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Dreamers can be born out of the most unexpected places and still become the most influential. Walt Disney had great dreams and as he grew he never stopped pursuing them. He worked hard and it paid off. Even through conflicts and war he never gave up. Because of his perseverance he is today one of the best if not the best known person in media History.
Early Life and Career
In 1901 a child named Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago. By his fourth birthday he and his family moved to Misery. Ever since Walt was a boy he had a burning desire for art and drawing. One of the most inspiring events for him was when he was paid to draw the horse of his neighborhood doctor. Even with his busy life consumed with school and working for his father’s newspaper company, he would always find time to practice. Even with his exhausting schedule he never gave up and by his 18th birthday he got a job as a commercial illustrator. Altho, his assistance in World War 1 put a pause to his art career, Walt never stopped drawing. He joined the red cross and continued by doing illustration for the military newspaper and he even drew pictures on the side of the ambience he drove.
Once returning from the war he decided to move to California where there were more artistic opportunities. At first he found work with different companies and Started studying animation where he met a fellow artist and friend named Ub Iwerks. In July of 1923 Walt moved to Hollywood to continue his career and see his brother. It was then when Walt got a start with his brother by making a cartoon named Alice In Wonderland. They started a company named Disney Brothers Studio. Walt met and married one of the ink artists they hired named Lillian Bounds. However Walt started to get bored of producing the same cartoons and his brother disagreed. This conflict lost one of Walt’s favorite characters and half of his animation staff. But this company loss only inspired him to do better by going on to create even bigger cartoon hits.
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Famous Achievements and Death
Walt Disney kicked off his personal career with possibly the most famous cartoon of all, Mickey Mouse. His first sound animation that starred his new cartoon creation brought his career to life. Walt Disney himself said “I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.”
For decades following the mickey mouse creation there were dozens more iconic characters made into short length films and later full length ones. Snow Wite and the 7 Dwarfs was actually one that everyone believed would not turn out because it used lots of new ideas and concepts that Walt and his team had invented. But just as Walt said “If you can dream it… you can do it!”
Disney also had a passion to help in World War 2. Some of his most iconic characters helped raise money and he would even base his animation in the 1940s off of patriotic themes. In 1946 he was awarded the Motion Picture Alliance for preservation of american ideals.
In 1950 Walt came up with another grand idea. Because people were so interested in his work, he proposed the idea of creating a theme park. He purchased property in Anaheim California and in an orange grove. Being that it was so far away from his base he created a new arm of his company and called it Walt Disney Imagineering and called the employees imagineers. Disney went on to start his animation on ABC which was a new network at the time. Because of the publicity ABC got from Walts work, they helped fund Walt’s new aged theme park named DisneyLand.
This new family friendly park opened on Sunday July 17, 1955 and over 200,000 people showed up. Walt Disney continues on with many more accomplishments like The Mickey Mouse Club, the Frist 360 Movie, productions of It’s a Small World, and he even created a few documentary films. Walt went on to buy some property in Florida where he started what he called the Florida project. This place was soon to be known as DisneyWorld. Walt designed it to be similar to DisneyLand but in turn be bigger and always open to change with new world ideas.
Sadly, Walt would not live to see Disney World come to life. In 1966 He was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed away in December of that year at 65. Despite his tragic death, Walt was a huge inspiration for the world all over. His companies provide over 195,000 jobs world wide. Walter Elias Disney carved new trails and set the stage. Walt himself said “All our dreams can come true if we only have the courage to pursue them.”
