Childhood
10 年 old Walt (center right) at a gathering of Kansas City newsboys in 1912.
Walter Elias 迪士尼 was born on December 5, 1901 to Elias Disney, of Irish-Canadian descent, and Flora Call Disney, of German-American descent, in Chicago's Hermosa community area at 2156 N. Tripp Ave.[3][4] Walt Disney's ancestors had emigrated from Gowran, County Kilkenny in Ireland. Arundel Elias Disney, great-grandfather of Walt Disney, was born in Kilkenny, Ireland in 1801 and was a descendant of Hughes and his son Robert d'Isigny, originally of France but who travelled to England with William the Conqueror in 1066.[5]. The d'Isigny name became Anglicised as 迪士尼 and the family settled in the village now known as Norton Disney, south of the city of Lincoln, in the county of Lincolnshire.
His father Elias 迪士尼 moved from Huron County, Ontario to the United States in 1878, seeking first for 金牌 in California but finally farming with his parents near Ellis, Kansas until 1884. He worked for Union Pacific Railroad and married Flora Call on January 1, 1888 in Acron, Florida. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1890,[6] where his brother Robert lived.[6] For most of his early life, Robert helped Elias financially.[6] In 1906, when Walt was four, Elias and his family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri,[7] where his brother Roy had recently purchased farmland.[7] While in Marceline, 迪士尼 developed his 爱情 for drawing.[8] One of their neighbors, a retired doctor named "Doc" Sherwood, paid him to draw pictures of Sherwood's horse, Rupert.[8] He also developed his 爱情 for trains in Marceline, which owed its existence to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway which ran through town. Walt would put his ear to the tracks in anticipation of the coming train.[4] Then he would look for his uncle, engineer Michael Martin, running the train.
The Disneys remained in Marceline for four years,[9] before moving to Kansas City in 1911.[10] There, Walt and his younger sister Ruth attended the Benton Grammar School where he met Walter Pfeiffer. The Pfeiffers were theatre aficionados, and introduced Walt to the world of vaudeville and motion pictures. Soon, Walt was spending 更多 time at the Pfeiffers' than at home.[11] During this time he attended Saturday courses as a child at the Kansas City Art Institute [12] While they were living in Kansas City, Walt and Ruth 迪士尼 were also regular visitors of Electric Park, 15 blocks from their 首页 (Disney would later acknowledge the amusement park as a major influence of his 设计 of Disneyland).
Teenage years
迪士尼 as an 救护车 driver during World War I.
In 1917, Elias acquired shares in the O-Zell 果冻 factory in Chicago and moved his family back there.[13] In the fall, 迪士尼 began his freshman 年 at McKinley High School and began taking night courses at the Chicago Art Institute.[14] 迪士尼 became the cartoonist for the school newspaper. His 动画片 were very patriotic, focusing on World War I. 迪士尼 dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen to 加入 the Army, but the army rejected him because he was underage.[15]
After his rejection from the army, Walt and one of his 老友记 decided to 加入 the Red Cross.[16] Soon after he joined The Red Cross, Walt was sent to France for a year, where he drove an ambulance, but not before the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.[17]
In 1919, Walt, hoping to find work outside the Chicago O-Zell factory,[18] left 首页 and moved back to Kansas City to begin his artistic career.[19] After considering becoming an actor 或者 a newspaper artist, he decided he wanted to create a career in the newspaper, drawing political caricatures 或者 comic strips. But when nobody wanted to hire him as either an artist 或者 even as an 救护车 driver, his brother Roy, who worked at a bank in the area, got a temporary job for him at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio through a bank colleague .[19] At Pesmen-Rubin, 迪士尼 created ads for newspapers, magazines, and movie theaters.[20] It was here that he met a cartoonist named Ubbe Iwerks.[21] When their time at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio expired, they were both without a job, and they decided to start their own commercial company.[22]
In January 1920, 迪士尼 and Iwerks formed a short-lived company called, "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists". However, following a rough start, 迪士尼 left temporarily to earn money at Kansas City Film Ad Company, and was soon joined 由 Iwerks who was not able to run the business alone.[23] While working for the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cutout animation, 迪士尼 took up an interest in the field of animation, and decided to become an animator.[24] He was allowed 由 the owner of the Ad Company, A.V. Cauger, to borrow a camera from work, which he could use to experiment with at home. After 阅读 a book 由 Edwin G. Lutz, called Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Development, he found cel 动画片 to be much 更多 promising than the cutout 动画片 he was doing for Cauger. Walt eventually decided to open his own 动画片 business,[25] and recruited a fellow co-worker at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, 费雷德 Harman, as his first employee.[25] Walt and Harman then secured a deal with local theater owner Frank L. Newman — arguably the most 流行的 "showman" in the Kansas City area at the time[26] — to screen their 动画片 — which they titled "Laugh-O-Grams" — at his local theater.[26]
Laugh-O-Gram Studio
Presented as "Newman Laugh-O-Grams",[26] Disney's 动画片 became widely 流行的 in the Kansas City area.[27] Through their success, 迪士尼 was able to acquire his own studio, also called Laugh-O-Gram,[28] and hire a vast number of additional animators, including 费雷德 Harman's brother Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and his close friend Ubbe Iwerks.[29] Unfortunately, with all his high employee salaries unable to make up for studio profits, Walt was unable to successfully manage money.[30] As a result, the studio became loaded with debt[30] and wound up bankrupt.[31] 迪士尼 then set his sights on establishing a studio in the movie industry's capital city, Hollywood, California.[32]
Hollywood
迪士尼 and his brother pooled their money to set up a cartoon studio in Hollywood.[33] Needing to find a distributor for his new Alice Comedies — which he started making while in Kansas City,[31] but never got to distribute — 迪士尼 sent an unfinished print to New York distributor Margaret Winkler, who promptly wrote back to him. She was keen on a distribution deal with 迪士尼 for 更多 live-action/animated shorts based upon Alice's Wonderland.[34]
Alice Comedies
Virginia Davis (the live-action 星, 星级 of Alice’s Wonderland) and her family were relocated at Disney's request from Kansas City to Hollywood, as were Iwerks and his family. This was the beginning of the 迪士尼 Brothers' Studio. It was located on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district, where the studio remained until 1939. In 1925, 迪士尼 hired a young woman named Lillian Bounds to ink and paint celluloid. After a brief period of dating her, the two got married the same year.
The new series, Alice Comedies, was reasonably successful, and featured both Dawn O'Day and Margie Gay as Alice. Lois Hardwick also briefly assumed the role of Alice. 由 the time the series ended in 1927, the focus was 更多 on the animated characters, in particular a cat named Julius who resembled Felix the Cat, rather than the live-action Alice.
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
由 1927, Charles B. Mintz had married Margaret Winkler and assumed control of her business, and ordered a new all-animated series to be put into production for distribution through Universal Pictures. The new series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was an almost instant success, and the character, Oswald — drawn and created 由 Iwerks — became a 流行的 figure. The 迪士尼 studio expanded, and Walt hired back Harman, Rudolph Ising, Carman Maxwell, and Friz Freleng from Kansas City.
In February 1928, 迪士尼 went to New York to negotiate a higher fee per short from Mintz. 迪士尼 was shocked when Mintz announced that not only he wanted to reduce the fee he paid 迪士尼 per short but also that he had most of his main animators, including Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng (notably, except Iwerks, who refused to leave Disney) under contract and would start his own studio if 迪士尼 did not accept the reduced production budgets. Universal, not Disney, owned the Oswald trademark, and could make the films without Disney. 迪士尼 declined Mintz's offer and 迷失 most of his 动画片 staff.
With most of his staff gone 迪士尼 now found himself on his own again.[35] It took Disney's company 78 years to get back the rights to the Oswald character. The Walt 迪士尼 Company reacquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from NBC Universal in 2006, through a trade for longtime ABC sports commentator Al Michaels.[36]
Mickey Mouse
Main article: Mickey Mouse
After losing the rights to Oswald, 迪士尼 felt the need to develop a new character to replace him. He based the character on a 老鼠, 鼠标 he had adopted as a pet while working in a Kansas City studio.[37] Ub Iwerks reworked on the sketches made 由 迪士尼 so that it was easier to animate it. However, Mickey's voice and personality was provided 由 Disney. In the words of a 迪士尼 employee, "Ub designed Mickey's physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul."[37] Besides Oswald and Mickey, a similar mouse-character is seen in Alice Comedies which featured a 老鼠, 鼠标 named Ike the Mouse, and the first Flip the Frog cartoon called Fiddlesticks, which showed a Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 look-alike playing fiddle. The initial films were animated 由 Iwerks, his name was prominently featured on the 标题 cards. The 老鼠, 鼠标 was originally named "Mortimer", but later christened "Mickey Mouse" 由 Lillian 迪士尼 who thought that the name Mortimer did not fit. Mortimer later became the name of Mickey's rival for Minnie, who was taller than his renowned adversary and had a Brooklyn accent.
The first animated short with Mickey in it was titled, Plane Crazy, which was, like all of Disney's 前一个 works, a silent film. After failing to find a distributor for Plane Crazy 或者 its follow-up, The Gallopin' Gaucho, 迪士尼 created a Mickey cartoon with sound called 汽船 Willie. A businessman named Pat Powers provided 迪士尼 with both distribution and Cinephone, a sound-synchronization process. 汽船 Willie became an instant success,[38] and Plane Crazy, The Galloping Gaucho, and all future Mickey 动画片 were released with soundtracks. 迪士尼 himself provided the vocal effects for the earliest 动画片 and performed as the voice of Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 until 1946. After the release of 汽船 Willie, Walt 迪士尼 would continue to successfully use sound in all of his future cartoons, and Cinephone became the new distributor for Disney's early sound 动画片 as well.[39] Mickey soon eclipsed Felix the Cat as the world's most 流行的 cartoon character.[37] 由 1930, Felix, now in sound, had faded from the screen, as his sound 动画片 failed to gain attention.[40] Mickey's popularity would now skyrocket in the early 1930s.[37]
Silly Symphonies
Following the footsteps of Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 series, a series of musical shorts titled, Silly Symphonies was released in 1929. The first of these was titled The Skeleton Dance and was entirely drawn and animated 由 Iwerks, who was also responsible for drawing the majority of 动画片 released 由 迪士尼 in 1928 and 1929. Although both series were successful, the 迪士尼 studio was not seeing its rightful share of profits from Pat Powers,[41] and in 1930, 迪士尼 signed a new distribution deal with Columbia Pictures. The original basis of the 动画片 were musical novelty, and Carl Stalling wrote the score for the first Silly Symphony 动画片 as well.[42]
Iwerks was soon lured 由 Powers into opening his own studio with an exclusive contract. Later, Carl Stalling would also leave 迪士尼 to 加入 Iwerks' new studio.[43] Iwerks launched his Flip the Frog series with first voice cartoon in color, "Fiddlesticks," filmed in two-strip Technicolor. Iwerks also created two other series of cartoons, the Willie Whopper and the Comicolor. In 1936, Iwerks shut his studio to work on various projects dealing with 动画片 technology. He would return to 迪士尼 in 1940 and, would go on to pioneer a number of film processes and specialized 动画片 technologies in the studio's research and development department.
由 1932, Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 had become quite a 流行的 cinema character, but Silly Symphonies was not as successful. The same 年 also saw competition for 迪士尼 grow worse as Max Fleischer's flapper cartoon character, Betty Boop, would gain 更多 popularity among theater audiences.[44] Fleischer was considered to be Disney's main rival in the 1930s,[45] and was also the father of Richard Fleischer, whom 迪士尼 would later hire to direct his 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Meanwhile, Columbia Pictures dropped the distribution of 迪士尼 动画片 and was replaced 由 United Artists.[46] In late 1932, Herbert Kalmus, who had just completed work on the first three-strip technicolor camera,[47] approached Walt and convinced him to redo 花 and Trees, which was originally done in black and white, with three-strip Technicolor.[48] 花 and Trees would go on to be a phenomenal success and would also win the first Academy Award for Best Short Subject: 动画片 for 1932. After 花 and Trees was released, all future Silly Symphony 动画片 were done in color as well. 迪士尼 was also able to negotiate a two-year deal with Technicolor, giving him the sole right to use three-strip Technicolor,[49][50] which would also eventually be extended to five years as well.[42] Through Silly Symphonies, 迪士尼 would also create his most successful cartoon short of all time, The Three Little Pigs, in 1933.[51] The cartoon ran in theaters for many months, and also featured the hit song that became the anthem of the Great Depression, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf".[52]
Walt Disney's 星, 星级 on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
First Academy Award
In 1932, 迪士尼 received a special Academy Award for the creation of "Mickey Mouse", whose series was made into color in 1935 and soon launched spin-off series for supporting characters such as Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto; Pluto and Donald would immediately get their individual 动画片 in 1937,[53] and Goofy would get solo 动画片 in 1939 as well.[54] Of all of Mickey's partners, Donald Duck—who first teamed with Mickey in the 1934 cartoon, Orphan's Benefit—was arguably the most popular, and went on to become Disney's 秒 most successful cartoon character of all time.[55]
Children
The Disneys' first attempt at pregnancy ended up in Lillian having a miscarriage. When Lillian 迪士尼 became pregnant again, she gave birth to a daughter, Diane Marie Disney, on December 18, 1933. The Disneys adopted Sharon Mae 迪士尼 (December 31, 1936 – February 16, 1993).[56]
1937–1941: The Golden Age of Animation
"Disney's Folly": Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Walt 迪士尼 introduces each of the Seven Dwarfs in a scene from the original 1937 Snow White theatrical trailer.
After the creation of two cartoon series, 迪士尼 soon began plans for a full-length feature in 1934. In 1935, opinion 民意调查 showed that another cartoon series, Popeye the Sailor, produced 由 Max Fleischer, was 更多 流行的 than Mickey Mouse.[57] 迪士尼 was, however, able to put Mickey back on top, and also increase Mickey's popularity further 由 colorizing him and partially redesigning him into what was considered to be his most appealing 设计 up to this point in time.[37] When the film industry came to know about Disney's plans to produce an animated feature-length version of Snow White, they dubbed the project as "Disney's Folly" and were certain that the project would destroy the 迪士尼 studio. Both Lillian and Roy tried to talk 迪士尼 out of the project, but he continued plans for the feature. He employed Chouinard Art Institute professor Don Graham to start a training operation for the studio staff, and used the Silly Symphonies as a platform for experiments in realistic human animation, distinctive character animation, special effects, and the use of specialized processes and apparatus such as the multiplane camera; 迪士尼 would first use this new technique in the 1937 Silly Symphonies short The Old Mill.[58]
All of this development and training was used to elevate the quality of the studio so that it would be able to give the feature film the quality 迪士尼 desired. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as the feature was named, was in full production from 1934 until mid-1937, when the studio ran out of money. To acquire the funding to complete Snow White, 迪士尼 had to 显示 a rough cut of the motion picture to loan officers at the Bank of America, who gave the studio the money to finish the picture. The finished film premiered at the Carthay 圈, 圈子 Theater on December 21, 1937; at the conclusion of the film, the audience gave Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a standing ovation. Snow White, the first animated feature in America and Technicolor, was released in February 1938 under a new distribution deal with RKO Radio Pictures; RKO had previously been the distributor for 迪士尼 动画片 in 1936, after it closed down the 面包车, 范 Beuren Studios in exchange for distribution.[59] The film became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and earned over $8 million in its original theatrical release.
The Golden Age of Animation
The success of Snow White, (for which 迪士尼 received one full-size, and seven miniature Oscar statuettes) allowed 迪士尼 to build a new campus for the Walt 迪士尼 Studios in Burbank, which opened for business on December 24, 1939; Snow White was not only the peak of Disney's success, but it also ushered in a period that would later be known as the Golden Age of 动画片 for Disney.[60][61] The feature 动画片 staff, having just completed Pinocchio, continued work on Fantasia and Bambi and the early production stages of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan while the shorts staff continued work on the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto cartoon series, ending the Silly Symphonies at this time. Animator 费雷德 Moore had redesigned Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 in the late 1930s, when Donald 鸭 began to gain 更多 popularity among theater audiences than Mickey Mouse.[62]
Pinocchio and Fantasia followed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into the movie theaters in 1940, but both were financial disappointments. The inexpensive Dumbo was planned as an income generator, but during production of the new film, most of the 动画片 staff went on strike, permanently straining the relationship between 迪士尼 and his artists.
1941–1945: During World War II
迪士尼 and a group of animators were sent to South America in 1941 由 the U.S. State Department as part of its Good Neighbor policy, and guaranteed financing for the resulting movie, Saludos Amigos.[63]
Shortly after the release of Dumbo in October 1941, the United States entered World War II. The U.S. Army contracted most of the 迪士尼 studio's facilities and had the staff create training and instructional films for the military, home-front morale-boosting shorts such as Der Fuehrer's Face and the feature film Victory Through Air Power in 1943. However, the military films did not generate income, and the feature film Bambi underperformed when it was released in April 1942. 迪士尼 successfully re-issued Snow White in 1944, establishing a seven-year re-release tradition for 迪士尼 features. In 1945, The Three Caballeros was the last animated feature 由 迪士尼 during the war period.
In 1944, William Benton, publisher of the Encyclopædia Britannica, had entered into unsuccessful negotiations with 迪士尼 to make six to twelve educational films annually. 迪士尼 was asked 由 the US Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA), to make an educational film about the 亚马逊 Basin and it resulted in the 1944 animated short, The 亚马逊 Awakens.[64][65][66][67][68]
1945–1955: 迪士尼 in the post-war Period
The 迪士尼 studios also created inexpensive package films, containing collections of cartoon shorts, and issued them to theaters during this period. This includes Make Mine 音乐 (1946), Melody Time (1948), Fun and Fancy Free (1947) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). The latter had only two sections: the first based on The Wind in the Willows 由 Kenneth Grahame, and the 秒 based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 由 Washington Irving. During this period, 迪士尼 also ventured into full-length dramatic films that mixed live action and animated scenes, including Song of the South and So Dear to My Heart. After the war ended, Mickey's popularity would also fade as well.[69]
由 the late 1940s, the studio had recovered enough to continue production on the full-length features Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, both of which had been shelved during the war years, and began work on Cinderella, which became Disney's most successful film since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio also began a series of live-action nature films, titled True-Life Adventures, in 1948 with On 密封 Island. Despite rebounding success through feature films, Disney's 动画片 shorts were no longer as 流行的 as they used to be, and people began to instead draw attention to Warner Bros and their 动画片 星, 星级 Bugs Bunny. 由 1942, Leon Schlesinger Productions, which produced the Warner Bros. cartoons, had become the country's most 流行的 动画片 studio.[70] However, while Bugs Bunny's popularity rose in the 1940s, so did Donald Duck's;[71] Donald would also replace Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 as Disney's 星, 星级 character 由 1949.[72]
During the mid-1950s, 迪士尼 produced a number of educational films on the 太空 program in collaboration with NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun: Man in 太空 and Man and the Moon in 1955, and Mars and Beyond in 1957.
Walt 迪士尼 meets Wernher von Braun in 1954.
Testimony before Congress
迪士尼 was a founding member of the anti-communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. In 1947, during the early years of the Cold War,[73] 迪士尼 testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he branded Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, former animators and labor union organizers, as Communist agitators. All three men denied the allegations. According to Peter Schweizer, an 作者 of the time, Archives of the Soviet Union released 由 the Russian government implicate Sorrell as a Communist spy.[74] However, Sorrell testified before the HUAC in 1946 but there was insufficient evidence to link him to the Communist Party.[75][76] 迪士尼 accused the Screen Actors Guild of being a Communist front, and charged that the 1941 strike was part of an organized Communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood.[73]
1955–1966: Theme parks and beyond
Planning Disneyland
Aerial view August, 1963 looking SE. New Melodyland Theater at the top. The Santa Ana Freeway (I-5) upper left corner. Disneyland
On a business trip to Chicago in the late-1940s, 迪士尼 drew sketches of his ideas for an amusement park where he envisioned his employees spending time with their children. He got his idea for a children's theme park after visiting Children's Fairyland in Oakland, California. This plan was originally meant for a plot located south of the Studio, across the street. The original ideas developed into a concept for a larger enterprise that was to become Disneyland. 迪士尼 spent five years of his life developing Disneyland and created a new subsidiary of his company, called WED Enterprises, to carry out the planning and production of the park. A small group of 迪士尼 studio employees joined the Disneyland development project as engineers and planners, and were dubbed Imagineers.
When describing one of his earliest plans to Herb Ryman (who created the first aerial drawing of Disneyland which was presented to the Bank of America while requesting for funds), 迪士尼 said, "Herbie, I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded 由 a train."[77] Entertaining his daughters and their 老友记 in his backyard and taking them for rides on his Carolwood Pacific Railroad had inspired 迪士尼 to include a railroad in the plans for Disneyland.
Disneyland grand opening
Walt 迪士尼 giving the opening 日 speech July 17, 1955.
Disneyland officially opened July 17, 1955. Among the thousands of people who came out for the opening were Ronald Reagan, Bob Cummings and Art Linkletter, who shared cohosting duties, as well as the mayor of Anaheim. Walt gave the following opening 日 speech:
“ To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past ... and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America ... with the hope that it will be a 来源 of joy and inspiration to all the world. ”
Carolwood Pacific Railroad
The Lilly Belle on display at Disneyland Main Station in 1993. The caboose's woodwork was done entirely 由 Walt himself.
Main article: Carolwood Pacific Railroad
During 1949, 迪士尼 and his family moved to a new 首页 on a large piece of property in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles, California. With the help of his 老友记 Ward and Betty Kimball, owners of their own backyard railroad, 迪士尼 developed blueprints and immediately set to work on creating a miniature live steam railroad for his backyard. The name of the railroad, Carolwood Pacific Railroad, originated from the address of his 首页 that was located on Carolwood Drive. The railroad's half-mile long layout included a 46-foot (14 m)-long trestle, loops, overpasses, gradients, an elevated berm, and a 90-foot (27 m) tunnel underneath Mrs. Disney's flowerbed. He named the miniature working steam locomotive built 由 Roger E. Broggie of the 迪士尼 Studios Lilly Belle in his wife's honor. He had his attorney draw up right-of-way papers giving the railroad a permanent, legal easement through the garden areas, which his wife dutifully signed; However, there is no evidence of the documents ever recorded as a restriction on the property's title.
Expanding into new areas
As Walt 迪士尼 Productions began work on Disneyland, it also began expanding its other entertainment operations. In 1950, Treasure Island became the studio's first all-live-action feature, and was soon followed 由 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (in CinemaScope, 1954), Old Yeller (1957), The Shaggy Dog (1959), Pollyanna (1960), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), and The Parent Trap (1961). The Walt 迪士尼 Studio produced its first TV special, One 小时 in Wonderland, in 1950. 迪士尼 began hosting a weekly anthology series on ABC named Disneyland after the park, where he showed clips of past 迪士尼 productions, gave tours of his studio, and familiarized the public with Disneyland as it was being constructed in Anaheim, California. The 显示 also featured a Davy Crockett miniseries, which started a craze among the American youth known as the Davy Crockett craze, in which millions of coonskin 锦标 and other Crockett memorabilia were sold across the country.[78] In 1955, the studio's first daily 电视 show, Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 Club debuted, which would continue in many various incarnations into the 1990s.
As the studio expanded and diversified into other media, 迪士尼 devoted less of his attention to the 动画片 department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, whom he dubbed the Nine Old Men. During Disney's lifetime, the 动画片 department created the successful Lady and the Tramp (in CinemaScope, 1955), Sleeping Beauty (in Super Technirama 70mm, 1959), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), and The Sword in the Stone (1963).
Production on the short 动画片 had kept pace until 1956, when 迪士尼 shut down the shorts division. Special shorts projects would continue to be made for the rest of the studio's duration on an irregular basis. These productions were all distributed 由 Disney's new subsidiary, Buena Vista Distribution, which had assumed all distribution duties for 迪士尼 films from RKO 由 1955. Disneyland, one of the world's first theme parks, finally opened on July 17, 1955, and was immediately successful. Visitors from around the world came to visit Disneyland, which contained attractions based upon a number of successful 迪士尼 properties and films.
After 1955, the show, Disneyland came to be known as Walt 迪士尼 Presents. The 显示 transformed from black-and-white to color in 1961 and changed its name to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, moving from ABC to NBC,[79] and eventually evolving into its current form as The Wonderful World of Disney. It continued to air on NBC until 1981, when CBS picked it up.[80] Since then, it has aired on ABC, NBC, Hallmark Channel and Cartoon Network via separate broadcast rights deals. During its run, the 迪士尼 series offered some recurring characters, such as Roger Mobley appearing as the newspaper reporter and sleuth "Gallegher", based on the 写作 of Richard Harding Davis.
迪士尼 had already formed his own 音乐 publishing division back in 1949. In 1956, partly inspired 由 the huge success of the 电视 theme song The Ballad of Davy Crockett, he created a company-owned record production and distribution entity called Disneyland Records.
Early 1960s successes
(Left to right) Robert B. Sherman, Richard M. Sherman and Walt 迪士尼 sing "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" (1964)
由 the early 1960s, the 迪士尼 empire was a major success, and Walt 迪士尼 Productions had established itself as the world's leading producer of family entertainment. Walt 迪士尼 was the Head of Pageantry for the 1960 Winter Olympics.
After decades of pursuing, 迪士尼 finally procured the rights to P.L. Travers' 图书 about a magical nanny. Mary Poppins, released in 1964, was the most successful 迪士尼 film of the 1960s and featured a memorable song score written 由 迪士尼 favorites, the Sherman Brothers. The same year, 迪士尼 debuted a number of exhibits at the 1964 New York World's Fair, including Audio-Animatronic figures, all of which were later integrated into attractions at Disneyland and a new theme park project which was to be established on the East Coast.
Though the studio probably would've made great competition with Hanna-Barbera, 迪士尼 had decided not to enter the race for producing Saturday morning cartoon series on 电视 (which Hanna-Barbera had done at the time), because with the expansion of Disney's empire and constant production of feature films, there would be too much for the budget to handle. Thus, the studio had not produced any Saturday morning 动画片 until 1985, when Michael Eisner was the president of the corporation.[citation needed]
Plans for 迪士尼 World and EPCOT
迪士尼 World was to include a larger, 更多 elaborate version of Disneyland which was to be called the Magic Kingdom. It would also feature a number of golf courses and resort hotels. The 心 of 迪士尼 World, however, was to be the Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow, 或者 EPCOT for short.
Mineral King Ski Resort
Walt 迪士尼 had plans for a ski resort in Mineral King for a while, called Walt 迪士尼 Ski Resort. During the early to mid 1960s, 迪士尼 brought in experts like the renowned Olympic ski coach and ski-area designer Willy Schaeffler, who helped plan a visitor village, ski runs and ski lifts among the several bowls surrounding the valley. Plans finally moved into action in the mid 1960s, but Walt died before the actual work had started. Disney's death and the actions from preservationists made sure the resort was never built.
Death
In late 1966 迪士尼 was scheduled to undergo neck surgery for an old polo injury;[81] he had played frequently at the Riveria Club in Hollywood for many years.[82] On November 2, 1966, during pre-surgery X-rays, doctors at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center across the 街, 街道 from the 迪士尼 Studio discovered that 迪士尼 had an enormous tumor on his left lung.[83] Five days later, 迪士尼 went back to the hospital for surgery, but the tumor had spread to such great extent that doctors had to remove his entire left lung.[83] The doctors then told 迪士尼 that he only had six months to a 年 to live.[83] After several chemotherapy sessions, 迪士尼 and his wife spent a short amount of time in Palm Springs, California before returning home.[81] On November 30, 1966, 迪士尼 collapsed in his home, but was revived 由 paramedics, and was taken back to the hospital, where he died[81] on December 15, 1966 at 9:30 a.m., ten days after his 65th birthday. He was cremated on December 17, 1966 and his ashes reside at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Roy O. 迪士尼 continued to carry out the Florida project, insisting that the name be changed to Walt 迪士尼 World in honor of his brother.
The final productions in which 迪士尼 had an active role were the animated feature The Jungle Book and the live-action musical comedy The Happiest Millionaire, both released in 1967. Songwriter Robert B. Sherman 说 about the last time he saw Disney:
“ He was up in the third floor of the 动画片 building after a run-through of The Happiest Millionaire. He usually held court in the hallway afterward for the people involved with the picture. And he started talking to them, telling them what he liked and what they should change, and then, when they were through, he turned to us and with a big smile, he said, 'Keep up the good work, boys.' And he walked to his office. It was the last we ever saw of him.[84] ”
A long-standing urban legend maintains that 迪士尼 was cryogenically frozen, and his 《冰雪奇缘》 corpse was stored underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.[85] The first known instance of cryogenic freezing of a corpse occurred a 月 later, in January 1967.[85]
1967–present: legacy
Continuing the vision
Plaque at the entrance that embodies the intended spirit of Disneyland 由 Walt Disney: to leave reality and enter fantasy
After Walt Disney's death, Roy 迪士尼 returned from retirement to take full control of Walt 迪士尼 Productions and WED Enterprises. In October that year, the families of Walt and Roy met in front of 灰姑娘 城堡 at the Magic Kingdom to officially open the Walt 迪士尼 World Resort.
After giving his dedication for Walt 迪士尼 World, Roy asked Lillian 迪士尼 to 加入 him. As the orchestra played "When 你 Wish Upon a Star", she stepped up to the podium accompanied 由 Mickey Mouse. He then said, "Lilly, 你 knew all of Walt's ideas and hopes as well as anybody; what would Walt think of it [Walt 迪士尼 World]?". "I think Walt would have approved," she replied.[86] Roy died from a cerebral hemorrhage on December 20, 1971, the 日 he was due to open the Disneyland 圣诞节 parade.
1968 US postage stamp
During the 秒 phase of the "Walt 迪士尼 World" theme park, EPCOT was translated 由 Disney's successors into EPCOT Center, which opened in 1982. As it currently exists, EPCOT is essentially a living world's fair, different from the actual functional city that 迪士尼 had envisioned. In 1992, Walt 迪士尼 Imagineering took the step closer to Walt's vision and dedicated Celebration, Florida, a town built 由 the Walt 迪士尼 Company adjacent to Walt 迪士尼 World, that hearkens back to the spirit of EPCOT. EPCOT was also originally intended to be devoid of 迪士尼 characters which initially limited the appeal of the park to young children but the company later changed this policy.
The 迪士尼 entertainment empire
Today, Walt Disney's animation/motion picture studios and theme parks have developed into a multi-billion dollar television, motion picture, vacation destination and media corporation that carry his name. The Walt 迪士尼 Company today owns, among other assets, five vacation resorts, eleven theme parks, two water parks, thirty-nine hotels, eight motion picture studios, six record labels, eleven cable 电视 networks, and one terrestrial 电视 network. As of 2007, the company has an annual revenue of over U.S. $35 billion.[87]
10 年 old Walt (center right) at a gathering of Kansas City newsboys in 1912.
Walter Elias 迪士尼 was born on December 5, 1901 to Elias Disney, of Irish-Canadian descent, and Flora Call Disney, of German-American descent, in Chicago's Hermosa community area at 2156 N. Tripp Ave.[3][4] Walt Disney's ancestors had emigrated from Gowran, County Kilkenny in Ireland. Arundel Elias Disney, great-grandfather of Walt Disney, was born in Kilkenny, Ireland in 1801 and was a descendant of Hughes and his son Robert d'Isigny, originally of France but who travelled to England with William the Conqueror in 1066.[5]. The d'Isigny name became Anglicised as 迪士尼 and the family settled in the village now known as Norton Disney, south of the city of Lincoln, in the county of Lincolnshire.
His father Elias 迪士尼 moved from Huron County, Ontario to the United States in 1878, seeking first for 金牌 in California but finally farming with his parents near Ellis, Kansas until 1884. He worked for Union Pacific Railroad and married Flora Call on January 1, 1888 in Acron, Florida. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1890,[6] where his brother Robert lived.[6] For most of his early life, Robert helped Elias financially.[6] In 1906, when Walt was four, Elias and his family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri,[7] where his brother Roy had recently purchased farmland.[7] While in Marceline, 迪士尼 developed his 爱情 for drawing.[8] One of their neighbors, a retired doctor named "Doc" Sherwood, paid him to draw pictures of Sherwood's horse, Rupert.[8] He also developed his 爱情 for trains in Marceline, which owed its existence to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway which ran through town. Walt would put his ear to the tracks in anticipation of the coming train.[4] Then he would look for his uncle, engineer Michael Martin, running the train.
The Disneys remained in Marceline for four years,[9] before moving to Kansas City in 1911.[10] There, Walt and his younger sister Ruth attended the Benton Grammar School where he met Walter Pfeiffer. The Pfeiffers were theatre aficionados, and introduced Walt to the world of vaudeville and motion pictures. Soon, Walt was spending 更多 time at the Pfeiffers' than at home.[11] During this time he attended Saturday courses as a child at the Kansas City Art Institute [12] While they were living in Kansas City, Walt and Ruth 迪士尼 were also regular visitors of Electric Park, 15 blocks from their 首页 (Disney would later acknowledge the amusement park as a major influence of his 设计 of Disneyland).
Teenage years
迪士尼 as an 救护车 driver during World War I.
In 1917, Elias acquired shares in the O-Zell 果冻 factory in Chicago and moved his family back there.[13] In the fall, 迪士尼 began his freshman 年 at McKinley High School and began taking night courses at the Chicago Art Institute.[14] 迪士尼 became the cartoonist for the school newspaper. His 动画片 were very patriotic, focusing on World War I. 迪士尼 dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen to 加入 the Army, but the army rejected him because he was underage.[15]
After his rejection from the army, Walt and one of his 老友记 decided to 加入 the Red Cross.[16] Soon after he joined The Red Cross, Walt was sent to France for a year, where he drove an ambulance, but not before the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.[17]
In 1919, Walt, hoping to find work outside the Chicago O-Zell factory,[18] left 首页 and moved back to Kansas City to begin his artistic career.[19] After considering becoming an actor 或者 a newspaper artist, he decided he wanted to create a career in the newspaper, drawing political caricatures 或者 comic strips. But when nobody wanted to hire him as either an artist 或者 even as an 救护车 driver, his brother Roy, who worked at a bank in the area, got a temporary job for him at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio through a bank colleague .[19] At Pesmen-Rubin, 迪士尼 created ads for newspapers, magazines, and movie theaters.[20] It was here that he met a cartoonist named Ubbe Iwerks.[21] When their time at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio expired, they were both without a job, and they decided to start their own commercial company.[22]
In January 1920, 迪士尼 and Iwerks formed a short-lived company called, "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists". However, following a rough start, 迪士尼 left temporarily to earn money at Kansas City Film Ad Company, and was soon joined 由 Iwerks who was not able to run the business alone.[23] While working for the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cutout animation, 迪士尼 took up an interest in the field of animation, and decided to become an animator.[24] He was allowed 由 the owner of the Ad Company, A.V. Cauger, to borrow a camera from work, which he could use to experiment with at home. After 阅读 a book 由 Edwin G. Lutz, called Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Development, he found cel 动画片 to be much 更多 promising than the cutout 动画片 he was doing for Cauger. Walt eventually decided to open his own 动画片 business,[25] and recruited a fellow co-worker at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, 费雷德 Harman, as his first employee.[25] Walt and Harman then secured a deal with local theater owner Frank L. Newman — arguably the most 流行的 "showman" in the Kansas City area at the time[26] — to screen their 动画片 — which they titled "Laugh-O-Grams" — at his local theater.[26]
Laugh-O-Gram Studio
Presented as "Newman Laugh-O-Grams",[26] Disney's 动画片 became widely 流行的 in the Kansas City area.[27] Through their success, 迪士尼 was able to acquire his own studio, also called Laugh-O-Gram,[28] and hire a vast number of additional animators, including 费雷德 Harman's brother Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and his close friend Ubbe Iwerks.[29] Unfortunately, with all his high employee salaries unable to make up for studio profits, Walt was unable to successfully manage money.[30] As a result, the studio became loaded with debt[30] and wound up bankrupt.[31] 迪士尼 then set his sights on establishing a studio in the movie industry's capital city, Hollywood, California.[32]
Hollywood
迪士尼 and his brother pooled their money to set up a cartoon studio in Hollywood.[33] Needing to find a distributor for his new Alice Comedies — which he started making while in Kansas City,[31] but never got to distribute — 迪士尼 sent an unfinished print to New York distributor Margaret Winkler, who promptly wrote back to him. She was keen on a distribution deal with 迪士尼 for 更多 live-action/animated shorts based upon Alice's Wonderland.[34]
Alice Comedies
Virginia Davis (the live-action 星, 星级 of Alice’s Wonderland) and her family were relocated at Disney's request from Kansas City to Hollywood, as were Iwerks and his family. This was the beginning of the 迪士尼 Brothers' Studio. It was located on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district, where the studio remained until 1939. In 1925, 迪士尼 hired a young woman named Lillian Bounds to ink and paint celluloid. After a brief period of dating her, the two got married the same year.
The new series, Alice Comedies, was reasonably successful, and featured both Dawn O'Day and Margie Gay as Alice. Lois Hardwick also briefly assumed the role of Alice. 由 the time the series ended in 1927, the focus was 更多 on the animated characters, in particular a cat named Julius who resembled Felix the Cat, rather than the live-action Alice.
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
由 1927, Charles B. Mintz had married Margaret Winkler and assumed control of her business, and ordered a new all-animated series to be put into production for distribution through Universal Pictures. The new series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was an almost instant success, and the character, Oswald — drawn and created 由 Iwerks — became a 流行的 figure. The 迪士尼 studio expanded, and Walt hired back Harman, Rudolph Ising, Carman Maxwell, and Friz Freleng from Kansas City.
In February 1928, 迪士尼 went to New York to negotiate a higher fee per short from Mintz. 迪士尼 was shocked when Mintz announced that not only he wanted to reduce the fee he paid 迪士尼 per short but also that he had most of his main animators, including Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng (notably, except Iwerks, who refused to leave Disney) under contract and would start his own studio if 迪士尼 did not accept the reduced production budgets. Universal, not Disney, owned the Oswald trademark, and could make the films without Disney. 迪士尼 declined Mintz's offer and 迷失 most of his 动画片 staff.
With most of his staff gone 迪士尼 now found himself on his own again.[35] It took Disney's company 78 years to get back the rights to the Oswald character. The Walt 迪士尼 Company reacquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from NBC Universal in 2006, through a trade for longtime ABC sports commentator Al Michaels.[36]
Mickey Mouse
Main article: Mickey Mouse
After losing the rights to Oswald, 迪士尼 felt the need to develop a new character to replace him. He based the character on a 老鼠, 鼠标 he had adopted as a pet while working in a Kansas City studio.[37] Ub Iwerks reworked on the sketches made 由 迪士尼 so that it was easier to animate it. However, Mickey's voice and personality was provided 由 Disney. In the words of a 迪士尼 employee, "Ub designed Mickey's physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul."[37] Besides Oswald and Mickey, a similar mouse-character is seen in Alice Comedies which featured a 老鼠, 鼠标 named Ike the Mouse, and the first Flip the Frog cartoon called Fiddlesticks, which showed a Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 look-alike playing fiddle. The initial films were animated 由 Iwerks, his name was prominently featured on the 标题 cards. The 老鼠, 鼠标 was originally named "Mortimer", but later christened "Mickey Mouse" 由 Lillian 迪士尼 who thought that the name Mortimer did not fit. Mortimer later became the name of Mickey's rival for Minnie, who was taller than his renowned adversary and had a Brooklyn accent.
The first animated short with Mickey in it was titled, Plane Crazy, which was, like all of Disney's 前一个 works, a silent film. After failing to find a distributor for Plane Crazy 或者 its follow-up, The Gallopin' Gaucho, 迪士尼 created a Mickey cartoon with sound called 汽船 Willie. A businessman named Pat Powers provided 迪士尼 with both distribution and Cinephone, a sound-synchronization process. 汽船 Willie became an instant success,[38] and Plane Crazy, The Galloping Gaucho, and all future Mickey 动画片 were released with soundtracks. 迪士尼 himself provided the vocal effects for the earliest 动画片 and performed as the voice of Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 until 1946. After the release of 汽船 Willie, Walt 迪士尼 would continue to successfully use sound in all of his future cartoons, and Cinephone became the new distributor for Disney's early sound 动画片 as well.[39] Mickey soon eclipsed Felix the Cat as the world's most 流行的 cartoon character.[37] 由 1930, Felix, now in sound, had faded from the screen, as his sound 动画片 failed to gain attention.[40] Mickey's popularity would now skyrocket in the early 1930s.[37]
Silly Symphonies
Following the footsteps of Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 series, a series of musical shorts titled, Silly Symphonies was released in 1929. The first of these was titled The Skeleton Dance and was entirely drawn and animated 由 Iwerks, who was also responsible for drawing the majority of 动画片 released 由 迪士尼 in 1928 and 1929. Although both series were successful, the 迪士尼 studio was not seeing its rightful share of profits from Pat Powers,[41] and in 1930, 迪士尼 signed a new distribution deal with Columbia Pictures. The original basis of the 动画片 were musical novelty, and Carl Stalling wrote the score for the first Silly Symphony 动画片 as well.[42]
Iwerks was soon lured 由 Powers into opening his own studio with an exclusive contract. Later, Carl Stalling would also leave 迪士尼 to 加入 Iwerks' new studio.[43] Iwerks launched his Flip the Frog series with first voice cartoon in color, "Fiddlesticks," filmed in two-strip Technicolor. Iwerks also created two other series of cartoons, the Willie Whopper and the Comicolor. In 1936, Iwerks shut his studio to work on various projects dealing with 动画片 technology. He would return to 迪士尼 in 1940 and, would go on to pioneer a number of film processes and specialized 动画片 technologies in the studio's research and development department.
由 1932, Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 had become quite a 流行的 cinema character, but Silly Symphonies was not as successful. The same 年 also saw competition for 迪士尼 grow worse as Max Fleischer's flapper cartoon character, Betty Boop, would gain 更多 popularity among theater audiences.[44] Fleischer was considered to be Disney's main rival in the 1930s,[45] and was also the father of Richard Fleischer, whom 迪士尼 would later hire to direct his 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Meanwhile, Columbia Pictures dropped the distribution of 迪士尼 动画片 and was replaced 由 United Artists.[46] In late 1932, Herbert Kalmus, who had just completed work on the first three-strip technicolor camera,[47] approached Walt and convinced him to redo 花 and Trees, which was originally done in black and white, with three-strip Technicolor.[48] 花 and Trees would go on to be a phenomenal success and would also win the first Academy Award for Best Short Subject: 动画片 for 1932. After 花 and Trees was released, all future Silly Symphony 动画片 were done in color as well. 迪士尼 was also able to negotiate a two-year deal with Technicolor, giving him the sole right to use three-strip Technicolor,[49][50] which would also eventually be extended to five years as well.[42] Through Silly Symphonies, 迪士尼 would also create his most successful cartoon short of all time, The Three Little Pigs, in 1933.[51] The cartoon ran in theaters for many months, and also featured the hit song that became the anthem of the Great Depression, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf".[52]
Walt Disney's 星, 星级 on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
First Academy Award
In 1932, 迪士尼 received a special Academy Award for the creation of "Mickey Mouse", whose series was made into color in 1935 and soon launched spin-off series for supporting characters such as Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto; Pluto and Donald would immediately get their individual 动画片 in 1937,[53] and Goofy would get solo 动画片 in 1939 as well.[54] Of all of Mickey's partners, Donald Duck—who first teamed with Mickey in the 1934 cartoon, Orphan's Benefit—was arguably the most popular, and went on to become Disney's 秒 most successful cartoon character of all time.[55]
Children
The Disneys' first attempt at pregnancy ended up in Lillian having a miscarriage. When Lillian 迪士尼 became pregnant again, she gave birth to a daughter, Diane Marie Disney, on December 18, 1933. The Disneys adopted Sharon Mae 迪士尼 (December 31, 1936 – February 16, 1993).[56]
1937–1941: The Golden Age of Animation
"Disney's Folly": Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Walt 迪士尼 introduces each of the Seven Dwarfs in a scene from the original 1937 Snow White theatrical trailer.
After the creation of two cartoon series, 迪士尼 soon began plans for a full-length feature in 1934. In 1935, opinion 民意调查 showed that another cartoon series, Popeye the Sailor, produced 由 Max Fleischer, was 更多 流行的 than Mickey Mouse.[57] 迪士尼 was, however, able to put Mickey back on top, and also increase Mickey's popularity further 由 colorizing him and partially redesigning him into what was considered to be his most appealing 设计 up to this point in time.[37] When the film industry came to know about Disney's plans to produce an animated feature-length version of Snow White, they dubbed the project as "Disney's Folly" and were certain that the project would destroy the 迪士尼 studio. Both Lillian and Roy tried to talk 迪士尼 out of the project, but he continued plans for the feature. He employed Chouinard Art Institute professor Don Graham to start a training operation for the studio staff, and used the Silly Symphonies as a platform for experiments in realistic human animation, distinctive character animation, special effects, and the use of specialized processes and apparatus such as the multiplane camera; 迪士尼 would first use this new technique in the 1937 Silly Symphonies short The Old Mill.[58]
All of this development and training was used to elevate the quality of the studio so that it would be able to give the feature film the quality 迪士尼 desired. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as the feature was named, was in full production from 1934 until mid-1937, when the studio ran out of money. To acquire the funding to complete Snow White, 迪士尼 had to 显示 a rough cut of the motion picture to loan officers at the Bank of America, who gave the studio the money to finish the picture. The finished film premiered at the Carthay 圈, 圈子 Theater on December 21, 1937; at the conclusion of the film, the audience gave Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a standing ovation. Snow White, the first animated feature in America and Technicolor, was released in February 1938 under a new distribution deal with RKO Radio Pictures; RKO had previously been the distributor for 迪士尼 动画片 in 1936, after it closed down the 面包车, 范 Beuren Studios in exchange for distribution.[59] The film became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and earned over $8 million in its original theatrical release.
The Golden Age of Animation
The success of Snow White, (for which 迪士尼 received one full-size, and seven miniature Oscar statuettes) allowed 迪士尼 to build a new campus for the Walt 迪士尼 Studios in Burbank, which opened for business on December 24, 1939; Snow White was not only the peak of Disney's success, but it also ushered in a period that would later be known as the Golden Age of 动画片 for Disney.[60][61] The feature 动画片 staff, having just completed Pinocchio, continued work on Fantasia and Bambi and the early production stages of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan while the shorts staff continued work on the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto cartoon series, ending the Silly Symphonies at this time. Animator 费雷德 Moore had redesigned Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 in the late 1930s, when Donald 鸭 began to gain 更多 popularity among theater audiences than Mickey Mouse.[62]
Pinocchio and Fantasia followed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into the movie theaters in 1940, but both were financial disappointments. The inexpensive Dumbo was planned as an income generator, but during production of the new film, most of the 动画片 staff went on strike, permanently straining the relationship between 迪士尼 and his artists.
1941–1945: During World War II
迪士尼 and a group of animators were sent to South America in 1941 由 the U.S. State Department as part of its Good Neighbor policy, and guaranteed financing for the resulting movie, Saludos Amigos.[63]
Shortly after the release of Dumbo in October 1941, the United States entered World War II. The U.S. Army contracted most of the 迪士尼 studio's facilities and had the staff create training and instructional films for the military, home-front morale-boosting shorts such as Der Fuehrer's Face and the feature film Victory Through Air Power in 1943. However, the military films did not generate income, and the feature film Bambi underperformed when it was released in April 1942. 迪士尼 successfully re-issued Snow White in 1944, establishing a seven-year re-release tradition for 迪士尼 features. In 1945, The Three Caballeros was the last animated feature 由 迪士尼 during the war period.
In 1944, William Benton, publisher of the Encyclopædia Britannica, had entered into unsuccessful negotiations with 迪士尼 to make six to twelve educational films annually. 迪士尼 was asked 由 the US Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA), to make an educational film about the 亚马逊 Basin and it resulted in the 1944 animated short, The 亚马逊 Awakens.[64][65][66][67][68]
1945–1955: 迪士尼 in the post-war Period
The 迪士尼 studios also created inexpensive package films, containing collections of cartoon shorts, and issued them to theaters during this period. This includes Make Mine 音乐 (1946), Melody Time (1948), Fun and Fancy Free (1947) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). The latter had only two sections: the first based on The Wind in the Willows 由 Kenneth Grahame, and the 秒 based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 由 Washington Irving. During this period, 迪士尼 also ventured into full-length dramatic films that mixed live action and animated scenes, including Song of the South and So Dear to My Heart. After the war ended, Mickey's popularity would also fade as well.[69]
由 the late 1940s, the studio had recovered enough to continue production on the full-length features Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, both of which had been shelved during the war years, and began work on Cinderella, which became Disney's most successful film since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio also began a series of live-action nature films, titled True-Life Adventures, in 1948 with On 密封 Island. Despite rebounding success through feature films, Disney's 动画片 shorts were no longer as 流行的 as they used to be, and people began to instead draw attention to Warner Bros and their 动画片 星, 星级 Bugs Bunny. 由 1942, Leon Schlesinger Productions, which produced the Warner Bros. cartoons, had become the country's most 流行的 动画片 studio.[70] However, while Bugs Bunny's popularity rose in the 1940s, so did Donald Duck's;[71] Donald would also replace Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 as Disney's 星, 星级 character 由 1949.[72]
During the mid-1950s, 迪士尼 produced a number of educational films on the 太空 program in collaboration with NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun: Man in 太空 and Man and the Moon in 1955, and Mars and Beyond in 1957.
Walt 迪士尼 meets Wernher von Braun in 1954.
Testimony before Congress
迪士尼 was a founding member of the anti-communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. In 1947, during the early years of the Cold War,[73] 迪士尼 testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he branded Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, former animators and labor union organizers, as Communist agitators. All three men denied the allegations. According to Peter Schweizer, an 作者 of the time, Archives of the Soviet Union released 由 the Russian government implicate Sorrell as a Communist spy.[74] However, Sorrell testified before the HUAC in 1946 but there was insufficient evidence to link him to the Communist Party.[75][76] 迪士尼 accused the Screen Actors Guild of being a Communist front, and charged that the 1941 strike was part of an organized Communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood.[73]
1955–1966: Theme parks and beyond
Planning Disneyland
Aerial view August, 1963 looking SE. New Melodyland Theater at the top. The Santa Ana Freeway (I-5) upper left corner. Disneyland
On a business trip to Chicago in the late-1940s, 迪士尼 drew sketches of his ideas for an amusement park where he envisioned his employees spending time with their children. He got his idea for a children's theme park after visiting Children's Fairyland in Oakland, California. This plan was originally meant for a plot located south of the Studio, across the street. The original ideas developed into a concept for a larger enterprise that was to become Disneyland. 迪士尼 spent five years of his life developing Disneyland and created a new subsidiary of his company, called WED Enterprises, to carry out the planning and production of the park. A small group of 迪士尼 studio employees joined the Disneyland development project as engineers and planners, and were dubbed Imagineers.
When describing one of his earliest plans to Herb Ryman (who created the first aerial drawing of Disneyland which was presented to the Bank of America while requesting for funds), 迪士尼 said, "Herbie, I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded 由 a train."[77] Entertaining his daughters and their 老友记 in his backyard and taking them for rides on his Carolwood Pacific Railroad had inspired 迪士尼 to include a railroad in the plans for Disneyland.
Disneyland grand opening
Walt 迪士尼 giving the opening 日 speech July 17, 1955.
Disneyland officially opened July 17, 1955. Among the thousands of people who came out for the opening were Ronald Reagan, Bob Cummings and Art Linkletter, who shared cohosting duties, as well as the mayor of Anaheim. Walt gave the following opening 日 speech:
“ To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past ... and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America ... with the hope that it will be a 来源 of joy and inspiration to all the world. ”
Carolwood Pacific Railroad
The Lilly Belle on display at Disneyland Main Station in 1993. The caboose's woodwork was done entirely 由 Walt himself.
Main article: Carolwood Pacific Railroad
During 1949, 迪士尼 and his family moved to a new 首页 on a large piece of property in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles, California. With the help of his 老友记 Ward and Betty Kimball, owners of their own backyard railroad, 迪士尼 developed blueprints and immediately set to work on creating a miniature live steam railroad for his backyard. The name of the railroad, Carolwood Pacific Railroad, originated from the address of his 首页 that was located on Carolwood Drive. The railroad's half-mile long layout included a 46-foot (14 m)-long trestle, loops, overpasses, gradients, an elevated berm, and a 90-foot (27 m) tunnel underneath Mrs. Disney's flowerbed. He named the miniature working steam locomotive built 由 Roger E. Broggie of the 迪士尼 Studios Lilly Belle in his wife's honor. He had his attorney draw up right-of-way papers giving the railroad a permanent, legal easement through the garden areas, which his wife dutifully signed; However, there is no evidence of the documents ever recorded as a restriction on the property's title.
Expanding into new areas
As Walt 迪士尼 Productions began work on Disneyland, it also began expanding its other entertainment operations. In 1950, Treasure Island became the studio's first all-live-action feature, and was soon followed 由 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (in CinemaScope, 1954), Old Yeller (1957), The Shaggy Dog (1959), Pollyanna (1960), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), and The Parent Trap (1961). The Walt 迪士尼 Studio produced its first TV special, One 小时 in Wonderland, in 1950. 迪士尼 began hosting a weekly anthology series on ABC named Disneyland after the park, where he showed clips of past 迪士尼 productions, gave tours of his studio, and familiarized the public with Disneyland as it was being constructed in Anaheim, California. The 显示 also featured a Davy Crockett miniseries, which started a craze among the American youth known as the Davy Crockett craze, in which millions of coonskin 锦标 and other Crockett memorabilia were sold across the country.[78] In 1955, the studio's first daily 电视 show, Mickey 老鼠, 鼠标 Club debuted, which would continue in many various incarnations into the 1990s.
As the studio expanded and diversified into other media, 迪士尼 devoted less of his attention to the 动画片 department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, whom he dubbed the Nine Old Men. During Disney's lifetime, the 动画片 department created the successful Lady and the Tramp (in CinemaScope, 1955), Sleeping Beauty (in Super Technirama 70mm, 1959), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), and The Sword in the Stone (1963).
Production on the short 动画片 had kept pace until 1956, when 迪士尼 shut down the shorts division. Special shorts projects would continue to be made for the rest of the studio's duration on an irregular basis. These productions were all distributed 由 Disney's new subsidiary, Buena Vista Distribution, which had assumed all distribution duties for 迪士尼 films from RKO 由 1955. Disneyland, one of the world's first theme parks, finally opened on July 17, 1955, and was immediately successful. Visitors from around the world came to visit Disneyland, which contained attractions based upon a number of successful 迪士尼 properties and films.
After 1955, the show, Disneyland came to be known as Walt 迪士尼 Presents. The 显示 transformed from black-and-white to color in 1961 and changed its name to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, moving from ABC to NBC,[79] and eventually evolving into its current form as The Wonderful World of Disney. It continued to air on NBC until 1981, when CBS picked it up.[80] Since then, it has aired on ABC, NBC, Hallmark Channel and Cartoon Network via separate broadcast rights deals. During its run, the 迪士尼 series offered some recurring characters, such as Roger Mobley appearing as the newspaper reporter and sleuth "Gallegher", based on the 写作 of Richard Harding Davis.
迪士尼 had already formed his own 音乐 publishing division back in 1949. In 1956, partly inspired 由 the huge success of the 电视 theme song The Ballad of Davy Crockett, he created a company-owned record production and distribution entity called Disneyland Records.
Early 1960s successes
(Left to right) Robert B. Sherman, Richard M. Sherman and Walt 迪士尼 sing "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" (1964)
由 the early 1960s, the 迪士尼 empire was a major success, and Walt 迪士尼 Productions had established itself as the world's leading producer of family entertainment. Walt 迪士尼 was the Head of Pageantry for the 1960 Winter Olympics.
After decades of pursuing, 迪士尼 finally procured the rights to P.L. Travers' 图书 about a magical nanny. Mary Poppins, released in 1964, was the most successful 迪士尼 film of the 1960s and featured a memorable song score written 由 迪士尼 favorites, the Sherman Brothers. The same year, 迪士尼 debuted a number of exhibits at the 1964 New York World's Fair, including Audio-Animatronic figures, all of which were later integrated into attractions at Disneyland and a new theme park project which was to be established on the East Coast.
Though the studio probably would've made great competition with Hanna-Barbera, 迪士尼 had decided not to enter the race for producing Saturday morning cartoon series on 电视 (which Hanna-Barbera had done at the time), because with the expansion of Disney's empire and constant production of feature films, there would be too much for the budget to handle. Thus, the studio had not produced any Saturday morning 动画片 until 1985, when Michael Eisner was the president of the corporation.[citation needed]
Plans for 迪士尼 World and EPCOT
迪士尼 World was to include a larger, 更多 elaborate version of Disneyland which was to be called the Magic Kingdom. It would also feature a number of golf courses and resort hotels. The 心 of 迪士尼 World, however, was to be the Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow, 或者 EPCOT for short.
Mineral King Ski Resort
Walt 迪士尼 had plans for a ski resort in Mineral King for a while, called Walt 迪士尼 Ski Resort. During the early to mid 1960s, 迪士尼 brought in experts like the renowned Olympic ski coach and ski-area designer Willy Schaeffler, who helped plan a visitor village, ski runs and ski lifts among the several bowls surrounding the valley. Plans finally moved into action in the mid 1960s, but Walt died before the actual work had started. Disney's death and the actions from preservationists made sure the resort was never built.
Death
In late 1966 迪士尼 was scheduled to undergo neck surgery for an old polo injury;[81] he had played frequently at the Riveria Club in Hollywood for many years.[82] On November 2, 1966, during pre-surgery X-rays, doctors at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center across the 街, 街道 from the 迪士尼 Studio discovered that 迪士尼 had an enormous tumor on his left lung.[83] Five days later, 迪士尼 went back to the hospital for surgery, but the tumor had spread to such great extent that doctors had to remove his entire left lung.[83] The doctors then told 迪士尼 that he only had six months to a 年 to live.[83] After several chemotherapy sessions, 迪士尼 and his wife spent a short amount of time in Palm Springs, California before returning home.[81] On November 30, 1966, 迪士尼 collapsed in his home, but was revived 由 paramedics, and was taken back to the hospital, where he died[81] on December 15, 1966 at 9:30 a.m., ten days after his 65th birthday. He was cremated on December 17, 1966 and his ashes reside at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Roy O. 迪士尼 continued to carry out the Florida project, insisting that the name be changed to Walt 迪士尼 World in honor of his brother.
The final productions in which 迪士尼 had an active role were the animated feature The Jungle Book and the live-action musical comedy The Happiest Millionaire, both released in 1967. Songwriter Robert B. Sherman 说 about the last time he saw Disney:
“ He was up in the third floor of the 动画片 building after a run-through of The Happiest Millionaire. He usually held court in the hallway afterward for the people involved with the picture. And he started talking to them, telling them what he liked and what they should change, and then, when they were through, he turned to us and with a big smile, he said, 'Keep up the good work, boys.' And he walked to his office. It was the last we ever saw of him.[84] ”
A long-standing urban legend maintains that 迪士尼 was cryogenically frozen, and his 《冰雪奇缘》 corpse was stored underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.[85] The first known instance of cryogenic freezing of a corpse occurred a 月 later, in January 1967.[85]
1967–present: legacy
Continuing the vision
Plaque at the entrance that embodies the intended spirit of Disneyland 由 Walt Disney: to leave reality and enter fantasy
After Walt Disney's death, Roy 迪士尼 returned from retirement to take full control of Walt 迪士尼 Productions and WED Enterprises. In October that year, the families of Walt and Roy met in front of 灰姑娘 城堡 at the Magic Kingdom to officially open the Walt 迪士尼 World Resort.
After giving his dedication for Walt 迪士尼 World, Roy asked Lillian 迪士尼 to 加入 him. As the orchestra played "When 你 Wish Upon a Star", she stepped up to the podium accompanied 由 Mickey Mouse. He then said, "Lilly, 你 knew all of Walt's ideas and hopes as well as anybody; what would Walt think of it [Walt 迪士尼 World]?". "I think Walt would have approved," she replied.[86] Roy died from a cerebral hemorrhage on December 20, 1971, the 日 he was due to open the Disneyland 圣诞节 parade.
1968 US postage stamp
During the 秒 phase of the "Walt 迪士尼 World" theme park, EPCOT was translated 由 Disney's successors into EPCOT Center, which opened in 1982. As it currently exists, EPCOT is essentially a living world's fair, different from the actual functional city that 迪士尼 had envisioned. In 1992, Walt 迪士尼 Imagineering took the step closer to Walt's vision and dedicated Celebration, Florida, a town built 由 the Walt 迪士尼 Company adjacent to Walt 迪士尼 World, that hearkens back to the spirit of EPCOT. EPCOT was also originally intended to be devoid of 迪士尼 characters which initially limited the appeal of the park to young children but the company later changed this policy.
The 迪士尼 entertainment empire
Today, Walt Disney's animation/motion picture studios and theme parks have developed into a multi-billion dollar television, motion picture, vacation destination and media corporation that carry his name. The Walt 迪士尼 Company today owns, among other assets, five vacation resorts, eleven theme parks, two water parks, thirty-nine hotels, eight motion picture studios, six record labels, eleven cable 电视 networks, and one terrestrial 电视 network. As of 2007, the company has an annual revenue of over U.S. $35 billion.[87]
