Walt Disney was born in Chicago in 1901. He developed an early interest in drawing. He studied art as a child and became a commercial illustrator at the age of 18. In the early 1920s, he relocated to California and founded the Disney Brothers Studio with his brother Roy. In 1928, he co-created the character Mickey Mouse with Ub Iwerks; in the early years, he also provided the voice for his creation. As the studio expanded, he became more daring, introducing synchronized sound, full-color three-strip Technicolor, feature-length cartoons, and camera technological advances.
The results, seen in films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio, Fantasia (both 1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942), helped to advance the development of animated films. Following World War II, new animated and live-action films were released, including the critically acclaimed Cinderella (1950) and Mary Poppins (1964), the latter of which received five Academy Awards.
Disney expanded into the amusement park industry in the 1950s, and in July 1955, he opened Disneyland in Anaheim, California. To finance the project, he ventured into television shows like Walt Disney’s Disneyland and The Mickey Mouse Club. He also worked on the 1959 Moscow World’s Fair, the 1960 Winter Olympics, and the 1964 New York World’s Fair. In 1965, he began work on another theme park, Disney World, the centerpiece of which was to be a new type of city called the “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” (EPCOT). Disney smoked heavily throughout his life and died of lung cancer in December 1966, before the park or the EPCOT project was completed.
In private, Disney was a shy, self-deprecating, and insecure man who adopted a warm and outgoing public persona. He had high standards and expectations of those he worked with. Although there have been accusations that he was racist or anti-Semitic, many people who knew him had refuted these claims. In the years following his death, his reputation shifted from that of a purveyor of homely patriotic values to that of a representative of American imperialism. Nonetheless, he is regarded as a national cultural icon in the United States and remains an important figure in the history of animation. His film work is still shown and adapted, and the Disney theme parks have grown in size and number to attract visitors in the years since.
