biography
| name: |
Disney, Walt(er Elias)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1901–66)
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| biography:
| Film animator, producer, and showman, born in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He spent most of his boyhood on a farm in Missouri, and at age 16 went to Chicago to study art. During 1920–2 he was in Kansas City, MO where, under the pioneer animator Ub Iwerks, he made simple cartoon advertisements that were shown in film theatres. He moved to Los Angeles (1923) to open his own animated cartoon studio, and very quickly found that his great talent lay in conceiving new images and projects and then directing others in bringing them into being, actually doing little of the animation himself. His first series, Alice in Cartoonland (1924–6) and Oswald the Rabbit (1926–8), 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. In 1929–39 he produced a series of full-colour 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 was followed by others such as Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942). During World War 2 his studio made educational films for the US 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 feature films with live actors, such as Treasure Island (1950), Davy Crockett (1955) and Mary Poppins (1964). In 1954 he also launched a successful television series for children which featured many of his studio's creations. In 1955 he opened Disneyland, in Anaheim, CA, an amusement park heavily drawing on his studio's productions. Disney World in Orlando, FL opened in 1971. Greatly honoured in his lifetime, with numerous Oscars, including a special award for Mickey Mouse (1932) and an honorary degree from Harvard, he remains acknowledged as a true genius of popular entertainment. |
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