Actors - Walt Disney

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	Actors - Walt Disney

Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966), was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, and animator. One of the most well-known motion picture producers in the world, Disney was the co-founder with his brother Roy O. Disney of Walt Disney Productions. The corporation, now known as The Walt Disney Company, makes revenues of about US $30 billion annually.

Walt Disney is particularly noted for being a successful storyteller, a hands-on film producer, and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in amusement park design. He and his staff created a number of the world's most popular animated properties, including the one many consider Disney's alter ego, Mickey Mouse.

1901-1936: The Early Years

Childhood

Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois to Elias Disney and the former Flora Call. He was of English, Irish and German heritage. Walt was named after his father and after his father's close friend Walter Parr, the minister at St. Paul Congregational Church. In 1906, his family moved to a farm near Marceline, Missouri. The family sold the farm in 1909 and lived in a rented house until 1910, when they moved to Kansas City. Disney was nine years old at the time.

According to the Kansas City Public School District records, Disney began attending the Benton Grammar School in 1910, and graduated on June 8, 1911. Disney later enrolled in classes at the Chicago Art Institute. He left school at the age of sixteen and became a volunteer ambulance driver in World War I, after he changed his birth certificate to show his year of birth as 1900 instead of 1901, in order to be able to enlist in the service. He served as a member of the American Red Cross Ambulance Force in France until 1919.

Kansas City animation studios

Disney returned to the USA, moved to Kansas City and, with his friend Ub Iwerks, formed a company called "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists" in January 1920. The company faltered and Disney and Iwerks soon gained employment at the Kansas City Film Ad Corporation, working on primitive animated advertisements for local movie houses.

In 1922, Disney started Laugh-O-Grams, Inc., which produced short cartoons based on popular fairy tales and children's stories. (See Laugh-O-Gram Studios) Among his employees were Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudolph Ising, Carmen Maxwell, and Friz Freleng. The shorts were popular in the local Kansas City area, but their costs exceeded their returns. After creating one last short, the live-action/animation Alice's Wonderland
, the studio declared bankruptcy in July 1923. Disney's brother Roy invited him to move to Hollywood, California, and Disney earned enough money for a one-way train ticket to California, leaving his staff behind, but taking the finished reel of Alice's Wonderland with him.

Alice Comedies: Contract and new California studio

Disney set up shop with his brother Roy started the Disney Brothers Studio in their Uncle Robert’s garage, and obtained a distribution deal for more live-action/animated shorts based upon Alice's Wonderland. The deal was made with New York City states-rights distributors Margaret Winkler and her fiancée Charles Mintz. Virginia Davis, the live-action star of Alice’s Wonderland, was sequestered from Kansas, as was Ub Iwerks. By 1926, the Disney Brothers Studio had been renamed as the Walt Disney Studio; the name Walt Disney Productions would be adopted in 1928. One of the studio’s employees, Lillian Bounds, became Walt Disney’s wife; they were married on July 13 1925.

The Alice Comedies
, as the new series was called, were reasonably successful, and featured both Dawn O'Day and Margie Gay as Alice after Virginia Davis’ parents pulled her out of the series because of a pay cut. Lois Hardwick also briefly assumed the role. By the time the series ended in 1927, the focus was more on the animated characters, in particular a cat named Julius who recalled Felix the Cat, rather than the live-action Alice.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

By 1927, Charles Mintz had married Margaret Winkler and assumed control of her business, and ordered a new all-animated series to be put into production for distribution through Universal Pictures. The new series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
, was an almost instant success, and the Oswald character, first drawn and created by Ub Iwerks, became a popular property. The Disney studio expanded, and Walt hired Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng from Kansas City.

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