Walt Disney. My Hero.

A little bit on my personal hero. Walt Disney was man of incredible genius and even more incredible vision. With his brilliant mind and the company full of innovators, he would change the landscape of animation and film making forever. And all of that was before he invented the modern Theme Park. Something he is arguably better known for.

Let us begin at the start. On December 5, 1901, Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois. From very early on he loved art and drawing, even tarring the barn on the family farm, prompting a loving aunt to purchase his first drawing set (see, aunts really do make the world go round ;) lol). When he was 4 his parents moved to Marceline, Missouri and remained there until he was about 8or 9, though this seems like a short time, it actually left a deep emotional impression on him that would be carried through into his biggest venture ever, Disneyland.

In 1918 America was fighting WWI and Walt was a fierce patriot. He lied on his enlistment forms saying he was actually born in 1900 but was still forced to serve in the Red Cross as an ambulance driver because of the Military’s rejection. He spent a year overseas, and between patients and in his off time he worked on his art, drawing tattoos for soldiers and covering his ambulance in his cartoons.

In 1920 he began his career in show business, sort of. He started out as an advertising cartoonist. He perfected the art of adding animation to live action films during this time, and that would prove to be his bread and butter very soon.

 
And that’s where we will end today, next time we will focus on the Alice comedies, the role Universal played in the starting of an empire, the early life of Mickey Mouse and the years of Walt’s career before his first major film.