At age 16, during World War I, he lied about his age to join the American Red Cross. He soon returned home, where he won a scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute. There, he met a fellow animator, 'Ub Iwerks' (qv). The two soon set up their own company. In the early 20s, they made a series of animated shorts for the Newman theater chain, entitled "Newman's Laugh-O-Grams". Their company soon went bankrupt, however. The two then went to Hollywood in 1923. They started work on a new series, about a live-action little girl who journeys to a world of animated characters. Entitled the "Alice Comedies", they were distributed by 'M.J. Winkler' (qv) (Margaret). Walt was backed up financially only by Winkler and his brother 'Roy O. Disney' (qv), who remained his business partner for the rest of his life. Hundreds of "Alice Comedies" were produced between 1923 and 1927, before they lost popularity. Walt then started work on a series around a new animated character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. This series was successful, but in 1928, Walt discovered that 'M.J. Winkler' (qv) and her husband, 'Charles Mintz' (qv), had stolen the rights to the character away from him. They had also stolen all his animators, except for 'Ub Iwerks' (qv). While taking the train home, Walt started doodling on a piece of paper. The result of these doodles was a mouse named Mickey. With only Walt and Ub to animate, and Walt's wife 'Lillian Disney' (qv) (Lilly) and Roy's wife 'Edna Disney' (qv) to ink in the animation cells, three Mickey Mouse cartoons were quickly produced. The first two didn't sell, so Walt added synchronized sound to the last one, _Steamboat Willie (1928)_ (qv), and it was immediately picked up. It became the first cartoon to use synchronized sound. With Walt as the voice of Mickey, it premiered to great success. Many more cartoons followed. Walt was now in the big time, but he didn't stop creating new ideas. In 1929, he created the 'Silly Symphonies', a cartoon series that didn't have a continuous character. They were another success. One of them, _Flowers and Trees (1932)_ (qv), was the first cartoon to be produced in color and the first cartoon to win an Oscar; another, _Three Little Pigs (1933)_ (qv), was so popular it was often billed above the feature films it accompanied. The Silly Symphonies stopped coming out in 1939, but Mickey and friends, (including Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and plenty more), were still going strong and still very popular. In 1934, Walt started work on another new idea: a cartoon that ran the length of a feature film. Everyone in Hollywood was calling it "Disney's Folly", but _Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)_ (qv) was anything but, winning critical raves, the adoration of the public, and one big and seven little special Oscars for Walt. Now Walt listed animated features among his ever-growing list of accomplishments. While continuing to produce cartoon shorts, he also started producing more of the animated features. _Pinocchio (1940)_ (qv), _Dumbo (1941)_ (qv), and _Bambi (1942)_ (qv) were all successes; not even a flop like _Fantasia (1940)_ (qv) and a studio animators' strike in 1941 could stop Disney now. In the mid- 40s, he began producing "packaged features", essentially a group of shorts put together to run feature length, but by 1950 he was back with animated features that stuck to one story, with _Cinderella (1950)_ (qv), _Alice in Wonderland (1951)_ (qv), and _Peter Pan (1953)_ (qv). In 1950, he also started producing live-action films, with _Treasure Island (1950)_ (qv). These began taking on greater importance throughout the 50s and 60s, but Walt continued to produce animated features, including _Lady and the Tramp (1955)_ (qv), _Sleeping Beauty (1959)_ (qv), and _One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)_ (qv). In 1955, he even opened a theme park in southern California: Disneyland. It was a place where children and their parents could take rides, just explore, and meet the familiar animated characters, all in a clean, safe environment. It was another great success. Walt also became one of the first producers of films to venture into television, with his series _"Disneyland" (1954)_ (qv) which he began in 1954 to promote his theme park. He also produced _"The Mickey Mouse Club" (1955)_ (qv) and _"Zorro" (1957)_ (qv). To top it all off, Walt came out with the lavish musical fantasy _Mary Poppins (1964)_ (qv), which mixed live-action with animation. It is considered by many to be his magnum opus. Even after that, Walt continued to forge onward, with plans to build a new theme park and an experimental prototype city in Florida. He never did finish those plans, however; in 1966, he contracted lung cancer. He died in December at age 65. But not even his death, it seemed, could stop him. Roy carried on plans to build the Florida theme park, and it premiered in 1971 under the name Walt Disney World. What's more, his company continues to flourish, still producing animated and live-action films and overseeing the still- growing empire started by one man: Walt Disney, who will never be forgotten.
Coordinates | 39°44′21″N104°59′5″N |
---|---|
name | Walt Disney |
birth name | Walter Elias Disney |
birth date | December 05, 1901 |
birth place | Hermosa, Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
death date | December 15, 1966 |
death place | Burbank, California, U.S.
Interred: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, U.S. |
occupation | Film producer, Co-founder of The Walt Disney Company, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions |
yearsactive | 1920–1966 |
spouse | Lillian Bounds (1925–1966) |
parents | Elias DisneyFlora Call Disney |
relations | Herbert Arthur Disney (brother)Raymond Arnold Disney (brother)Roy Oliver Disney (brother)Ruth Flora Disney (sister)Ronald William Miller (son-in-law)Robert Borgfeldt Brown (son-in-law)Roy Edward Disney (nephew) |
children | Diane Marie DisneySharon Mae Disney |
religion | Christian (Congregationalist) |
party | Republican |
signature | Walt Disney Signature 2.svg }} |
Disney is particularly noted as a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original voice. During his lifetime he received four honorary Academy Awards and won twenty-two Academy Awards from a total of fifty-nine nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual in history. Disney also won seven Emmy Awards and gave his name to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the U.S., as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney, Disneyland Paris, and Disneyland Hong Kong.
The year after his December 15, 1966 death from lung cancer in Burbank, California, construction began on Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. His brother Roy Disney inaugurated the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971.
In 1878, Disney's father Elias had moved from Huron County, Ontario, Canada to the United States at first seeking gold in California before finally settling down to farm with his parents near Ellis, Kansas, until 1884. Elias worked for the Union Pacific Railroad and married Flora Call on January 1, 1888, in Acron, Florida. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1890, hometown of his brother Robert who helped Elias financially for most of his early life. In 1906, when Walt was four, Elias and his family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri, where his brother Roy had recently purchased farmland. In Marceline, Disney developed his love for drawing with one of the family's neighbors, a retired doctor named "Doc" Sherwood, paying him to draw pictures of Sherwood's horse, Rupert. His interest in trains also developed in Marceline, a town that owed its existence to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway which ran through it. Walt would put his ear to the tracks in anticipation of the coming train then try and spot his uncle, engineer Michael Martin, running the train.
The Disneys remained in Marceline for four years, before moving to Kansas City in 1911 where Walt and his younger sister Ruth attended the Benton Grammar School. At school he met Walter Pfeiffer who came from a family of theatre aficionados, and introduced Walt to the world of vaudeville and motion pictures. Before long Walt was spending more time at the Pfeiffers' than at home. As well as attending Saturday courses at the Kansas City Art Institute, Walt often took Ruth to Electric Park, 15 blocks from their home, which Disney would later acknowledge as a major influence of his design of Disneyland).
After his rejection by the army, Walt and a friend decided to join the Red Cross. Soon after joining he was sent to France for a year, where he drove an ambulance, but only after the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.
Hoping to find work outside the Chicago O-Zell factory, in 1919 Walt moved back to Kansas City to begin his artistic career. After considering whether to become an actor or a newspaper artist, he decided on a career as a newspaper artist, drawing political caricatures or comic strips. But when nobody wanted to hire him as either an artist or even as an ambulance driver, his brother Roy, then working in a local bank, got Walt a temporary job through a bank colleague at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio where he created advertisements for newspapers, magazines, and movie theaters. At Pesmen-Rubin he met cartoonist Ubbe Iwerks and when their time at the studio expired, they decided to start their own commercial company together.
In January 1920, Disney and Iwerks formed a short-lived company called, "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists". However, following a rough start, Disney left temporarily to earn money at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, and was soon joined by Iwerks who was not able to run their business alone. While working for the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cutout animations, Disney became interested in animation, and decided to become an animator. The owner of the Ad Company, A.V. Cauger, allowed him to borrow a camera from work to experiment with at home. After reading the Edwin G. Lutz book ''Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Development'', Disney considered cel animation to be much more promising than the cutout animation he was doing for Cauger. Walt eventually decided to open his own animation business, and recruited a fellow co-worker at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, Fred Harman, as his first employee. Walt and Harman then secured a deal with local theater owner Frank L. Newman, arguably the most popular "showman" in the Kansas City area at the time, to screen their cartoons at his local theater, which they titled ''Laugh-O-Grams''.
The new series, ''Alice Comedies'', proved reasonably successful, and featured both Dawn O'Day and Margie Gay as Alice with Lois Hardwick also briefly assuming the role. By the time the series ended in 1927, its focus was more on the animated characters and in particular a cat named Julius who resembled Felix the Cat, rather than the live-action Alice.
Disney went to New York in February 1928 to negotiate a higher fee per short and was shocked when Mintz told him that not only did he want to reduce the fee he paid Disney per short but also that he had most of his main animators, including Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng—but not Iwerks, who refused to leave Disney—under contract and would start his own studio if Disney did not accept the reduced production budgets. Universal, not Disney, owned the Oswald trademark, and could make the films without Walt. Disney declined Mintz's offer and as a result lost most of his animation staff whereupon he found himself on his own again.
It subsequently took his company 78 years to get back the rights to the Oswald character when in 2006 the Walt Disney Company reacquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from NBC Universal, through a trade for longtime ABC sports commentator Al Michaels.
After losing the rights to Oswald, Disney felt the need to develop a new character to replace him, which was based on a mouse he had adopted as a pet while working in his Laugh-O-Gram studio in Kansas City. Ub Iwerks reworked the sketches made by Disney to make the character easier to animate although Mickey's voice and personality were provided by Disney himself until 1947. In the words of one Disney employee, "Ub designed Mickey's physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul." Besides Oswald and Mickey, a similar mouse-character is seen in the ''Alice Comedies'', which featured "Ike the Mouse". Moreover, the first Flip the Frog cartoon called Fiddlesticks showed a Mickey Mouse look-alike playing fiddle. The initial films were animated by Iwerks with his name prominently featured on the title cards. Originally named "Mortimer", the mouse was later re-christened "Mickey" by Lillian Disney who thought that the name Mortimer did not fit. Mortimer later became the name of Mickey's rival for Minnie – taller than his renowned adversary and speaking with a Brooklyn accent.
The first animated short to feature Mickey, ''Plane Crazy'' was a silent film like all of Disney's previous works. After failing to find a distributor for the short and its follow-up, ''The Gallopin' Gaucho'', Disney created a Mickey cartoon with sound entitled ''Steamboat Willie''. A businessman named Pat Powers provided Disney with both distribution and Cinephone, a sound-synchronization process. ''Steamboat Willie'' became an instant success, and ''Plane Crazy'', ''The Galloping Gaucho'', and all future Mickey cartoons were released with soundtracks. After the release of ''Steamboat Willie'', Disney successfully used sound in all of his subsequent cartoons, and Cinephone also became the new distributor for Disney's early sound cartoons. Mickey soon eclipsed Felix the Cat as the world's most popular cartoon character and by 1930, despite their having sound, cartoons featuring Felix had faded from the screen after failing to gain attention. Mickey's popularity would subsequently skyrocket in the early 1930s.
Iwerks was soon lured by Powers into opening his own studio with an exclusive contract, while Stalling would also later leave Disney to join Iwerks. Iwerks launched his ''Flip the Frog'' series with the first voiced color cartoon ''Fiddlesticks'', filmed in two-strip Technicolor. Iwerks also created two other cartoon series, ''Willie Whopper'' and the ''Comicolor''. In 1936, Iwerks shut down his studio in order to work on various projects dealing with animation technology. He would return to Disney in 1940 and go on to pioneer a number of film processes and specialized animation technologies in the studio's research and development department.
By 1932, although Mickey Mouse had become a relatively popular cinema character, ''Silly Symphonies'' was not as successful. The same year also saw competition increase as Max Fleischer's flapper cartoon character, Betty Boop, gained popularity among theater audiences. Fleischer, considered Disney's main rival in the 1930s, was also the father of Richard Fleischer, whom Disney would later hire to direct his 1954 film ''20,000 Leagues Under the Sea''. Meanwhile, Columbia Pictures dropped the distribution of Disney cartoons to be replaced by United Artists. In late 1932, Herbert Kalmus, who had just completed work on the first three-strip technicolor camera, approached Walt and convinced him to reshoot the black and white ''Flowers and Trees'' in three-strip Technicolor. ''Flowers and Trees'' would go on to be a phenomenal success and would also win the first 1932 Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. After the release of ''Flowers and Trees'', all subsequent ''Silly Symphony'' cartoons were in color while Disney was also able to negotiate a two-year deal with Technicolor, giving him the sole right to use their three-strip process, a period eventually extended to five years. Through ''Silly Symphonies'', Disney also created his most successful cartoon short of all time, ''The Three Little Pigs'' (1933). The cartoon ran in theaters for many months, featuring the hit song that became the anthem of the Great Depression, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf".
Following the creation of two cartoon series, in 1934 Disney began planning a full-length feature. The following year, opinion polls showed that another cartoon series, ''Popeye the Sailor'', produced by Max Fleischer, was more popular than Mickey Mouse. Nevertheless, Disney was able to put Mickey back on top as well as increase his popularity by colorizing and partially redesigning the character to become what was considered his most appealing design to date. When the film industry learned of Disney's plans to produce an ''animated'' feature-length version of ''Snow White'', they were certain that the endeavor would destroy the Disney Studio and dubbed the project "Disney's Folly". Both Lillian and Roy tried to talk Disney out of the project, but he continued plans for the feature, employing Chouinard Art Institute professor Don Graham to start a training operation for the studio staff. Disney then 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 – a new technique first used by Disney in the 1937 ''Silly Symphonies'' short ''The Old Mill''.
All of this development and training was used to increase quality at the studio and to ensure that the feature film would match Disney's quality expectations. Entitled ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'', the feature went into full production in 1934 and continued until mid-1937, when the studio ran out of money. To obtain the funding to complete ''Snow White'', Disney had to show a rough cut of the motion picture to loan officers at the Bank of America, who then gave the studio the money to finish the picture. The film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater on December 21, 1937 and at its conclusion the audience gave ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' a standing ovation. ''Snow White'', the first animated feature in America made in Technicolor, was released in February 1938 under a new distribution deal with RKO Radio Pictures. RKO had been the distributor for Disney cartoons in 1936, after it closed down the Van Beuren Studios in exchange for distribution. The film became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and earned over $8 million on its initial release.
''Pinocchio'' and ''Fantasia'' followed ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' into the movie theaters in 1940, but both proved financial disappointments. The inexpensive ''Dumbo'' was then planned as an income generator, but during production most of the animation staff went on strike, permanently straining relations between Disney and his artists.
Shortly after the release of ''Dumbo'' in October 1941, the United States entered World War II. The U.S. Army contracted most of the Disney studio's facilities where the staff created training and instruction films for the military, home-front morale-boosting shorts such as ''Der Fuehrer's Face'' and the 1943 feature film ''Victory Through Air Power''. However, military films did not generate income, and the feature film ''Bambi'' underperformed on its release in April 1942. Disney successfully re-issued ''Snow White'' in 1944, establishing a seven-year re-release tradition for his features. In 1945, ''The Three Caballeros'' was the last animated feature released by the studio during the war.
In 1944, ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' publisher William Benton, entered into unsuccessful negotiations with Disney to make six to twelve educational films per annum. Disney was asked by the US Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA), to make an educational film about the Amazon Basin, which resulted in the 1944 animated short, ''The Amazon Awakens''.
By 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. Work also began on ''Cinderella'', which became Disney's most successful film since ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs''. In 1948 the studio also initiated a series of live-action nature films, titled ''True-Life Adventures'', with ''On Seal Island'' the first. Despite its resounding success with feature films, the studio's animation shorts were no longer as popular as they once were, with people paying more attention to Warner Bros. and their animation star Bugs Bunny. By 1942, Leon Schlesinger Productions, which produced the Warner Bros. cartoons, had become the country's most popular animation studio. However, while Bugs Bunny's popularity rose in the 1940s, so did Donald Duck's, a character who would replace Mickey Mouse as Disney's star character by 1949.
During the mid-1950s, Disney produced a number of educational films on the space program in collaboration with NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun: ''Man in Space'' and ''Man and the Moon'' in 1955, and ''Mars and Beyond'' in 1957.
Disney also 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.
As Disney explained one of his earliest plans to Herb Ryman, who created the first aerial drawing of Disneyland presented to the Bank of America during fund raising for the project, he said, "Herbie, I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded by a train." Entertaining his daughters and their friends in his backyard and taking them for rides on his Carolwood Pacific Railroad had inspired Disney to include a railroad in the plans for Disneyland.
As the studio expanded and diversified into other media, Disney devoted less of his attention to the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, whom he dubbed the Nine Old Men. Although he was spending less time supervising the production of the animated films, he was always present at story meetings.. During Disney's lifetime, the animation department created the successful ''Lady and the Tramp'' ( the first animated film in CinemaScope) in 1955, ''Sleeping Beauty'' ( the first animated film in Super Technirama 70mm) in 1959, ''One Hundred and One Dalmatians'' (the first animated feature film to use Xerox cels) in 1961, and ''The Sword in the Stone'' in 1963.
Production of short cartoons kept pace until 1956, when Disney shut down the responsible division although special shorts projects would continue for the remainder of the studio's duration on an irregular basis. These productions were all distributed by Disney's new subsidiary, Buena Vista Distribution, which had taken over all distribution duties for Disney films from RKO by 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 on a number of successful Disney characters and films.
After 1955, the ''Disneyland'' TV show was renamed ''Walt Disney Presents''. It switched from black-and-white to color in 1961 and changed its name to ''Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color'', at the same time moving from ABC to NBC, and eventually evolving into its current form as ''The Wonderful World of Disney''. The series continued to air on NBC until 1981, when it was picked up by CBS. Since then, it has aired on ABC, NBC, the Hallmark Channel and the Cartoon Network via separate broadcast rights deals. During its run, the Disney series offered some recurring characters, such as the newspaper reporter and sleuth "Gallegher" played by Roger Mobley with a plot based on the writings of Richard Harding Davis.
Disney had already formed his own music publishing division in 1949 and in 1956, partly inspired by the huge success of the television theme song The Ballad of Davy Crockett, he created a company-owned record production and distribution entity called Disneyland Records.
After decades of pursuit, Disney finally acquired the rights to P.L. Travers' books about a magical nanny. ''Mary Poppins'', released in 1964, was the most successful Disney film of the 1960s and featured a memorable song score written by Disney favorites, the Sherman Brothers. The same year, Disney 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.
Although the studio would probably have proved major competition for Hanna-Barbera, Disney decided not to enter the race and mimic Hanna-Barbera by producing Saturday morning TV cartoon series. With the expansion of Disney's empire and constant production of feature films, the financial burden involved in such a move would have proven too great.
Disney was cremated on December 17, 1966, and his ashes interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Roy O. Disney continued out with the Florida project, insisting that the name be changed to Walt Disney World in honor of his brother.
The final productions in which Disney played an active role were the animated features ''The Jungle Book'' and ''Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day'', as well as the live-action musical comedy ''The Happiest Millionaire'', both released in 1967. Songwriter Robert B. Sherman recalled of the last time he saw Disney: }}
A long-standing urban legend maintains that Disney was cryogenically frozen, and his frozen corpse stored beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. However, the first known cryogenic freezing of a human corpse did not occur until January 1967, more than a month after his death.
After giving his dedication for Walt Disney World, Roy asked Lillian Disney to join him. As the orchestra played "When You Wish Upon a Star", she stepped up to the podium accompanied by Mickey Mouse. He then said, "Lilly, you knew all of Walt's ideas and hopes as well as anybody; what would Walt think of it [Walt Disney World]?". "I think Walt would have approved," she replied. Roy died from a cerebral hemorrhage on December 20, 1971, the day he was due to open the Disneyland Christmas parade. During the second phase of the "Walt Disney World" theme park, EPCOT was translated by 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 Disney had envisioned. In 1992, Walt Disney Imagineering took the step closer to Disney's original ideas and dedicated Celebration, Florida, a town built by the Walt Disney Company adjacent to Walt Disney World, that hearkens back to the spirit of EPCOT. EPCOT was also originally intended to be devoid of Disney characters which initially limited the appeal of the park to young children. However, the company later changed this policy and Disney characters can now be found throughout the park, often dressed in costumes reflecting the different pavilions.
In an early admissions bulletin, Disney explained: }}
The Walt Disney Family Museum acknowledges that Disney did have "difficult relationships" with some Jewish individuals, and that ethnic stereotypes common to films of the 1930s were included in some early cartoons, such as ''Three Little Pigs''. However, the museum points out that Disney employed Jews throughout his career and was named "1955 Man Of The Year" by the B'nai B'rith chapter in Beverly Hills.
Walt Disney received the Congressional Gold Medal on May 24, 1968 (P.L. 90-316, 82 Stat. 130–131) and the Légion d'Honneur awarded by France in 1935. In 1935, Walt received a special medal from the League of Nations for creation of Mickey Mouse, held to be Mickey Mouse award. He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on September 14, 1964. On December 6, 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Walt Disney into the California Hall of Fame located at The California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts.
A minor planet, 4017 Disneya, discovered in 1980 by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina, is named after him.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, opened in 2003, was named in his honor.
In 1993, HBO began development of a Walt Disney biopic directed by Frank Pierson and featuring Lawrence Turman but the project never materialized and was soon abandoned. However, ''Walt - The Man Behind the Myth'', a biographical documentary about Disney, was later made.
Category:1901 births Category:1966 deaths Category:American animators Category:American anti-communists Category:American cartoonists Category:American Congregationalists Category:American Christians Category:American entertainment industry businesspeople Category:American film directors Category:American film producers Category:American screenwriters Category:American television personalities Category:American voice actors Category:Animated film directors Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) Category:California Republicans Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Congressional Gold Medal recipients Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:Disney comics writers Category:Disney people Category:English-language film directors Category:Film studio executives Category:American artists of German descent Category:American writers of German descent Category:Illinois Republicans Category:American writers of Irish descent Category:American people of Canadian descent Category:American people of English descent Category:American people of French descent Category:Kansas City Art Institute alumni Category:National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees Category:People from Chicago, Illinois Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Category:Animated film producers
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Coordinates | 39°44′21″N104°59′5″N |
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background | solo_singer |
birth name | Percy Miller |
alias | Lil' Romeo, Rome, Romeo |
born | August 19, 1989 |
origin | New Orleans, Louisiana |
genre | Hip hop |
occupation | RapperModelBasketball playerEntrepreneurActor |
college | USC |
years active | 2001–present |
label | No Limit (2001–2002) Priority (2001–2002) The New No Limit (2002–2004) Universal (2002–2003) E1 (2004–2005) Guttar Music (2005–2006) Take A Stand (2007–present) The Next Generation (CEO) (2010–present) No Limit Forever (CEO) (2010–present) |
website | http://romeoforever.com }} |
Percy Romeo Miller, Jr. (born August 19, 1989), better known by his stage name Romeo (previously Lil' Romeo), is an American rapper, actor, basketball player, entrepreneur, and model. He is the son of rapper and entrepreneur Master P and former rapper Sonya C. He is the nephew of rappers C-Murder and Silkk the Shocker and the brother of singer Cymphonique. As a rap musician, Miller has released three studio albums and two compilation albums.
Name | Percy Miller, Jr. |
---|---|
College | USC |
Conference | Pac-10 |
Sport | Basketball |
Position | Point guard |
Career start | 2008 2010 |
Nickname | Romeo, Prince P |
Jersey | 15 |
Height ft | 5 |
Height in | 11 |
Weight lb | 170 |
Nationality | American |
Birth date | August 19, 1989 |
Birth place | New Orleans, Louisiana |
Highschool | Beverly Hills High School |
tournaments | y |
tournament list | 2009 NCAA Tournament |
color | DarkRed |
fontcolor | Gold }} |
Romeo was invited, in the summer of 2006, to the Reebok-sponsored ABCD Camp, which is considered the premier basketball camp in the United States. The Teaneck, New Jersey-based ABCD Camp is an invitation-only basketball showcase previously attended by high-profile players including Kobe Bryant, Stephon Marbury, Tracy McGrady, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. Surrounded by future NBA players such as O. J. Mayo, Derrick Rose, and Kevin Love, Miller looked out of place and averaged less than 2 points a game throughout the camp. ''The Wall Street Journal'' made an article on March 8, entitled "A Hot Prospect," cites Sonny Vaccaro, the longtime director of the ABCD Camp, as explaining, "he invited Romeo Miller to the 2006 camp, primarily as a favor to Percy Miller, whom he knew from the club basketball circuit." In the article, Vaccaro indicated, "If you're looking for the profile of an athlete who plays basketball at USC, he's not it."
On April 13, 2007, Miller verbally committed to the University of Southern California (USC) and signed a letter of intent on November 19, 2007.
Miller, a 5'11" point guard, was a four year starter at Beverly Hills High School. As a junior during the 2005–2006 high school season he averaged 13.9 points and 5.6 assists per game. As a senior during the 2006–2007 high school season he averaged 8.6 points and 9.0 assists per game.
According to ''The Wall Street Journal'', it appears the decision to grant Miller a full scholarship at USC was largely driven by his relationship with friend and teammate Demar DeRozan, the 6-foot-6 All-American forward who was rated as the number five prospect in the country on Scout.com. ''The Wall Street Journal'' reported Coach Tim Floyd as saying, "Last April...Percy Miller called while driving both players from a tournament in Fayetteville, Ark...Percy Miller said 'Demar and Romeo are ready to make their decision, and would you like to have them both on scholarship?'...'I said absolutely.'" Miller and DeRozan began playing in the 2008–2009 season.
Miller had a disappointing career at USC. In his two seasons as a Trojan, he played a total of 19 minutes in 9 games and scored a total of 5 points.
rowspan="2" | Week # | ||||||||||
style="text-align: center; background:#faf6f6;"|Cha-Cha-Cha/ "Romeo" | |||||||||||
2 | Quickstep/ "You're the One That I Want" | 7 | 8 | 8 | Safe | ||||||
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style="text-align: center; background:#faf6f6;" | |||||||||||
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6 | Waltz/ "My Heart Will Go On" | 10 | 9 | 9 | |||||||
style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f"|Cha-Cha-Cha/ ""Born This Way""Samba/ "Say Hey (I Love You)" | |||||||||||
style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f"|Tango/"Hold It Against Me"Salsa/"Tequila" |
;Studio albums
;Independent albums
;Collaboration albums
;Mixtapes
;Films
Year | ||||
2001 | ''Max Keeble's Big Move'' | Himself | ||
2003 | ''Honey (2003 film)Honey'' || | Benny | Main Role | |
rowspan="2">2004 | ''Still 'Bout It''| | M.J. | Main Role | |
''Decisions'' | Jamal | |||
rowspan="2" | 2006 | ''God's Gift (film)God's Gift'' || | Romeo | Main Role |
''Don't Be Scared'' | Unknown | |||
rowspan="2" | 2007 | ''Uncle P''| | Corey Miller | Main Role |
''Crush On U'' | Rome | |||
2009 | ''The Pig People''| | TJ | Main Role | |
2010 | ''Down and Distance''| | Darren Sheehan | Main Role | |
rowspan="2" | 2011 | ''Jumping the Broom (film)Jumping the Broom'' || | Sebastian | Support Role |
''Wolf Boy'' | ''2120'' |
;Television
Year !! Title !! Role !! Notes | |||
2001 | ''The Brothers García'' | Ty | |
2001 | ''Oh Drama!''| | Musical Guest | Television special |
2001 | ''The Hughleys''| | Himself | |
2001 | ''Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration''| | Himself | |
2002 | ''Raising Dad''| | Marvin | |
2002 | ''American Music Awards of 2002The 29th Annual American Music Awards'' || | Himself | |
2002 | ''Proud Family''| | Himself | "A Hero For Halloween" (episode 24, season 1) |
2003 | ''One on One (TV series)One on One'' || | Eric | "Spy Games" |
2003 | ''Static Shock''| | Himself | Recorded the final theme song for the series. |
2003 | ''All Grown Up!''| | Lil Q | "It's Cupid, Stupid" (episode 8, season 1) |
2003–2006 | ''Romeo!''| | Romeo "Ro" Miller | Main Role/Starring as ''Romeo''. |
2005 | ''Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide| | Rapping teacher | "Guide to: Emergency Drills and Late Bus" (episode 21, season 2) |
2008 | ''Out of Jimmy's Head| | Himself | "Lunch Tables" (episode 13, season 1) |
2010 | ''The Defenders (2010 TV series)The Defenders || | Killa Diz | "The Defenders – Nevada v. Killa Diz" |
2011 | ''The Bad Girls Club (season 6)The Bad Girls Club: Season 6'' || | Himself | Guest appearance on the reality show (episode 10) |
2011 | ''Dancing with the Stars (U.S. season 12)Dancing With the Stars: Season 12 '' || | Contestant | Romeo was originally supposed to be competing in season 2 but due to a injury he was unable & his dad Master P filled in for him |
2011 | ''The Cape| | Gangster | Season 1, Episode 9 – "Razer". |
2011 | ''Reed Between the Lines''| | Darius | Season 1, Episode 5 – "Let's Talk About Competition" |
2011 | ''Charlie's Angels (2011 TV series)Charlie's Angels'' || | Royal's son | Season 1, EpisRode 7 – "Royal Angels" |
Category:1989 births Category:Living people Category:African American basketball players Category:African-American businesspeople Category:African-American fashion designers Category:African American film actors Category;African American child actors Category:African American actors Category:African American models Category:African American rappers Category:American child actors Category:American child singers Category:American film actors Category:American male models Category:American voice actors Category:Businesspeople in fashion Category:E1 Music artists Category:No Limit Records artists Category:Participants in American reality television series Category:People from Beverly Hills, California Category:People from New Orleans, Louisiana Category:Rappers from New Orleans, Louisiana Category:Rappers from Los Angeles, California Category:University of Southern California alumni Category:USC Trojans men's basketball players
da:Romeo Miller de:Romeo (Rapper) es:Lil' Romeo fr:Lil' Romeo it:Lil' Romeo no:Romeo Miller pl:Lil' Romeo pt:Romeo Miller fi:Romeo (rap-artisti) sv:Romeo (artist) th:โรมีโอ มิลเลอร์ tr:Lil’RomeoThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Coordinates | 39°44′21″N104°59′5″N |
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name | Salvador Dalí |
birth name | Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech |
birth date | May 11, 1904 |
birth place | Figueres, Catalonia, Spain |
death date | January 23, 1989 |
death place | Figueres, Catalonia, Spain |
nationality | Spanish |
religion | Roman Catholic |
field | Painting, Drawing, Photography, Sculpture, Writing, Film |
training | San Fernando School of Fine Arts, Madrid |
movement | Cubism, Dada, Surrealism |
works | ''The Persistence of Memory'' (1931)''Face of Mae West Which May Be Used as an Apartment'', (1935)''Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)'' (1936)''Swans Reflecting Elephants'' (1937)''Ballerina in a Death's Head'' (1939)''Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening'' (1944) ''The Temptation of St. Anthony'' (1946)''Galatea of the Spheres'' (1952)''Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)'' (1954) |
awards | }} |
Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, ''The Persistence of Memory'', was completed in 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire includes film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.
Dalí attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to a self-styled "Arab lineage," claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors.
Dalí was highly imaginative, and also had an affinity for partaking in unusual and grandiose behavior. His eccentric manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem and to the irritation of his critics.
Dalí attended drawing school. In 1916, Dalí also discovered modern painting on a summer vacation trip to Cadaqués with the family of Ramon Pichot, a local artist who made regular trips to Paris. The next year, Dalí's father organized an exhibition of his charcoal drawings in their family home. He had his first public exhibition at the Municipal Theater in Figueres in 1919.
In February 1921, Dalí's mother died of breast cancer. Dalí was sixteen years old; he later said his mother's death ''"was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul."'' After her death, Dalí's father married his deceased wife's sister. Dalí did not resent this marriage, because he had a great love and respect for his aunt.
In 1922, Dalí moved into the Residencia de Estudiantes (Students' Residence) in Madrid and studied at the Academia de San Fernando (School of Fine Arts). A lean 1.72 m (5 ft. 7¾ in.) tall, Dalí already drew attention as an eccentric and dandy man. He wore long hair and sideburns, coat, stockings, and knee breeches in the style of English aesthetes of the late 19th century.
At the Residencia, he became close friends with (among others) Pepín Bello, Luis Buñuel, and Federico García Lorca. The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion, but Dalí rejected the poet's sexual advances.
However it was his paintings in which he experimented with Cubism that earned him the most attention from his fellow students. At the time of these early works, Dalí probably did not completely understand the Cubist movement. His only information on Cubist art came from magazine articles and a catalog given to him by Pichot, since there were no Cubist artists in Madrid at the time. In 1924, the still-unknown Salvador Dalí illustrated a book for the first time. It was a publication of the Catalan poem "Les bruixes de Llers" ("The Witches of Llers") by his friend and schoolmate, poet Carles Fages de Climent. Dalí also experimented with Dada, which influenced his work throughout his life.
Dalí was expelled from the Academia in 1926, shortly before his final exams when he was accused of starting an unrest. His mastery of painting skills was evidenced by his realistic ''Basket of Bread'', painted in 1926. That same year, he made his first visit to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso, whom the young Dalí revered. Picasso had already heard favorable reports about Dalí from Joan Miró. As he developed his own style over the next few years Dalí made a number of works heavily influenced by Picasso and Miró.
Some trends in Dalí's work that would continue throughout his life were already evident in the 1920s. Dalí devoured influences from many styles of art, ranging from the most academically classic, to the most cutting-edge avant garde. His classical influences included Raphael, Bronzino, Francisco de Zurbaran, Vermeer, and Velázquez. He used both classical and modernist techniques, sometimes in separate works, and sometimes combined. Exhibitions of his works in Barcelona attracted much attention along with mixtures of praise and puzzled debate from critics.
Dalí grew a flamboyant moustache, influenced by seventeenth-century Spanish master painter Diego Velázquez. The moustache became an iconic trademark of his appearance for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, Dalí's relationship with his father was close to rupture. Don Salvador Dalí y Cusi strongly disapproved of his son's romance with Gala, and saw his connection to the Surrealists as a bad influence on his morals. The last straw was when Don Salvador read in a Barcelona newspaper that his son had recently exhibited in Paris a drawing of the "Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ", with a provocative inscription: "Sometimes, I spit for fun on my mother's portrait."
Outraged, Don Salvador demanded that his son recant publicly. Dalí refused, perhaps out of fear of expulsion from the Surrealist group, and was violently thrown out of his paternal home on December 28, 1929. His father told him that he would disinherit him, and that he should never set foot in Cadaquès again. The following summer, Dalí and Gala rented a small fisherman's cabin in a nearby bay at Port Lligat. He bought the place, and over the years enlarged it, gradually building his much beloved villa by the sea.
In 1931, Dalí painted one of his most famous works, ''The Persistence of Memory'', which introduced a surrealistic image of soft, melting pocket watches. The general interpretation of the work is that the soft watches are a rejection of the assumption that time is rigid or deterministic. This idea is supported by other images in the work, such as the wide expanding landscape, and the other limp watches, shown being devoured by ants.
Dalí and Gala, having lived together since 1929, were married in 1934 in a civil ceremony. They later remarried in a Catholic ceremony in 1958.
Dalí was introduced to America by art dealer Julian Levy in 1934. The exhibition in New York of Dalí's works, including ''Persistence of Memory'', created an immediate sensation. Social Register listees feted him at a specially organized "Dalí Ball." He showed up wearing a glass case on his chest, which contained a brassiere. In that year, Dalí and Gala also attended a masquerade party in New York, hosted for them by heiress Caresse Crosby. For their costumes, they dressed as the Lindbergh baby and his kidnapper. The resulting uproar in the press was so great that Dalí apologized. When he returned to Paris, the Surrealists confronted him about his apology for a surrealist act.
While the majority of the Surrealist artists had become increasingly associated with leftist politics, Dalí maintained an ambiguous position on the subject of the proper relationship between politics and art. Leading surrealist André Breton accused Dalí of defending the "new" and "irrational" in "the Hitler phenomenon," but Dalí quickly rejected this claim, saying, "I am Hitlerian neither in fact nor intention." Dalí insisted that surrealism could exist in an apolitical context and refused to explicitly denounce fascism. Among other factors, this had landed him in trouble with his colleagues. Later in 1934, Dalí was subjected to a "trial", in which he was formally expelled from the Surrealist group. To this, Dalí retorted, "I myself am surrealism."
In 1936, Dalí took part in the London International Surrealist Exhibition. His lecture, entitled , was delivered while wearing a deep-sea diving suit and helmet. He had arrived carrying a billiard cue and leading a pair of Russian wolfhounds, and had to have the helmet unscrewed as he gasped for breath. He commented that "I just wanted to show that I was 'plunging deeply' into the human mind."
Also in 1936, at the premiere screening of Joseph Cornell's film ''Rose Hobart'' at Julian Levy's gallery in New York City, Dalí became famous for another incident. Levy's program of short surrealist films was timed to take place at the same time as the first surrealism exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, featuring Dalí's work. Dalí was in the audience at the screening, but halfway through the film, he knocked over the projector in a rage. “My idea for a film is exactly that, and I was going to propose it to someone who would pay to have it made,” he said. "I never wrote it down or told anyone, but it is as if he had stolen it." Other versions of Dalí's accusation tend to the more poetic: "He stole it from my subconscious!" or even "He stole my dreams!"
At this stage, Dalí's main patron in London was the very wealthy Edward James. He had helped Dalí emerge into the art world by purchasing many works and by supporting him financially for two years. They also collaborated on two of the most enduring icons of the Surrealist movement: the Lobster Telephone and the Mae West Lips Sofa.
In 1938, Dalí met Sigmund Freud thanks to Stefan Zweig. Later, in September 1938, Salvador Dalí was invited by Gabrielle Coco Chanel to her house La Pausa in Roquebrune on the French Riviera. There he painted numerous paintings he later exhibited at Julien Levy Gallery in New York. La Pausa has been partially replicated at the Dallas Museum of Art to welcome the Reves collection and part of Chanel's original furniture for the house.
In 1939, Breton coined the derogatory nickname "Avida Dollars", an anagram for ''Salvador Dalí'', and a phonetic rendering of the French ''avide à dollars'', which may be translated as "eager for dollars". This was a derisive reference to the increasing commercialization of Dalí's work, and the perception that Dalí sought self-aggrandizement through fame and fortune. Some surrealists henceforth spoke of Dalí in the past tense, as if he were dead. The Surrealist movement and various members thereof (such as Ted Joans) would continue to issue extremely harsh polemics against Dalí until the time of his death and beyond.
In 1940, as World War II was in full swing at Europe, Dalí and Gala moved to the United States, where they lived for eight years. After the move, Dalí returned to the practice of Catholicism. "During this period, Dalí never stopped writing," wrote Robert and Nicolas Descharnes.
In 1941, Dalí drafted a film scenario for Jean Gabin called ''Moontide''. In 1942, he published his autobiography, ''The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí''. He wrote catalogs for his exhibitions, such as that at the Knoedler Gallery in New York in 1943. Therein he expounded, "Surrealism will at least have served to give experimental proof that total sterility and attempts at automatizations have gone too far and have led to a totalitarian system. ... Today's laziness and the total lack of technique have reached their paroxysm in the psychological signification of the current use of the college." He also wrote a novel, published in 1944, about a fashion salon for automobiles. This resulted in a drawing by Edwin Cox in ''The Miami Herald'', depicting Dalí dressing an automobile in an evening gown.
An Italian friar, Gabriele Maria Berardi, claimed to have performed an exorcism on Dalí while he was in France in 1947. In 2005, a sculpture of Christ on the Cross was discovered in the friar's estate. It had been claimed that Dalí gave this work to his exorcist out of gratitude, and two Spanish art experts confirmed that there were adequate stylistic reasons to believe the sculpture was made by Dalí.
Late in his career, Dalí did not confine himself to painting, but experimented with many unusual or novel media and processes: he made bulletist works and was among the first artists to employ holography in an artistic manner. Several of his works incorporate optical illusions. In his later years, young artists such as Andy Warhol proclaimed Dalí an important influence on pop art. Dalí also had a keen interest in natural science and mathematics. This is manifested in several of his paintings, notably in the 1950s, in which he painted his subjects as composed of rhinoceros horns. According to Dalí, the rhinoceros horn signifies divine geometry because it grows in a logarithmic spiral. He also linked the rhinoceros to themes of chastity and to the Virgin Mary. Dalí was also fascinated by DNA and the hypercube (a 4-dimensional cube); an unfolding of a hypercube is featured in the painting ''Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)''.
Dalí's post–World War II period bore the hallmarks of technical virtuosity and an interest in optical illusions, science, and religion. He became an increasingly devout Catholic, while at the same time he had been inspired by the shock of Hiroshima and the dawning of the "atomic age". Therefore Dalí labeled this period "Nuclear Mysticism." In paintings such as "The Madonna of Port-Lligat" (first version) (1949) and "Corpus Hypercubus" (1954), Dalí sought to synthesize Christian iconography with images of material disintegration inspired by nuclear physics. "Nuclear Mysticism" included such notable pieces as ''La Gare de Perpignan'' (1965) and ''The Hallucinogenic Toreador'' (1968–70). In 1960, Dalí began work on the Dalí Theatre and Museum in his home town of Figueres; it was his largest single project and the main focus of his energy through 1974. He continued to make additions through the mid-1980s.
In 1968, Dalí filmed a humorous television advertisement for Lanvin chocolates. In this, he proclaims in French "Je suis fou de chocolat Lanvin!" (I'm crazy about Lanvin chocolate) while biting a morsel causing him to become crosseyed and his moustache to swivel upwards. In 1969, he designed the Chupa Chups logo in addition to facilitating the design of the advertising campaign for the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest and creating a large on-stage metal sculpture that stood at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
In the television programme ''Dirty Dalí: A Private View'' broadcast on Channel 4 on June 3, 2007, art critic Brian Sewell described his acquaintance with Dalí in the late 1960s, which included lying down in the fetal position without trousers in the armpit of a figure of Christ and masturbating for Dalí, who pretended to take photos while fumbling in his own trousers.
In 1980, Dalí's health took a catastrophic turn. His near-senile wife, Gala, allegedly had been dosing him with a dangerous cocktail of unprescribed medicine that damaged his nervous system, thus causing an untimely end to his artistic capacity. At 76 years old, Dalí was a wreck, and his right hand trembled terribly, with Parkinson-like symptoms.
In 1982, King Juan Carlos bestowed on Dalí the title of ''Marqués de Dalí de Púbol'' () in the nobility of Spain, hereby referring to Púbol, the place where he lived. The title was in first instance hereditary, but on request of Dalí changed for life only in 1983. To show his gratitude for this, Dalí later gave the king a drawing (''Head of Europa'', which would turn out to be Dalí's final drawing) after the king visited him on his deathbed. Gala died on June 10, 1982. After Gala's death, Dalí lost much of his will to live. He deliberately dehydrated himself, possibly as a suicide attempt, or perhaps in an attempt to put himself into a state of suspended animation as he had read that some microorganisms could do. He moved from Figueres to the castle in Púbol, which he had bought for Gala and was the site of her death. In 1984, a fire broke out in his bedroom under unclear circumstances. It was possibly a suicide attempt by Dalí, or possibly simple negligence by his staff. In any case, Dalí was rescued and returned to Figueres, where a group of his friends, patrons, and fellow artists saw to it that he was comfortable living in his Theater-Museum in his final years.
There have been allegations that Dalí was forced by his guardians to sign blank canvases that would later, even after his death, be used in forgeries and sold as originals. As a result, art dealers tend to be wary of late works attributed to Dalí.
In November 1988, Dalí entered the hospital with heart failure, and on December 5, 1988 was visited by King Juan Carlos, who confessed that he had always been a serious devotee of Dalí.
On January 23, 1989, while his favorite record of ''Tristan and Isolde'' played, he died of heart failure at Figueres at the age of 84, and, coming full circle, is buried in the crypt of his Teatro Museo in Figueres. The location is across the street from the church of Sant Pere, where he had his baptism, first communion, and funeral, and is three blocks from the house where he was born.
The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation currently serves as his official estate. The U.S. copyright representative for the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation is the Artists Rights Society. In 2002, the Society made the news when they asked Google to remove a customized version of its logo put up to commemorate Dalí, alleging that portions of specific artworks under their protection had been used without permission. Google complied with the request, but denied that there was any copyright violation.
The elephant is also a recurring image in Dalí's works. It first appeared in his 1944 work ''Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening''. The elephants, inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk, are portrayed "with long, multijointed, almost invisible legs of desire" along with obelisks on their backs. Coupled with the image of their brittle legs, these encumbrances, noted for their phallic overtones, create a sense of phantom reality. "The elephant is a distortion in space," one analysis explains, "its spindly legs contrasting the idea of weightlessness with structure." "I am painting pictures which make me die for joy, I am creating with an absolute naturalness, without the slightest aesthetic concern, I am making things that inspire me with a profound emotion and I am trying to paint them honestly." —Salvador Dalí, in Dawn Ades, ''Dalí and Surrealism''.
The egg is another common Dalíesque image. He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love; it appears in ''The Great Masturbator'' and ''The Metamorphosis of Narcissus''. ''The Metamorphosis of Narcissus'' also symbolized death and petrification. Various animals appear throughout his work as well: ants point to death, decay, and immense sexual desire; the snail is connected to the human head (he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud's house when he first met Sigmund Freud); and locusts are a symbol of waste and fear.
Dalí was a versatile artist. Some of his more popular works are sculptures and other objects, and he is also noted for his contributions to theatre, fashion, and photography, among other areas.
Two of the most popular objects of the surrealist movement were ''Lobster Telephone'' and ''Mae West Lips Sofa'', completed by Dalí in 1936 and 1937, respectively. Surrealist artist and patron Edward James commissioned both of these pieces from Dalí; James inherited a large English estate in West Dean, West Sussex when he was five and was one of the foremost supporters of the surrealists in the 1930s. "Lobsters and telephones had strong sexual connotations for [Dalí]," according to the display caption for the ''Lobster Telephone'' at the Tate Gallery, "and he drew a close analogy between food and sex." The telephone was functional, and James purchased four of them from Dalí to replace the phones in his retreat home. One now appears at the Tate Gallery; the second can be found at the German Telephone Museum in Frankfurt; the third belongs to the Edward James Foundation; and the fourth is at the National Gallery of Australia.
The wood and satin ''Mae West Lips Sofa'' was shaped after the lips of actress Mae West, whom Dalí apparently found fascinating. West was previously the subject of Dalí's 1935 painting ''The Face of Mae West''. ''Mae West Lips Sofa'' currently resides at the Brighton and Hove Museum in England.
Between 1941 and 1970, Dalí created an ensemble of 39 jewels. The jewels are intricate, and some contain moving parts. The most famous jewel, "The Royal Heart", is made of gold and is encrusted with 46 rubies, 42 diamonds, and four emeralds and is created in such a way that the center "beats" much like a real heart. Dalí himself commented that "Without an audience, without the presence of spectators, these jewels would not fulfill the function for which they came into being. The viewer, then, is the ultimate artist." (Dalí, 1959.) The "Dalí – Joies" ("The Jewels of Dalí") collection can be seen at the Dalí Theater Museum in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, where it is on permanent exhibition.
In theatre, Dalí constructed the scenery for Federico García Lorca's 1927 romantic play ''Mariana Pineda''. For ''Bacchanale'' (1939), a ballet based on and set to the music of Richard Wagner's 1845 opera ''Tannhäuser'', Dalí provided both the set design and the libretto. ''Bacchanale'' was followed by set designs for ''Labyrinth'' in 1941 and ''The Three-Cornered Hat'' in 1949.
Dalí became intensely interested in film when he was young, going to the theatre most Sundays. He was part of the era where silent films were being viewed and drawing on the medium of film became popular. He believed there were two dimensions to the theories of film and cinema: "things themselves", the facts that are presented in the world of the camera; and "photographic imagination", the way the camera shows the picture and how creative or imaginative it looks. Dalí was active in front of and behind the scenes in the film world. He created pieces of artwork such as ''Destino'', on which he collaborated with Walt Disney. He is also credited as co-creator of Luis Buñuel's surrealist film ''Un Chien Andalou'', a 17-minute French art film co-written with Luis Buñuel that is widely remembered for its graphic opening scene simulating the slashing of a human eyeball with a razor. This film is what Dalí is known for in the independent film world. ''Un Chien Andalou'' was Dalí's way of creating his dreamlike qualities in the real world. Images would change and scenes would switch, leading the viewer in a completely different direction from the one they were previously viewing. The second film he produced with Buñuel was entitled ''L'Age d'Or'', and it was performed at Studio 28 in Paris in 1930. ''L'Age d'Or'' was "banned for years after fascist and anti-Semitic groups staged a stink bomb and ink-throwing riot in the Paris theater where it was shown." Although negative aspects of society were being thrown into the life of Dalí and obviously affecting the success of his artwork, it did not hold him back from expressing his own ideas and beliefs in his art. Both of these films, ''Un Chien Andalou'' and ''L'Age d'Or'', have had a tremendous impact on the independent surrealist film movement. "If ''Un Chien Andalou'' stands as the supreme record of Surrealism's adventures into the realm of the unconscious, then ''L'Âge d'Or'' is perhaps the most trenchant and implacable expression of its revolutionary intent."
Dalí also worked with other famous filmmakers, such as Alfred Hitchcock. The most well-known of his film projects is probably the dream sequence in Hitchcock's ''Spellbound'', which heavily delves into themes of psychoanalysis. Hitchcock needed a dreamlike quality to his film, which dealt with the idea that a repressed experience can directly trigger a neurosis, and he knew that Dalí's work would help create the atmosphere he wanted in his film. He also worked on a documentary called ''Chaos and Creation'', which has a lot of artistic references thrown into it to help one see what Dalí's vision of art really is. He also worked on the Disney short film production ''Destino''. Completed in 2003 by Baker Bloodworth and Roy E. Disney, it contains dreamlike images of strange figures flying and walking about. It is based on Mexican songwriter Armando Dominguez' song "Destino". When Disney hired Dalí to help produce the film in 1946, they were not prepared for the work that lay ahead. For eight months, they continuously animated until their efforts had to come to a stop when they realized they were in financial trouble. They had no more money to finish the production of the animated film; however, it was eventually finished and shown in various film festivals. The film consists of Dalí's artwork interacting with Disney's character animation. Dalí completed only one other film in his lifetime, ''Impressions of Upper Mongolia'' (1975), in which he narrated a story about an expedition in search of giant hallucinogenic mushrooms. The imagery was based on microscopic uric acid stains on the brass band of a ballpoint pen on which Dalí had been urinating for several weeks.
Dalí built a repertoire in the fashion and photography industries as well. In fashion, his cooperation with Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli is well-known, where Dalí was hired by Schiaparelli to produce a white dress with a lobster print. Other designs Dalí made for her include a shoe-shaped hat and a pink belt with lips for a buckle. He was also involved in creating textile designs and perfume bottles. In 1950, Dalí created a special "costume for the year 2045" with Christian Dior. Photographers with whom he collaborated include Man Ray, Brassaï, Cecil Beaton, and Philippe Halsman.
With Man Ray and Brassaï, Dalí photographed nature; with the others, he explored a range of obscure topics, including (with Halsman) the ''Dalí Atomica'' series (1948)—inspired by his painting ''Leda Atomica'' — which in one photograph depicts "a painter's easel, three cats, a bucket of water, and Dalí himself floating in the air."
References to Dalí in the context of science are made in terms of his fascination with the paradigm shift that accompanied the birth of quantum mechanics in the twentieth century. Inspired by Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, in 1958 he wrote in his "Anti-Matter Manifesto": "In the Surrealist period, I wanted to create the iconography of the interior world and the world of the marvelous, of my father Freud. Today, the exterior world and that of physics has transcended the one of psychology. My father today is Dr. Heisenberg."
In this respect, ''The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory'', which appeared in 1954, in hearkening back to ''The Persistence of Memory'', and in portraying that painting in fragmentation and disintegration summarizes Dalí's acknowledgment of the new science.
Architectural achievements include his Port Lligat house near Cadaqués, as well as the ''Dream of Venus'' surrealist pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair, which contained within it a number of unusual sculptures and statues. His literary works include ''The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí'' (1942), ''Diary of a Genius'' (1952–63), and ''Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution '' (1927–33). The artist worked extensively in the graphic arts, producing many etchings and lithographs. While his early work in printmaking is equal in quality to his important paintings as he grew older, he would sell the rights to images but not be involved in the print production itself. In addition, a large number of unauthorized fakes were produced in the eighties and nineties, thus further confusing the Dalí print market. He took a stab at industrial design in the 1970s with a 500-piece run of the upscale ''Suomi'' tableware by Timo Sarpaneva that Dalí decorated for the German Rosenthal porcelain maker's ''Studio Linie''.
One of Dalí's most unorthodox artistic creations may have been an entire person. At a French nightclub in 1965, Dalí met Amanda Lear, a fashion model then known as Peki D'Oslo. Lear became his protégé and muse, writing about their affair in the authorized biography ''My Life With Dalí'' (1986). Transfixed by the mannish, larger-than-life Lear, Dalí masterminded her successful transition from modeling to the music world, advising her on self-presentation and helping spin mysterious stories about her origin as she took the disco-art scene by storm. According to Lear, she and Dalí were united in a "spiritual marriage" on a deserted mountaintop. Referred to as Dalí's "Frankenstein," some believe Lear's name is a pun on the French "L'Amant Dalí," or Lover of Dalí. Lear took the place of an earlier muse, Ultra Violet (Isabelle Collin Dufresne), who had left Dalí's side to join The Factory of Andy Warhol.
An avid cheese maker, Dali would sometimes engross himself in cheese-making for over 4 months at a time. His favorite cheese was swiss.
Salvador Dalí's politics played a significant role in his emergence as an artist. In his youth, he embraced both anarchism and communism, though his writings account anecdotes of making radical political statements more to shock listeners than from any deep conviction. This was in keeping with Dalí's allegiance to the Dada movement.
As he grew older his political allegiances changed, especially as the Surrealist movement went through transformations under the leadership of Trotskyist André Breton, who is said to have called Dalí in for questioning on his politics. In his 1970 book ''Dalí by Dalí'', Dalí was declaring himself an anarchist and monarchist.
With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Dalí fled from fighting and refused to align himself with any group. Likewise, after World War II, George Orwell criticized Dalí for "scuttling off like a rat as soon as France is in danger" after Dalí prospered there for years: "When the European War approaches he has one preoccupation only: how to find a place which has good cookery and from which he can make a quick bolt if danger comes too near." In a notable 1944 review of Dalí's autobiography, Orwell wrote, "One ought to be able to hold in one's head simultaneously the two facts that Dalí is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being."
After his return to Catalonia after World War II, Dalí became closer to the authoritarian Franco regime. Some of Dalí's statements supported the Franco regime, congratulating Franco for his actions aimed "at clearing Spain of destructive forces." Dalí, having returned to the Catholic faith and becoming increasingly religious as time went on, may have been referring to the Republican atrocities during the Spanish Civil War. Dalí sent telegrams to Franco, praising him for signing death warrants for prisoners. He even met Franco personally and painted a portrait of Franco's granddaughter.
He also once sent a telegram praising the ''Conducător'', Romanian Communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu, for his adoption of a scepter as part of his regalia. The Romanian daily newspaper ''Scînteia'' published it, without suspecting its mocking aspect. One of Dalí's few possible bits of open disobedience was his continued praise of Federico García Lorca even in the years when Lorca's works were banned.
Dalí, a colorful and imposing presence in his ever-present long cape, walking stick, haughty expression, and upturned waxed mustache, was famous for having said that "every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dalí." The entertainer Cher and her husband Sonny Bono, when young, came to a party at Dalí's expensive residence in New York's Plaza Hotel and were startled when Cher sat down on an oddly shaped sexual vibrator left in an easy chair. When signing autographs for fans, Dalí would always keep their pens. When interviewed by Mike Wallace on his ''60 Minutes'' television show, Dalí kept referring to himself in the third person, and told the startled Mr. Wallace matter-of-factly that "Dalí is immortal and will not die." During another television appearance, on ''The Tonight Show'', Dalí carried with him a leather rhinoceros and refused to sit upon anything else.
Salvador Dalí frequently traveled with his pet ocelot Babou, even bringing it aboard the luxury ocean liner, SS France.
Dalí produced over 1,500 paintings in his career in addition to producing illustrations for books, lithographs, designs for theatre sets and costumes, a great number of drawings, dozens of sculptures, and various other projects, including an animated short film for Disney. He also collaborated with director Jack Bond in 1965, creating a movie titled ''Dalí in New York''. Below is a chronological sample of important and representative work, as well as some notes on what Dalí did in particular years.
In Carlos Lozano's biography, ''Sex, Surrealism, Dalí, and Me'', produced with the collaboration of Clifford Thurlow, Lozano makes it clear that Dalí never stopped being a surrealist. As Dalí said of himself: "the only difference between me and the surrealists is that I am a surrealist."
The largest collections of Dalí's work are at the Dalí Theatre and Museum in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, followed by the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, which contains the collection of A. Reynolds Morse & Eleanor R. Morse. It holds over 1,500 works from Dalí. Other particularly significant collections include the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid and the Salvador Dalí Gallery in Pacific Palisades, California. Espace Dalí in Montmartre, Paris, France, as well as the Dalí Universe in London, England, contain a large collection of his drawings and sculptures.
The unlikeliest venue for Dalí's work was the Rikers Island jail in New York City; a sketch of the Crucifixion he donated to the jail hung in the inmate dining room for 16 years before it was moved to the prison lobby for safekeeping. Ironically, the drawing was stolen from that location in March 2003 and has not been recovered.
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Category:1904 births Category:1989 deaths Category:Catalan artists Category:Catalan painters Category:Exorcism Category:Légion d'honneur recipients Category:Marquesses of Spain Category:Modern artists Category:Modern painters Category:People from Alt Empordà Category:People with Parkinson's disease Category:Spanish sculptors Category:Spanish people Category:Spanish painters Category:Spanish printmakers Category:Spanish Roman Catholics Category:Surrealist artists Category:20th-century painters
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