Hello friends. It feels so good to post here again. So, I've been dormant for quite some time but I'm back and ready to stay. I decided to begin this new series of summarized biographies of amazing people that I really admire. I term it The Do People.
I really decided to begin this because recently, I have come to understand that there are really just a few special people in the world who decide to be different, to dare, focus and literally don't care about what people have to say about them. Sadly, as much as everyone wants to get to the top, most people do not, maybe because of the fear of failure, the feel of being worthless or maybe because of laziness. I believe this series will be worth it to some people here, including me, and make them realize that it takes time and hard work to get there. Let's dive in immediately. Please read word for word.
Walt Disney:
A very popular name indeed. Walt Elias Disney was one of the pioneers of animation. He was a very creative person indeed and a resilient one too. For people that don't know who Walt Disney is, well he's the creator of some of our all time favourite cartoons and fairytales such as Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Cinderella. Even though he is dead, he has been immortalized and is remembered as the founder of Walt Disney Company.
Walt was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago. He was the fourth child and son in a family of five children.
Walt's interest in drawing began at the age of four when he and his family moved to a farm in Marceline, a city in Chariton and Linn Counties in Missouri, a state in the U.S. He would regularly try to practice the cartoon drawings he saw on the newspaper by the then famous artist, Ryan Walker. His family wasn't so rich, so he attended school the same time with his younger sister.
In 1911, when he was ten years old, he was transferred to another school in the city of Kansas, Missouri. A fellow student, Walter Pfeiffer introduced him to vaudeville and motion pictures. He quickly became friends with Pfeiffer and would normally be at his home after school, working with motion pictures. He also took an after school course in cartooning.
At age 16, he was enrolled in high school and quickly started drawing cartoons for the school newspaper. This was 1917 (a little before the end of the world war) so he drew cartoons patriotic heroes. This earned him a lot of recognition.
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After working as an apprentice for a commercial art studio after high school, he and his friend- who was also an artist- Ub Iwerks began their own Commercial Arts studio named the Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists. However, the dream was short lived and they both ended the business. They decided to go work for a film ad company. This was where Disney became interested in animation. He began studying animation and began practicing it at home. He then began a new business with a co-worker Fred Harman. They specialized in creating short cartoons for their main client, Newman Theater. The cartoons were sold as Newman's Laugh-O-Grams. However, in 1923, Laugh-O-Gram Studio became bankrupt.
The Birth Of Walt Disney Company:
When Disney was 21 in July 1923, he moved to Hollywood where his brother was recovering from tuberculosis. In October of the same year, he signed a contract for his film Alice's Wonderland with Margaret J. Winkler, a film distributor. It was after then that he and his brother, Roy formed the Disney Brothers Company which was later renamed as Walt Disney Company. In July 1924, he hired his friends Davis and Iwerks to work for him.
In early 1925, Disney hired an ink artist Lillian Bounds, who later became his wife in July that same year. They had two daughters in 1933 and 1936.
In July 1927, Disney created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. However, it was a failure and in 1928, he lost most of his staff except Iwerks who decided to be loyal to him.
Disney did not let the failure of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit get to him. In 1928, he, along with Iwerks, created Mickey Mouse who was possibly inspired by his pet mouse which he had adopted while working in his Laugh-O-Gram studio. Mickey Mouse is regarded as Disney's first real success story. He gave Mickey "his whole soul." Children really loved Mickey Mouse which appeared in many shows alongside other characters such as Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy.
In 1933, he produced The Three Little Pigs which was a short film. It won Disney an Academy Award in the Short Cartoon category.
The period between 1933 to 1941 is termed as the Golden Age of American Animation. During this period, Walt Disney Company produced a lot other cartoons like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940) and Fantasia (1940). Although Snow White was a huge success, the latter two didn't perform quite well owing to the effects of World War II. Disney was very much in debt.
It was then that Disney began selling stocks. In 1941, he produced Dumbo which was a huge success among kids although it was just enough to cover for costs. His next production, Bambi didn't quite perform well. The company fell into debt of about 4 million dollars with the Bank of America in 1944.
In 1950, Cinderella was produced and it was a huge success producing more than 300% profits for Walt Disney Company. He then continued to produce more animations like Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953).
Construction of Disneyland began and it was opened in July 1955. It attracted over 20,000 visitors a day. Disney became a success. He employed more people and produced more cartoons such as Sleeping Beauty (1955), Mary Poppins (1964), The Jungle Book, The Happiest Millionaire (1967) and Winnie The Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968).
Disney was diagnosed of lung cancer and died when he was 65, in 1966. He won 22 Academy Awards in his lifetime. Even after his death, he received another Academy Award from Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day which was released in 1968. The Company stopped producing cartoons until the late 1980's, kicking off with The Little Mermaid (1989). Ever since then till now, Walt Disney Studios is considered the best animation Company the world has ever seen.
I can only imagine the way Walt felt when he was in massive debt. His debt continued to pile up as his animations continued to fail. However, he did not give up. It takes a lot of grit to scale through that kind of situation. A good number of people will resort to suicide.
My best quote from Walt Disney goes like this: "If you can dream it, you can do it." At least if you didn't read through this long story😅, I hope you will see this paragraph. Don't let anything kill your dreams. If you be persistent enough, it'll surely happen one day
Thank you
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