Random Facts

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Walt Disney facts

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was born to Elias Disney and Flora Call Disney on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois.

He spent most of his childhood in Marceline, Missouri, when he developed a passion for drawing, painting and then sold them to his neighbors and close friends.

He became a train buff when his family moved to Kansas City; his Uncle Mike Martin was a train engineer and worked between Fort Madison, Iowa and Marceline.

He even sold snacks and newspapers to travelers on the railroad.

Disney had the creative gene in his blood and this was evident when he took drawing and photography classes and became the cartoonist for the school paper.

He tried to enroll into the Army but was rejected for being underage but joined the Red Cross and drove an ambulance for a year in France before the World War I ended.

After his return from France he moved to Kansas City and tried his hand as a newspaper artist.

He got a job at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio and met cartoonist Ubbe Eert Iwwerks.

Disney made commercials based on cutout animation at the Kansas City Film Ad Company.

Soon he started his own animation business and recruited Fred Harman as his first employee.

The duo managed to make a deal with a local Kansas City theater to screen their Laugh-O-Grams cartoons which became very popular in a very short time.

Soon Disney had his own studio which he named Laugh-o-gram and it hired a number of employees including Harman's brother Hugh and Iwerks.

The studio created a series of seven minute fairy tales combing live action and animation called Alice in wonderland.

However by 1923 the studio ran into financial difficulties and Disney had to declare it bankrupt.

In trying times Disney and his brother Roy pooled money and moved to Hollywood with Iwerks relocating to California and all three started the Disney Brothers' Studio.

The made a deal with New York distributor Margaret Winkler, to distribute their Alice cartoons.

They also created a character called Oswald the Rabbit and contracted it for $1500 each.

Disney hired an artist, Lillian Bounds who soon became his soul mate after a brief courtship.

A couple of years later Disney discovered that Winkler and her husband, Charles Mintz, had stolen the rights to Oswald, along with all of Disney's animators except Iwerks.

Unfazed Disney brothers and their wife and Iwerks created three cartoons with the character which Disney had in his mind-Mickey.