Walt Disney
Walter Elias " Walt " Disney ( born December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois, † December 15, 1966 in Los Angeles, California ) was an American film producer, who produced or invented, among other things, nature films and cartoon characters. With his characters, movies and theme parks, he was one of the defining and most honored figures of the 20th century.
- 3.1 Film Awards
- 3.2 Other honors
- 5.1 Biographies
- 5.2 The film books and studies
Life
Walter Elias Disney was one of five children of the contractor, Elias Disney (1859-1941) and his wife Flora Call ( 1868-1938 ). His father was a Canadian from a family of Irish origin. The German American mother came from Ohio. They married in 1888 in Florida. Disney grew up with his parents, his sister Ruth and brothers Herbert, Raymond and Roy up on a farm in Missouri. All children had to help on the farm, but Walt Disney has always been interested in drawing and took 14 years for the first time participate in an art class in Kansas City / Missouri. After he had been an ambulance driver in the United States Army in France during the First World War, he began with character artists Ubbe " Ub " Iwerks, the Disney later the model for Mickey Mouse designed to draw short promotional films. Along with his brother Roy, he produced a series of short films entitled Alice Comedies, which also Black Pete occurred for the first time. Even then he mixed, as later with Mary Poppins, cartoon with real actors.
On 13 July 1925 he married Lilian Marie Bounds ( 1899-1997 ) in Lewiston, Idaho. The couple had two daughters, Diane Marie Disney (1933-2013) and Sharon Mae Disney ( 1936-1993 ).
Breakthrough with Mickey Mouse
After success with the Alice films Walt Disney in 1923 moved to Los Angeles. Along with Ub Iwerks as an art director and his brother, who took care of the financial aspects of the productions, he began to put his ideas into cartoons. In 1926 Disney on Zeichnerei and Iwerks left the conception of his characters. In 1927, he created with his studio the character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit for Universal Pictures. The figure is considered the forerunner of Mickey Mouse. 1927 this was created by Iwerks, although the 1932 conferred honorary Oscar for inventing the figure was presented to Disney. The title of the first film was Mickey Plane Crazy. At the same time appeared The Jazz Singer ( The Jazz Singer), the first commercially listed sound film in cinema history, produced by Warner Brothers. This encouraged Walt Disney to add new aspects of the animated genre, and to make his latest production with a time a world sensation, by adding the drawn pictures sound effects and music. So celebrated in November 1928 in New York Steamboat Willie, in which Minnie Mouse played her first role, Premiere.
Parallel to the Mickey Mouse films Disney produced the Silly Symphonies series, in which he deliberately tried out new animation techniques. So he published with the 1932 animated film by flowers and trees ( Flowers and Trees ) the first Technicolor film with natural-looking colors. 1934 Donald Duck made his debut in the Silly Symphony film The Wise Little Hen. More popular and invented by Walt Disney characters were Goofy, Pluto, Daisy Duck and The Three Little Pigs.
The Disney films were first brought from the United Artists in the cinemas. The rental companies let the filmmakers after differences but switch to RKO Pictures and could no longer participate in the commercial success of the following productions.
Success with animated feature films
Much work succeeded in 1937 with the Disney animated film version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, for which in 1939 he was honored by the Film Academy with an honorary Oscar. The award consisted of a regular Oscar and seven miniature symbolic issues. Following the huge success of Snow White was followed until the early forties years more feature-length animated films of Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi. These initial successes are still one of the greatest classics of Disney.
The 1940 published music film Fantasia was an absolute novelty, since it represented the first animated film, united the works of composers such as Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky with technical animation scenes. The work under the baton of Leopold Stokowski was the first movie which was equipped with a soundtrack in stereo sound. 1942 Walt Disney also received an honorary Oscar for this. The published in the same year the film Bambi, he later described as his favorite film.
Films and documentaries
After the Second World War, Disney produced numerous adventure films like Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. In the 1950s also came other feature-length animated films, including Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty.
To be very successful worldwide proved in this period a series of documentaries. Already the first, The Robben Island (1948 ), won an Oscar. Was it here first just to short films, dared Disney in 1953 with The Living Desert ( The Living Desert ), also bring a feature-length documentary film in the cinemas. The documentation was a financial and artistic sensation, also received an Oscar and was until then the commercial point of view largely ignored genre a new lease. More animal documentaries came Worldwide hereby limited in the coming years to the movies. The Disney studios themselves called their documentaries about animals and plants "True Life Adventures " ( " adventures in the realm of nature "). The most popular are The Vanishing Prairie ( The Vanishing Prairie, 1954) and Secrets of the Steppe ( The African Lion, 1955). In addition, there was "People and Places", a documentary series about different countries and their inhabitants.
Disney as a television pioneer
To get more money for his numerous plans, Walt Disney was one of the early 1950s to the first Hollywood producer who knew how to take advantage of the emerging television itself. With television shows like Disneyland Walt Disney developed as a " storyteller of the Nation" also into a nationally popular television presenter. His face was now even more famous, when he presented his latest movies on television, the art of animation illustrated, or movies and series anmoderierte.
His biggest hit series landed Disney Davy Crockett Fess Parker made her a star and also came to the cinema. Looking ahead, Disney had made the most of his TV broadcasts in color turn, even if the then state of the art allowed only a black and white look. The investment paid off by theatrical releases and subsequent repetitions in color.
Unusual were several television specials, which dealt with the possibilities of space travel. In return, Disney teamed up with the space pioneer Wernher von Braun, who moderated the designed by Ward Kimball movies along with Disney and others. With the German physicist and popular scientist Heinz Haber Disney created the TV special Our Friend the Atom, with the in line with the Eisenhower administration 's image of nuclear energy should be improved.
Last activities
On July 17, 1955 Walt Disney opened his first amusement park ( Disneyland ), Anaheim, a few kilometers south of Los Angeles. In 1964 he bought the site for the second Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, which should be even more successful than the first Disneyland. 1964 came out the most successful Disney film, Mary Poppins, which won five Oscars. The last film in the Disney participated personally was The Jungle Book ( The Jungle Book ), whose completion he sure did not live a year.
On December 15, 1966 Walt Disney died of lung cancer after surgery. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Disney left a fortune of around five billion dollars. His older brother Roy took over the Walt Disney Productions and the further development of the park, which was opened in 1971 in honor of its founder as " Walt Disney World ".
After his death, it was rumored, Walt Disney had let himself freeze kryonisch. When and by whom this rumor was just put into circulation, is unknown. However, this rumor that ever could spread and was dismissed directly as nonsense, the lack of information on Disney's funeral and the other whose reputation is attributed as a technical innovator for one.
Disney's relation to politics
Walt Disney saw himself as a patriot and anti-Communist, especially after the union movement started in Hollywood, to organize the Animator, and consequently its operation in 1941 strike. He was charged with a close connection to the FBI. He is said to have supplied as an informant reports of communist active employees of his company to the FBI. At the time of McCarthy, this meant for the persons referred to in the reports that they have been imprisoned or placed on a blacklist. To what extent was put Disney in his reports while under pressure, is controversial. It is certain that he was aware of the consequences of his statements deliberately. A group of filmmakers in Hollywood ( The Hollywood Ten) refused to allow the FBI reports of this kind - and was jailed.
Politically, Disney supporters of the Republican Party. He supported, among others, in the 1964 Presidential election the most conservative Republican Barry Goldwater, but clearly lost to Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1966 he assisted in the gubernatorial elections of California his friend and also conservative Republican Ronald Reagan, who won.
Prior to the presidential election of 1944, Disney applied as an elector for the Electoral College. Since Disney competed as a Republican, but the Democrats California team Roosevelt / Truman chose, Disney could not be an elector.
See on this subject the documents of the FBI in the Reading Room of the FOIA ( Freedom of Information Act ) about Walt Disney.
Honors and Awards
With well over 800 different prizes and awards he received during his lifetime and posthumously, Walt Disney is one of the most outstanding figures in the history of mankind. The following list contains a small selection of them:
Film Awards
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Throughout his life and posthumously Disney has received a total of 26 Oscars. He is the most awarded this prize filmmakers. In addition, he received another 37 Oscar nominations, including in 1965 for "Best Film " as a producer of Mary Poppins (1964).
Golden Globe Awards
British Film Academy Award
International Film Festival of Cannes
Golden Screen
Laurel Awards
Montreal World Film Festival
Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Awards
New York Film Critics Circle Awards
International Film Festival of Venice
Emmy Awards
Annie Awards
Walk of Fame
Disney has on the famous "Walk of Fame" ( Hollywood Boulevard) two stars, one for his film work and for his television work.