusses the female reproductive organs and follows development from babyhood to motherhood. A popular Disney film for girls in school for several decades.
• Walt Disney was so passionate about trains that he built a 1/8-scale railroad running through his backyard and the rose gardens of his Holmby Hills home, much to his wife's dismay. Because of his love of trains, Walt Disney built an eighth scale railroad at his home. 
• He took the Carolwood Pacific name from the street the house was located on, Carolwood Drive. This authentic steam railroad, which Walt himself helped to build, served as the inspiration for the larger steam trains at Disneyland. The engine that Walt built was No. 173 Lilly Belle. This 4-4-0 engine was named after his wife, Lillian. It is now on display, along with the caboose, inside Disneyland's Main Street Station. For more information on the Carolwood Pacific, visit the Carolwood Pacific Historical Society.
• It's said that when Disney was searching for land to build a theme park on, he used the name "M.T. Lott" so potential sellers wouldn't hike prices up on him, knowing he was rich.
• Another interesting fact about Walt Disney is that he often spent his lunchtimes seated at his desk. Not because he couldn't afford to go out and buy his lunch, of course. According to About.com, Disney's choice meal was chili with beans, tomato juice and soda crackers.
• Walter Elias Disney won a special Academy Award in 1932 for creating the cartoon character named Mickey Mouse. Following the lovable mouse were Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto and a host of other characters.
• To date, over 800 famous people have been featured on a U.S. postage stamp. The list includes past U.S. Presidents, actors, actresses, historical figures and a motion picture producer and animator. An interesting fact about Walt Disney is that he was honored by having his picture on a six-cent United States commemorative postage stamp that was issued September 11, 1968.
• First Accademy award: Flowers and Trees (1932) (was the first cartoon to be produced in color and the first to win an Oscar)
• He holds the record of earning the most Oscars! (32)
• In October 1966, Disney was scheduled to undergo neck surgery for an old polo injury; he had played frequently at the Riveria Club in Hollywood for many years. On November 2, 1966, during pre-surgery X-rays, doctors at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center across the street from the Disney Studio discovered that Disney had an enormous tumor on his left lung.
• Five days later, Disney went back to the hospital for surgery for both his neck injury, as well as to have the tumor removed, but within the short time, the tumor had spread to such great extent that the surgical doctors had to remove his entire left lung. The doctors then told Disney that he only had six months to a year to live. After several chemotherapy sessions, Disney and his wife spent a short amount of time in Palm Springs, California on vacation, before returning home. 
• On November 30, 1966, Disney collapsed in his home from a heart attack, but was revived by paramedics, and was taken back to the hospital, where he died on December 15, 1966, at 9:30 a.m., ten days after his 65th birthday. The last thing he reportedly wrote before his death was the name of actor Kurt Russell, but even Russell himself does not know what Disney meant.
• Disney was cremated on December 17, 1966, and his ashes reside at theForest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Roy O. Disney continued to carry out the Florida project, insisting that the name be changed to Walt Disney World in honor of his brother.

Superb Quotes by Walt Disney

• “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”
• “I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.”
• “I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn’t know how to get along without it.”
• “Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.”
• “Whenever I go on a ride, I’m always thinking of what’s wrong with the thing and how it can be improved.”
• "I am interested in entertaining people, in bringing pleasure, particularly laughter, to others, rather than being concerned with 'expressing' myself with obscure creative impressions."
• "We are not trying to entertain the critics. I'll take my chances with the public."
• "You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality."
• "When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do. And one thing it takes to accomplish something is courage."
• "I don't like formal gardens. I like wild nature. It's just the wilderness instinct in me, I guess."
• "Or heritage and ideals, our code and standards - the things we live by and teach our children - are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings."
• "I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn't know how to get along without it."
• "You reach a point where you don't work for money."
• "Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language."
• "I have no use for people who throw there weight around as celebrities, or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous."
• "When we consider a project, we really study it--not just the surface idea, but everything about it. And when we go into that new project, we believe in it all the way. We have confidence in our ability to do it right. And we work hard to do the best possible job."
• "I believe in being an motivator."
• "Movies can and do have tremendous influence in shaping young lives in the realm of entertainment towards the ideals and objectives of normal adulthood."
• “You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”
• “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
• “All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”
• “What ever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it they will want to come back and see you do it again and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.”