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Birth
Walter Elias Disney was born to Elias Disney, an Irish-Canadian, and Flora Call Disney, of German-American descent, in Chicago's Hermosa community area at 2156 N. Tripp Ave. -
Childhood & The Arts
The Disneys remained in Marceline for four years, before moving to Kansas City in 1911. There, Walt and his 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 more time at the Pfeiffers' than at home.During this time he attended Saturday courses as a child at the Kansas City Art Institute -
Youth: School & Army
Disney dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen to join the Army, but the army rejected him because he was underage. -
Early Work
At Pesmen-Rubin, Disney created ads for newspapers, magazines, and movie theaters. It was here that he met a cartoonist named Ubbe Iwerks. -
Laugh-O Grams
Presented as "Newman Laugh-O Grams," Disney's cartoons became widely popular in the Kansas City area. Through the success of Laugh-O Grams, Disney was able to acquire his own studio and hire a vast number of additional animators. Unfortunately, with all his high employee salaries unable to make up for studio profits, Walt was unable to successfully manage money. As a result, the studio became loaded with debt and went bankrupt. -
Hollywood
Disney and his brother pooled their money to set up a cartoon studio in Hollywood. -
First Cartoons
The first animated short with Mickey in it was titled, Plane Crazy, which was, like all of Disney's previous works, a silent film. After failing to find a distributor for Plane Crazy or its follow-up, The Gallopin' Gaucho, Disney created a Mickey cartoon with sound called Steamboat Willie. -
Silly Symphonies
Following the footsteps of Mickey Mouse 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 by Iwerks, who was also responsible for drawing the majority of cartoons released by Disney in 1928 and 1929 -
First Academy Award
In 1932, Disney 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 cartoons in 1937, and Goofy would get solo cartoons in 1939 as well. -
First Child
The Disneys' first attempt at pregnancy ended up in Lilly having a miscarriage. When Lilly Disney became pregnant again, she gave birth to a daughter, Diane Marie Disney, on December 18, 1933. -
"Disney's Folly": Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Walt Disney introduces each of the Seven Dwarfs in a scene from the original 1937 Snow White theatrical trailer.After the creation of two cartoon series, Disney soon began plans for a full-length feature in 1934. In 1935, opinion polls showed that another cartoon series, Popeye the Sailor, produced by Max Fleischer, was more popular than Mickey Mouse. -
The Golden Age of Animation
The success of Snow White, (for which Disney received one full-size, and seven miniature Oscar statuettes) allowed Disney to build a new campus for the Walt Disney 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 Animation for Disney. -
Disneyland grand opening
Walt Disney giving the opening day speech July 17, 1955.Disneyland officially opened July 17, 1955. 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 source of joy and inspiration to all the world." -
Planning Disneyland
Aerial view August, 1963 from NW to SE. New Melodyland Theater at the top. The Santa Ana Freeway (I-5) upper left corner. DisneylandOn a business trip to Chicago in the late-1940s, Disney 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. -
Death
On November 2, 1966, during pre-surgery X-rays, doctors at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center across the street from the Disney Studio discovered that Disney—for many years a chain smoker—had an enormous tumor on his left lung. -
Beginning of the End
He died 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. Disney continued to carry out the Florida project, insisting that the name be changed to Walt Disney World in honor of his brother. -
Urban Legend
A long-standing but false urban legend maintains that Disney was cryogenically frozen, and his frozen corpse was stored underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.The first known instance of cryogenic freezing of a corpse occurred a month later, in January 1967.
