MOTIVATION [part 7]

SUCCESS STORY {Its Walt Disney}

In this success story, we are going to share Walt Disney biography and his path to success. It wasn’t easy, but Walt believed in his dreams and did all his best to make the world happy. Enjoy reading a great life story about one of the greatest persons in history.

Walt Disney is a famous American artist, director, producer and creator of a series of full-length animated films that won him worldwide fame. He is a Doctor of Fine Arts, a winner of 7 Emmy Awards, 22 Academy Awards (Oscars), and Cecil B. DeMille Award. Additionally, he was awarded the highest civilian award of the U.S. government – The Presidential Medal of Freedom. Walt Disney is the co-founder of an entertainment conglomerate, The Walt Disney Company, and creator of the world’s first large amusement park, Disneyland. He and his team members created a number of famous fictional characters such as Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Goofy.

Teenage Years

In 1917, Elias became a shareholder of O-Zell jelly factory in Chicago. Therefore, he moved his family back to the city. In the fall the same year, Walter Disney started to attend McKinley High School as a freshman. Also, he attended night courses at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts under the guidance of Louis Frederick Grell (1887–1960), an American figure composition and portrait artist. Later he started drawing patriotic topics for the school newspaper on World War I.

In the fall of 1918, Walter attempted to be enlisted in the army forces to participate in World War I, following the example of his brother Roy, whom he admired much. Having been refused because of being under-aged, he volunteered for the Red Cross and was sent to France, where he had been working for a year as an ambulance driver. This car became a local landmark, as it was decorated with an amusing cartoonish character of the future animator.

Mickey Mouse

After losing the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney was understandably disappointed. In the spring of 1928, Walt Disney asked Ub Iwerks to develop a new character. Ubbe tried many sketches of animals including dogs, cats, a female cow, a male horse, a male frog; however, Walt Disney did not like none of the ideas. Mickey Mouse inspired the team from a tame mouse that had been drawn by Hugh Harman at Laugh-O-Gram Studio yet in 1925. Therefore, Ub started working on improving the original sketches of Mickey Mouse.

Ubbe Iwerks, the creator of Mickey Mouse.

It is interesting to know that the original name of the character was “Mortimer Mouse” before his wife, Lillian Disney, convinced him to change it to Mickey Mouse. Thus, Ub Iwerks animated Mickey Mouse, and Walt Disney gave it a soul being the Mickey’s voice until 1947.

On May 15, 1928, the Disney team first featured Mickey Mouse in a test screening of a short cartoon, Plane Crazy. However, the audience was not impressed by the new character. Walt gave another try and featured the Mickey in another short cartoon, The Gallopin’ Gaucho. Unable to find a distributor the cartoon was not released either.

However, Walt Disney did not give up and on November 18, 1928, Mickey appeared in Steamboat Willie, a short animated film with sound co-directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. This time, Walt managed to find a distributor. Pat Powers (1870 –1948), an entrepreneur involved in the movie and animation industry, became Steamboat Willie distributor and sold Disney Cinephone sound system that allowed to release Steamboat Willie with soundtracks that led Walt Disney to success. Furthermore, The Plane Crazy, The Galloping Gaucho were re-released with soundtracks and all subsequent Mickey Mouse animated cartoons were released with soundtracks as well.