Walter Elias Disney

'Why should I run for Major when I'm already King?'
Walt Disney

Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois, on 5 December 1901. When the first World War arrived, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army, but he was rejected as being too young. Instead he travelled to France with the Red Cross and spent his time driving an ambulance decorated with his own cartoons.

Settling in Kansas City after the War, he embarked on a career as a cartoonist and, in 1920, he created his first original animated characters, while working for Kansas City Film Ads. Two years after that, he started his own company 'Laugh-O-Grams', but the company quickly ran into financial difficulties and Disney decided to leave and, with his drawing equipment and an idea for a cartoon, move to Hollywood.

His new venture began in a garage. Together with his brother Roy, Disney launched Disney Brothers Studio. He started out with $500 borrowed from his uncle, $200 from Roy, and $2500 from his parents, who mortgaged the house to raise the money.

Mickey Mouse was born in 1928, making his debut in the first-ever sound cartoon Steamboat Willie. Disney continued to innovate within the cartoon medium. He introduced Technicolor to cartoons, and in 1973 he premiered the first featured lenght musical animation, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He took a huge risk with this film, it was the first of its kind, it costed $2 million to make, which in the 1930s (middle of the Great Depression) was a huge amount. Fortunately to him, the gamble paid off, and Snow White was followed by other full-lenght animated classics.

Disney wasn't an easy man to work for, he was frequently neurotic and obsessive and he imposed strict rules at his studio.

The second World War had temporarily sidelined the Walt Disney studio's output.

In 1955 Disney took his brand in a new direction: The Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California. His investment was $17 million.

From the mid-1960s onwards, one project consumed the final years of his life. The 'Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT)', which was a Disney World with a social dimension. Disney World opened in October 1971, in Florida, with an amusement theme park, hotel complex, airport and 11 years later, the futuristic EPCOT centre, but he, however, was not present to witness the fruition of his plans. He died on 15 December 1966.

The magic of Disney is, nowhere more evident than in the fact that such complicated and often difficult man could atract such talented individuals to his studios, and somehow persuade them to produce their very best work. The vision and drive that spawned a billion-dollar international entertainment company was down to one man: Walt Disney.

'Steamboat Willie'

Source: 'Business the Ultimate Resource, New Edition'