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The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Illustration from Victor Hugo et son temps (1881)
Author(s)	Victor Hugo
Original title	Notre-Dame de Paris
Illustrator	Luc-Olivier Merson (original)
Country	France
Language	French
Genre(s)	Romanticism
Publisher	Gosselin
Publication date	14 January 1831

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (French: Notre-Dame de Paris, "Our Lady of Paris") is a novel by Victor Hugo published in 1831. The French title refers to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, on which the story is centered. The Notre Dame Cathedral is one of the largest and most well-known cathedrals in the world.^[1]

Background[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Victor Hugo began writing The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in 1829. The agreement with his original publisher, Gosselin, was that the book would be finished that same year, but Hugo was constantly delayed due to the demands of other projects. By the summer of 1830, Gosselin demanded Victor Hugo to complete the book by February 1831. Beginning in September 1830, Hugo worked nonstop on the project thereafter. The book was finished six months later.

Synopsis[link]

The story begins on Epiphany (6 January), 1482, the day of the 'Feast of Fools' in Paris, France. Quasimodo, is introduced by his crowning as King of Fools.

Esmeralda, a beautiful Gypsy with a kind and generous heart, captures the hearts of many men, including those of a Captain Phoebus and a poor street poet, Pierre Gringoire, but especially those of Quasimodo and his adoptive father, Claude Frollo, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame. Frollo is torn between his obsessive love and the rules of the church. He orders Quasimodo to kidnap her, but the hunchback is suddenly captured by Phoebus and his guards who save Esmeralda.

Quasimodo is sentenced to be flogged and turned on the pillory for one hour, followed by another hour's public exposure. He calls for water. Esmeralda, seeing his thirst, offers him a drink. It saves him, and she captures his heart.

Esmeralda is later charged with the attempted murder of Phoebus, whom Frollo actually attempted to kill in jealousy, after seeing him about to have sex with Esmeralda, and is tortured and sentenced to death by hanging. As she is being led to the gallows, Quasimodo swings down by the bell rope of Notre Dame and carries her off to the cathedral under the law of sanctuary. Clopin, a street performer, rallies the Truands (criminals of Paris) to charge the cathedral and rescue Esmeralda.

Frollo asks the king to remove Esmeralda's right to sanctuary so she can no longer seek shelter in the church and will be taken from the church and killed. When Quasimodo sees the Truands, he assumes they are there to hurt Esmeralda, so he drives them off. Likewise, he thinks the King's men want to rescue her, and tries to help them find her. She is rescued by Frollo and her phony husband, Gringoire. But after yet another failed attempt to win her love, Frollo betrays Esmeralda by handing her to the troops and watches while she is being hanged.

When Frollo laughs during Esmeralda's hanging, Quasimodo pushes him from the heights of Notre Dame to his death. Quasimodo then goes to the vaults under the huge gibbet of Montfaucon, and lies next to Esmeralda's corpse, where it had been unceremoniously thrown after the execution. He stays at Montfaucon, and eventually dies of starvation. About eighteen months later, the tomb is opened, and the skeletons are found. As someone tries to separate them, Quasimodo's bones turn to dust.

Characters[link]

Lon Chaney as Quasimodo and Patsy Ruth Miller as Esmeralda in the 1923 film.

• Esmeralda, born Agnes, is a beautiful young gypsy, naturally compassionate, and kind. She is the center of the human drama within the story. A popular focus of the citizens' attentions, she experiences their changeable attitudes, being first adored as an entertainer, then hated as a witch, before being lauded again for her dramatic rescue by Quasimodo. When the King finally decides to put her to death, he does so in the belief that the Parisian mob wants her dead. She is loved by both Quasimodo and Claude Frollo, but falls deeply in love with Captain Phoebus, a handsome soldier who she rightly believes will protect her but who simply wants to seduce her. She is the only character to show the hunchback a moment of human kindness: as he is being whipped for punishment and jeered by a horrid rabble, she approaches the public stock and gives him a drink of water. Because of this, he falls fiercely in love with her, even though she is too disgusted by his ugliness even to let him kiss her hand.
• Claude Frollo, the novel's main antagonist, is the Archdeacon of Notre Dame. His dour attitude and his alchemical experiments alienated him from the Parisians, who believe him a sorcerer. His parents having died of plague when he was a young man, he is without family save for Quasimodo, for whom he cares, and his spoiled brother Jehan, whom he attempts to reform towards a better life. His mad attraction to Esmeralda sets off a chain of events, including her attempted abduction and Frollo almost murdering Phoebus in a jealous rage, leading to Esmeralda's execution. Frollo is killed when Quasimodo pushes him off the cathedral.
• Quasimodo is the bell-ringer of Notre Dame, and a barely verbal hunchback. Ringing the church bells has made him deaf. Abandoned as a baby, he was adopted by Claude Frollo. Quasimodo's life within the confines of the cathedral and his only two outlets—ringing the bells and his love and devotion for Frollo—are described. He ventures outside the Cathedral rarely, since people despise and shun him for his appearance. The notable occasions when he does leave are his taking part in the Festival of Fools—during which he is elected the Pope of Fools due to his perfect hideousness—and his subsequent attempt to kidnap Esmeralda, his rescue of Esmeralda from the gallows, his attempt to bring Phoebus to Esmeralda, and his final abandonment of the cathedral at the end of the novel. It is revealed in the story that the baby Quasimodo was left by the Gypsies in place of Esmeralda, whom they abducted.
• Jehan Frollo is Claude Frollo's over-indulged younger brother. He is a troublemaker and a student at the university. He is dependent on his brother for money, which he then proceeds to squander on alcohol. Quasimodo kills him during the attack on the cathedral. He briefly enters the cathedral by ascending one of the towers with a borrowed ladder, but Quasimodo sees him and throws him down to his death.
• Phoebus de Chateaupers is the Captain of the King's Archers. After he saves Esmeralda from abduction, she becomes infatuated with him, and he is intrigued by her. Already betrothed to the beautiful but spiteful Fleur-De-Lys, he wants to lie with Esmeralda nonetheless but is prevented by Frollo stabbing him. Phoebus survives but Esmeralda is taken to be the attempted assassin by all, including Phoebus himself.
• Fleur-de-Lys de Gondelaurier is a beautiful and wealthy socialite engaged to Phoebus. Phoebus's attentions to Esmeralda make her insecure and jealous, and she and her friends respond by treating Esmeralda with contempt and spite. Fleur-de-Lys later neglects to inform Phoebus that Esmerelda has not been executed, which serves to deprive the pair of any further contact—though as Phoebus no longer loves Esmerelda by this time, this does not matter. The novel ends with their wedding.
• Pierre Gringoire is a struggling poet. He mistakenly finds his way into the "Court of Miracles", the domain of the Truands. In order to preserve the secrecy, Gringoire must either be killed by hanging, or marry a Gypsy. Although Esmeralda does not love him, and in fact believes him a coward rather than a true man—unlike Phoebus, he failed in his attempt to rescue her from Quasimodo—she takes pity on his plight and marries him. But, because she is already in love with Phoebus, much to his disappointment, she will not let him touch her.
• Sister Gudule, formerly named Paquette la Chantefleurie, is an anchoress, who lives in seclusion in an exposed cell in central Paris. She is tormented by the loss of her daughter Agnes, whom she believes to have been cannibalised by Gypsies as a baby, and devotes her life to mourning her. Her long-lost daughter turns out to be Esmeralda.
• Louis XI is the King of France. Appears briefly when he is brought the news of the rioting at Notre Dame. He orders his guard to kill the rioters, and also the "witch" Esmerelda.
• Tristan l'Hermite is a friend of King Louis XI. He leads the band that goes to capture Esmeralda.
• Henriet Cousin is the city executioner, who hangs Esmerelda.
• Florian Barbedienne is the judge who sentences Quasimodo to be tortured. He is also deaf.
• Jacques Charmolue is a friend of the Archdeacon, in charge of torturing prisoners. He gets Esmerelda to falsely confess to killing Phoebus. He then has her imprisoned.
• Clopin Trouillefou is the King of Truands. He rallies the Court of Miracles to rescue Esmerelda from Notre Dame after the idea is suggested by Gringoire. He is eventually killed during the attack by the King's soldiers.
• Pierrat Torterue is the torturer who tortures Esmerelda after her interrogation. He hurts Esmerelda so badly she falsely confesses, sealing her own fate. He was also the official who administered the savage flogging awarded to Quasimodo by Barbedienne.

Major themes[link]

The original French title, Notre-Dame de Paris (the formal title of the Cathedral) indicates that the Cathedral itself is the most significant aspect of the novel, both the main setting and the focus of the story's themes. With the notable exception of Phoebus and Esmerelda's meeting, almost every major event in the novel takes place in the cathedral, atop the cathedral or can be witnessed by a character standing within or atop the cathedral. The Cathedral had fallen into disrepair at the time of writing, which Hugo wanted to point out. The book portrays the Gothic era as one of the extremes of architecture, passion, and religion. The theme of determinism (fate and destiny) is explored as well as revolution and social strife.^[2]

The severe distinction of the social classes is shown by the relationships of Quasimodo and Esmeralda with higher-caste people in the book. One can also see a variety of modern themes emanating from the work including nuanced views on gender dynamics. For example, Phoebus objectifies Esmerelda as a sexual object. And, while Esmeralda is frequently cited as a paragon of purity- this is certainly how Quasimodo sees her- she nonetheless is seen to create her own objectification of the archer captain, Phoebus, that is at odds with reader's informed view of the man.

Architecture[link]

Architecture is a major concern of Hugo's in Notre-Dame de Paris, not just as embodied in the cathedral itself, but as representing throughout Paris and the rest of Europe an artistic genre which, Hugo argued, was about to disappear with the arrival of the printing press. Claude Frollo's portentous phrase, ‘Ceci tuera cela’ ("This will kill that", as he looks from a printed book to the cathedral building), sums up this thesis, which is expounded on in Book V, chapter 2. Hugo writes that ‘quiconque naissait poète se faisait architecte’ ("whoever is born a poet becomes an architect"), arguing that while the written word was heavily censored and difficult to reproduce, architecture was extremely prominent and enjoyed considerable freedom.

Il existe à cette époque, pour la pensée écrite en pierre, un privilège tout-à-fait comparable à notre liberté actuelle de la presse. C'est la liberté de l'architecture.
There exists in this era, for thoughts written in stone, a privilege absolutely comparable to our current freedom of the press. It is the freedom of architecture.

—Book V, Chapter 2

With the recent introduction of the printing press, it became possible to reproduce one's ideas much more easily on paper, and Hugo considered this period to represent the last flowering of architecture as a great artistic form. As with many of his books, Hugo was interested in a time which seemed to him to be on the cusp between two types of society.^[3]

Literary significance and reception[link]

Hugo introduced with this work the concept of the novel as Epic Theatre. A giant epic about the history of a whole people, incarnated in the figure of the great cathedral as witness and silent protagonist of that history. The whole idea of time and life as an ongoing, organic panorama centered on dozens of characters caught in the middle of that history. It is the first novel to have beggars as protagonists.

'Notre Dame de Paris' was the first work of fiction to encompass the whole of life, from the King of France to Paris sewer rats, in a manner later co-opted by Balzac, Flaubert and many others, including Dickens. The enormous popularity of the book in France spurred the nascent historical preservation movement in that country and strongly encouraged Gothic revival architecture. Ultimately it led to major renovations at Notre-Dame in the 19th century led by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Much of the cathedral's present appearance is a result of this renovation.

Allusions and references[link]

Allusions to actual history, geography and current science[link]

In The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo makes frequent reference to the architecture of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. He also mentions the invention of the printing press, when the bookmaker near the beginning of the work speaks of "the German pest."

In 2010, British archivist Adrian Glew discovered references to a real-life hunchback who was a foreman of a government sculpting studio in Paris in the 1820s who worked on post-Revolution restorations to the Cathedral.^[4]

Allusions in other works[link]

The name Quasimodo has become synonymous with "a courageous heart beneath a grotesque exterior."^[5]

Drama adaptations[link]

To date, all of the film and TV adaptations have strayed somewhat from the original plot, some going as far as to give it a happy ending. The 1956 film is one of the only ones to end almost exactly like the novel, although it changes other parts of the story. Unlike most adaptations, the Disney version has an ending that is inspired by an opera created by Hugo himself.

Film[link]

• Esmeralda (1905 film)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1911 film)
• The Darling of Paris (1917 film)
• Esmeralda (1922 film)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923 film)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939 film)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956 film)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996 film)
• The Hunchback (1997 film)
• Quasimodo d'El Paris (1999 film)

Television[link]

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1966 miniseries)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1977 miniseries)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982 film)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1986 film)

Theatre[link]

• In 1977, an adaptation by Ken Hill was commissioned and staged by the National Theatre in London.
• In 2010, an adaptation by Pip Utton was staged at The Pleasance as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Music[link]

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Alec R. Costandinos and the Syncophonic Orchestra from 1977, a lush orchestral disco 28 minute epic re-telling the tale of Quasimodo and Esmeralda.
• The Hunchback by Some Say Leland follows The Hunchback of Notre Dame's attempts to throw a birthday party for himself. The song was released on some say Leland's 2009 album "50 Miles Into The Main."

Musical theatre[link]

• La Esmeralda, opera by Louise Bertin (1836), libretto by Victor Hugo.
• Esmeralda, opera by Alexander Dargomyzhsky (1847) based on the Victor Hugo novel.
• Esmeralda, opera by Arthur Goring Thomas (1883), also based on the same Victor Hugo novel.
• Notre Dame, romantic Opera in two acts by Franz Schmidt, text after Victor Hugo by Schmidt and Leopold Wilk; composed: 1902-4, 1st perf.: Vienna 1914
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1993), an Off Broadway musical with music by Byron Janis, lyrics by Hal Hackady and book by Anthony Scully^[6]
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1993), a dramatic sung-through musical with book and lyrics by Gary Sullivan and music by John Trent Wallace.^[7] After a production at the Mermaid Theatre in London it was published by Samuel French Ltd in 1997 and has received several UK productions as well as productions in New Zealand and Australia. In 2010 it was re-written as a conventional musical, with the new title Notre Dame.^[8]
• In 1999, Notre-Dame de Paris opened in Paris and became an instant success. It is considered the most successful adaptation of any novel except for "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Les Misérables." It was also adapted for the stage by Nicholas DeBaubien.^[9]
• From 1999 to 2002, the Disney film was adapted into a darker, more Gothic musical production called Der Glöckner von Notre Dame (translated in English as The Bellringer of Notre Dame), re-written and directed by James Lapine and produced by the Disney theatrical branch, in Berlin. A cast recording was also recorded in German.^[10] There has been discussion of an American revival of the musical.
• A rock musical version was released in Seattle, Washington in 1998 titled "Hunchback" with music and script by C. Rainey Lewis.^[11]
• A musical version, scored by Dennis DeYoung, opened in Chicago at the Bailiwick Repertory in the summer of 2008^[12]
• A re-adaptation of the piece entitled "Our Lady of Paris" with music and lyrics by David Levinson and book by Stacey Weingarten was produced in a reading format in Manhattan. It re-sets the action to 1954 at the beginning of the French Algerian conflict. Directed by Donna Drake, Music Directed by Mark Hartman, starring Michael Barr, Matt Doyle, Adam Halpin, Sevan Greene, Nadine Malouf, Megan Reinking and Price Waldman. After the first reading the piece underwent revisions; a second reading was produced in January 2011 under the musical's new title, Les Enfants de Paris.

Ballet[link]

Nadja Sellrup in Ringaren i Notre-Dame at the 2009 production at the Royal Swedish Ballet.

• Notre-Dame de Paris (1965) – choreography by Roland Petit, first performed by the Paris Opera Ballet.
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1998) – choreography and direction by Michael Pink and original music score by Philip Feeney; currently in the repertoire of Milwaukee Ballet, Boston Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Atlanta Ballet and Colorado Ballet.
• Ringaren i Notre Dame (The Bellringer of Notre Dame; 2009) – choreography by Pär Isberg and original music score by Stefan Nilsson, first performed on Friday, April 3rd, by the Royal Swedish Ballet.

Radio[link]

The book was twice adapted and broadcast by BBC Radio 4 as its Classic Serial:

• in 5 parts from 6 January to 3 February 1989, with Jack Klaff as Quasimodo
• in 2 parts on 30 November and 7 December 2008, with deaf actor David Bower playing Quasimodo.

Translation history[link]

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame has been translated into English many times. Translations are often reprinted in various imprints. Some translations have been revised over time.

• 1833. Translated by Frederic Shoberl as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Later revisions.
• 1833. Translated by William Hazlitt as Notre Dame: A Tale of the Ancien Regime. Later revisions.
• 1888. Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood as Notre-Dame de Paris.
• 1895. Translated by M.W. Artois et al., part of the 28-vol The Novels of Victor Hugo, re-printed in the 20th century under other titles.
• 1964. Translated by Walter J. Cobb. In multiple editions, see for example Signet Classics ISBN 0-451-52788-7
• 1978. Translated by John Sturrock. In multiple editions, see for example Penguin Classics ISBN 0-14-044353-3
• 1993. Translated by Alban J. Krailsheimer as Notre-Dame de Paris. See Oxford World's Classics ISBN 978-0-19-955580-2
• 2002. Revised translation by Catherine Liu of an anonymous 19th century translation. See Modern Library Classics ISBN 0-679-64257-9
• 2006. Translated by Mary Grace M. Ada as Notre-Dame de Paris. See Oxford World's Classics ISBN 978-0-19-955580-2

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

References[link]

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Rebello, Stephen. The Art of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996 ed.). Hyperion. ISBN 0-7868-6208-4. 
• Pascal Tonazzi, Florilège de Notre-Dame de Paris (anthologie), Editions Arléa, Paris, 2007, ISBN 2-86959-795-9.

External links[link]

	France portal
	French and Francophone literature portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Notre-Dame de Paris (Victor Hugo)

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame at Internet Archive and Google Books, multiple English translations (scanned books original editions color illustrated)
• Notre-Dame De Paris at Project Gutenberg, 1888 English translation by Isabel Florence Hapgood (plain text and HTML)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame at LibriVox, 1888 English translation by Isabel Florence Hapgood (audiobook)
• Notre Dame de Paris Harvard Classics
• (French) Notre-Dame de Paris at Wikisource (HTML)

v t e The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo Characters Quasimodo Esmeralda Claude Frollo Captain Phoebus Clopin Trouillefou Pierre Gringoire Films Esmeralda (1905) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1911) The Darling of Paris (1917) Esmeralda (1922) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) Notre Dame de Paris (1956) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1966) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1977) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1986) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) The Hunchback (1997) Quasimodo d'El Paris (1999) The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2002) Other adaptations La Esmeralda (1836 opera) La Esmeralda (1844 ballet) Notre-Dame de Paris (1998 musical) Der Glöckner von Notre Dame (1999 musical) Disney songs Music soundtrack "The Bells of Notre Dame" "Hellfire"

Walt Disney
Walt Disney on January 1, 1954
Born	Walter Elias Disney (1901-12-05)December 5, 1901[1] Hermosa, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	December 15, 1966(1966-12-15) (aged 65) Burbank, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Lung Cancer
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, U.S.
Residence	Burbank, California
Nationality	American
Education	McKinley High School
Occupation	Film producer, Co-founder of The Walt Disney Company, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions
Years active	1920–1966
Home town	Chicago, Illinois
Political party	Republican
Board member of	The Walt Disney Company
Religion	Christian (Congregationalist)[2]
Spouse	Lillian Bounds (1925–1966; his death)
Children	Diane Marie Disney Sharon Mae Disney
Parents	Elias Disney Flora Call Disney
Relatives	Ronald William Miller (son-in-law) Robert Borgfeldt Brown (son-in-law) Roy Edward Disney (nephew)
Family	Herbert Arthur Disney (brother) Raymond Arnold Disney (brother) Roy Oliver Disney (brother) Ruth Flora Disney (sister)
Awards	7 Emmy Awards, 22 Academy Awards, Cecil B.DeMille Award
Signature

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon,^[3] and philanthropist, well known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O. Disney, he was co-founder of Walt Disney Productions, which later became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation is now known as The Walt Disney Company and had an annual revenue of approximately US$36 billion in the 2010 financial year.^[4]

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 22 Academy Awards from a total of 59 nominations, including a record four in one year,^[5] giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual in history.^[6] 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 Resort, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland.

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.

1901–1937: Beginnings[link]

Childhood[link]

Disney was born on December 5, 1901, at 2156 N. Tripp Avenue in Chicago's Hermosa community area to Irish-Canadian father Elias Disney and Flora Call Disney, who was of German and English descent.^[7][8] His great-grandfather, Arundel Elias Disney, had emigrated from Gowran, County Kilkenny, Ireland where he was born in 1801. Arundel Disney was a descendant of Robert d'Isigny, a Frenchman who had travelled to England with William the Conqueror in 1066.^[9] With the d'Isigny name anglicised as "Disney", the family settled in a village now known as Norton Disney, south of the city of Lincoln, in the county of Lincolnshire.

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,^[10] hometown of his brother Robert^[10] who helped Elias financially for most of his early life.^[10] In 1906, when Walt was four, Elias and his family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri,^[11] where his brother Roy had recently purchased farmland.^[11] In Marceline, Disney developed his love for drawing^[12] with one of the family's neighbors, a retired doctor named "Doc" Sherwood, paying him to draw pictures of Sherwood's horse, Rupert.^[12] 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^[8] then try and spot his uncle, engineer Michael Martin, conducting the train.

10-year old Walt Disney (center right) at a gathering of Kansas City newsboys in 1912.

The Disneys remained in Marceline for four years,^[13] before moving to Kansas City in 1911^[14] 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.^[15] As well as attending Saturday courses at the Kansas City Art Institute,^[16] 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.^{[citation needed]}

Teenage years[link]

In 1917, Elias acquired shares in the O-Zell jelly factory in Chicago and moved his family back to the city,^[17] where in the fall Disney began his freshman year at McKinley High School and took night courses at the Chicago Art Institute.^[18] He became the cartoonist for the school newspaper, drawing patriotic topics and focusing on World War I. Despite dropping out of high school at the age of sixteen to join the army, Disney was rejected for being underage.^[19]

After his rejection by the army, Walt and a friend decided to join the Red Cross.^[20] 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.^[21]

Disney as an ambulance driver immediately after World War I

Hoping to find work outside the Chicago O-Zell factory,^[22] in 1919 Walt moved back to Kansas City to begin his artistic career.^[23] 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^[23] where he created advertisements for newspapers, magazines, and movie theaters.^[24] At Pesmen-Rubin he met cartoonist Ubbe Iwerks^[25] and when their time at the studio expired, they decided to start their own commercial company together.^[26]

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.^[27] 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.^[28] 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,^[29] and recruited a fellow co-worker at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, Fred Harman, as his first employee.^[29] 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,^[30] to screen their cartoons at his local theater, which they titled Laugh-O-Grams.^[30]

Laugh-O-Gram Studio[link]

Presented as "Newman Laugh-O-Grams",^[30] Disney's cartoons became widely popular in the Kansas City area^[31] and through their success, he was able to acquire his own studio, also called Laugh-O-Gram,^[32] for which he hired a vast number of additional animators, including Fred Harman's brother Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and his close friend Ubbe Iwerks.^[33] Unfortunately, studio profits were insufficient to cover the high salaries paid to employees. Unable to successfully manage money,^[34] Disney's studio became loaded with debt^[34] and wound up bankrupt^[35] whereupon he decided to set up a studio in the movie industry's capital city, Hollywood, California.^[36]

Hollywood[link]

Disney and his brother Roy pooled their money and set up a cartoon studio in Hollywood^[37] where they needed to find a distributor for Walt's new Alice Comedies, which he had started making while in Kansas City^[35] but never got to distribute. Disney sent an unfinished print to New York distributor Margaret Winkler, who promptly wrote back to him that she was keen on a distribution deal for more live-action/animated shorts based upon Alice's Wonderland.^[38]

Alice Comedies[link]

Virginia Davis, the live-action star of Alice’s Wonderland and her family relocated from Kansas City to Hollywood at Disney's request, as did Iwerks and his family. This was the beginning of the Disney Brothers' Studio located on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district, where it remained until 1939. In 1925, Disney hired a young woman named Lillian Bounds to ink and paint celluloid. After a brief courtship, the pair married that same year.

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.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit[link]

By 1927, Charles Mintz had married Margaret Winkler and assumed control of her business. He then 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 by Iwerks — became a popular figure. The Disney studio expanded and Walt re-hired Harman, Rudolph Ising, Carman Maxwell, and Friz Freleng from Kansas City.

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.^[39]

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.^[40]

Mickey Mouse[link]

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.^[41] 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."^[41] 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 called Steamboat Willie. A businessman named Pat Powers provided Disney with both distribution and Cinephone, a sound-synchronization process. Steamboat Willie became an instant success,^[42] 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.^[43] Mickey soon eclipsed Felix the Cat as the world's most popular cartoon character^[41] and by 1930, despite their having sound, cartoons featuring Felix had faded from the screen after failing to gain attention.^[44] Mickey's popularity would subsequently skyrocket in the early 1930s.^[41]

[edit] Silly Symphonies

Following in the footsteps of Mickey Mouse series, a series of musical shorts titled, Silly Symphonies were released in 1929. The first, The Skeleton Dance was entirely drawn and animated by Iwerks, who was also responsible for drawing the majority of cartoons released by Disney in 1928 and 1929. Although both series were successful, the Disney studio thought it was not receiving its rightful share of profits from Pat Powers,^[45] and in 1930, Disney signed a new distribution deal with Columbia Pictures. The original basis of the cartoons was their musical novelty with the first Silly Symphony cartoons featuring scores by Carl Stalling.^[46]

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.^[47] 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.^[48] Fleischer, considered Disney's main rival in the 1930s,^[49] 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.^[50] In late 1932, Herbert Kalmus, who had just completed work on the first three-strip technicolor camera,^[51] approached Walt and convinced him to reshoot the black and white Flowers and Trees in three-strip Technicolor.^[52] 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,^[53][54] a period eventually extended to five years.^[46] Through Silly Symphonies, Disney also created his most successful cartoon short of all time, The Three Little Pigs (1933).^[55] 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".^[56]

One of two stars dedicated to Walt Disney on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

First Academy Award[link]

In 1932, Disney received a special Academy Award for the creation of "Mickey Mouse", a series which switched to color in 1935 and soon launched spin-offs for supporting characters such as Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto. Pluto and Donald became standalone cartoons in 1937,^[57] with Goofy following in 1939.^[58] Of all Mickey's partners, Donald Duck, who first teamed up with Mickey in the 1934 cartoon, Orphan's Benefit, was arguably the most popular, going on to become Disney's second most successful cartoon character of all time.^[59]

Children[link]

The Disneys' first attempt at pregnancy ended in miscarriage. Lillian became pregnant again and gave birth to a daughter, Diane Marie Disney, on December 18, 1933.^[60] Later, the Disneys adopted Sharon Mae Disney (December 31, 1936 – February 16, 1993).^[61]

Diane married Ron Miller at the age of 20 and is known as Diane Disney Miller. The Millers established and own a winery called Silverado Vineyards in California.^[62] Diane and Ron Miller have seven children: Christopher, Joanna, Tamara, Jennifer, Walter, Ronald and Patrick.^[63] Years later, Diane went on to become the cofounder of The Walt Disney Family Museum, with the aid of her children.^[60] The museum was created to preserve her father's image and reach out to millions of Disney fans worldwide.^[64] The museum displays a chronological view of Walt Disney's life through personal artifacts, interactive kiosks and various animations.^[64]

Sharon Mae Disney was born December 31, 1936, in Los Angeles, California and was later adopted by the Disneys, due to Lillian's several birth complications.^[63][65] In 1950, Sharon went on to star as herself in the Walt Disney Studios special One Hour in Wonderland.^[66] Sharon married Robert Brown in 1958, with whom she had one child, and they remained married until his death in 1967.^[65] Sharon married William Lund in 1969 and had two children with him, but six years later they divorced.^[65][67] Sharon was a philanthropist and had contributed to charities such as the Marianne Frostig Center of Educational Therapy and the Curtis School foundation.^[68] In 1993 at the age of 57, Sharon died from cancer at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California.^[65] After Sharon's death, her estate donated $11 million to the California School of Performing Arts, where she was a member of the board of trustees for almost two decades. Sharon's donation was commemorated by renaming the School of Dance the Sharon D. Lund School of Dance.^[60][69]

1937–1941: Golden age of animation[link]

[edit] "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.

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.^[70] 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.^[41] 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.^[71]

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. 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.^[72] The film became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and earned over $8 million on its initial release. These initial release earnings for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be the equivalent of $122,487,945 in 2010.^[73]

Golden age of animation[link]

Following the success of Snow White, for which Disney received one full-size, and seven miniature Oscar statuettes, he was able 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 also ushered in a period that would later be known as the Golden Age of Animation for the studio.^[74][75] Feature animation staff, having just completed Pinocchio, continued work on Fantasia and Bambi as well as the early production stages of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Wind in the Willows while the shorts staff carried on working on the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto cartoon series, ending the Silly Symphonies at this time.^{[clarification needed More info needed on end of the Silly Symphonies to make a new and separate sentence.]} Animator Fred Moore had redesigned Mickey Mouse in the late 1930s after Donald Duck overtook him in popularity among theater audiences.^[76]

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.

1941–1945: World War II era[link]

In 1941, the U.S. State Department sent Disney and a group of animators to South America as part of its Good Neighbor policy, at the same time guaranteeing financing for the resultant movie, Saludos Amigos.^[77]

Shortly after the release of Dumbo in October 1941, the US entered World War II. The U.S. Army and Navy Bureau of Aeronautics^[78] 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.^{[79][80][81][82][83]}

1945–1955: Post-war period[link]

Disney studios also created inexpensive package films, containing collections of cartoon shorts, and issued them to theaters during this period. These included Make Mine Music (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 by Kenneth Grahame, and the second on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. During this period, Disney 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.^[84]

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.^[85] However, while Bugs Bunny's popularity rose in the 1940s, so did Donald Duck's,^[86] a character who would replace Mickey Mouse as Disney's star character by 1949.^[87]

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.

Walt Disney meets Wernher von Braun in 1954.

Disney and the Second Red Scare[link]

Disney was a founding member of the anti-communist group Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.  In 1947, during the Second Red Scare,^[88] Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), where he branded Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, former animators and labor union organizers, Communist agitators. All three men denied the allegations and Sorrell went on to testify before the HUAC in 1946 when insufficient evidence was found to link him to the Communist Party.^[89][90]

Disney also accused the Screen Cartoonists Guild of being a Communist front, and charged that the 1941 strike was part of an organized Communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood.^[88]

1955–1966: Theme parks and beyond[link]

Planning Disneyland[link]

Disneyland: aerial view, August 1963, looking SE. New Melodyland Theater at top. Santa Ana Freeway (US 101 at the time, now I-5) upper left corner.

On 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. The idea for a children's theme park came after a visit to Children's Fairyland in Oakland, California. It also said that Disney may have been inspired to create Disneyland in the park Republic of the Children located in Manuel B. Gonnet, La Plata, Argentina, and opened in 1951.^[91] This plan was originally intended to be built on a plot located across the street to the south of the studio. These original ideas developed into a concept for a larger enterprise that would become Disneyland. Disney spent five years developing Disneyland and created a new subsidiary company, WED Enterprises, to carry out planning and production of the park. A small group of Disney studio employees joined the Disneyland development project as engineers and planners, and were dubbed Imagineers.^{[citation needed]}

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."^[92] 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.

Disneyland grand opening[link]

Disneyland officially opened on July 18, 1955. On Sunday, July 17, 1955, Disneyland hosted a live TV preview, among the thousands of people in attendance were Ronald Reagan, Bob Cummings and Art Linkletter, who shared cohosting duties, as well as the mayor of Anaheim. Walt gave the following dedication day speech:

Carolwood Pacific Railroad[link]

The Lilly Belle on display at Disneyland Main Station in 1993. The caboose's woodwork was done entirely by Walt himself.

During 1949, Disney and his family moved to a new home on a large piece of land in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles, California. With the help of his friends Ward and Betty Kimball, who already had their own backyard railroad, Disney 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, came from his home's location on Carolwood Drive. The railroad's half-mile long layout included a 46-foot (14 m) long trestle bridge, loops, overpasses, gradients, an elevated berm, and a 90-foot (27 m) tunnel underneath his wife's flowerbed. He named the miniature working steam locomotive built by Disney Studios engineer Roger E. Broggie Lilly Belle in his wife's honor and 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.^{[clarification needed]}

Expansion into new areas[link]

As Walt Disney 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, soon followed by 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 studio produced its first TV special, One Hour in Wonderland, in 1950. Disney began hosting a weekly anthology series on ABC entitled Disneyland, after the park, on which he aired clips of past Disney productions, gave tours of his studio, and familiarized the public with Disneyland as it was being constructed in Anaheim. The show also featured a Davy Crockett miniseries, which started the "Davy Crockett craze" among American youth, during which millions of coonskin caps and other Crockett memorabilia were sold across the country.^[93] In 1955, the studio's first daily television show, Mickey Mouse Club debuted on ABC. It was a groundbreaking comedy/variety show aimed specifically for children. Disney took a strong personal interest in the show and even returned to the animation studio to voice Mickey Mouse in its animated segments during its original 1955-59 production run. The Mickey Mouse Club would continue in various incarnations in syndication and on the Disney Channel into the 1990s.

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.^[94] 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,^[95] 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.^[96] 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.

Early 1960s successes[link]

By the early 1960s, the Disney empire had become a major success, and Walt Disney Productions had established itself as the world's leading producer of family entertainment. Walt Disney was the Head of Pageantry for the 1960 Winter Olympics.

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.

Plans for Disney World and EPCOT[link]

In early 1964, Disney announced plans to develop another theme park to be called Disney World a few miles southwest of Orlando, Florida. Disney World was to include "the Magic Kingdom", a larger, more elaborate version of Disneyland. It would also feature a number of golf courses and resort hotels. The heart of Disney World, however, was to be the Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow, known as EPCOT for short.

Mineral King Ski Resort[link]

During the early-to-mid 1960s, Walt Disney developed plans for a ski resort in Mineral King, a glacial valley in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range. He brought in experts such as 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 started. Disney's death and opposition from conservationists ensured that the resort was never built.

Death[link]

Like many people of the time, Walt Disney was a chain smoker his entire adult life, although he made sure he was not seen smoking around children.^[97] In 1966, Disney was scheduled to undergo surgery to repair an old neck injury^[98] caused by many years of playing polo at the Riviera Club in Hollywood.^[99] On November 2, during pre-operative X-rays, doctors at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, across the street from the Disney Studio, discovered a tumor in his left lung.^[100] Five days later a biopsy showed the tumor to be malignant and to have spread throughout the entire left lung.^[100] After removal of the lung, doctors informed Disney that his life expectancy was six months to two years.^[100] After several chemotherapy sessions, Disney and his wife spent a short amount of time in Palm Springs, California.^[98] On November 30, Disney collapsed at his home. He was revived by fire department personnel and rushed to St. Joseph's where on December 15, 1966, at 9:30 a.m., ten days after his 65th birthday, Disney died of acute circulatory collapse, caused by lung cancer.^[98] The last thing he reportedly wrote before his death was the name of actor Kurt Russell, the significance of which remains a mystery, even to Russell.^[101]

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 feature The Jungle Book and the animated short Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, as well as the live-action musical feature The Happiest Millionaire, all released in 1967. Songwriter Robert B. Sherman recalled of the last time he saw Disney:

Hibernation Urban Legend[link]

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.^[103] In fact, Disney was cremated on December 17, 1966, and his ashes interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. The first known human cryogenic freezing did not occur until January 1967, more than a month after Disney's death.^[103]

According to "at least one Disney publicist", as reported in the French magazine Ici Paris in 1969, the source of the rumor was a group of Disney Studio animators with "a bizarre sense of humor" who were playing a final prank on their late boss.^[104]

Although the rumor is acknowledged as false by most historians, Robert Mosley (in Disney’s World (1986)) and Marc Eliot (in Walt Disney – Hollywood’s Dark Prince (1993)) argue that Disney may have known of cryonics and may have had an interest in the science.^[105] However his daughter Diane wrote in 1972, "There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that my father, Walt Disney, wished to be frozen. I doubt that my father had ever heard of cryonics."^[104]

Legacy: 1967–present[link]

Continuing Disney Productions[link]

Plaque at the entrance that embodies the intended spirit of Disneyland by Walt Disney: to leave reality and enter fantasy

After Walt Disney's death, Roy Disney returned from retirement to take full control of Walt Disney Productions and WED Enterprises. In October 1971, the families of Walt and Roy met in front of Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom to officially open the Walt Disney World Resort.

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.^[106] Roy died from a cerebral hemorrhage on December 20, 1971, the day he was due to open the Disneyland Christmas parade.

1968 US postage stamp

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.

The Disney entertainment empire[link]

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. Among other assets The Walt Disney Company owns five vacation resorts, eleven theme parks, two water parks, thirty-nine hotels, eight motion picture studios, six record labels, eleven cable television networks, and one terrestrial television network. As of 2007, the company had annual revenues of over U.S. $35 billion.^[107]

Disney Animation[link]

Walt Disney was a pioneer in character animation. He was one of the first people to move away from basic cartoons with just "impossible outlandish gags" and crudely drawn characters to an art form with heartwarming stories and characters the audience can connect to on an emotional level. The personality displayed in the characters of his films and the technological advancements remain influential when animating today. He was also considered by many of his colleagues to be a master storyteller and the animation department did not fully recover from his demise until the late 1980s in a period known as the Disney Renaissance. The most financially and critically successful films produced during this time include Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994). In 1995, Walt Disney Pictures distributed Pixar's Toy Story, the first computer animated feature film. Walt Disney's nephew Roy E. Disney claimed that Walt would have loved Toy Story and that it was "his kind of movie".^[108] With the rise of computer animated films a stream of financially unsuccessful Traditional hand-drawn animated features in the early years of the 2000s (decade) emerged. This led to the company's controversial decision to close the traditional animation department. The two satellite studios in Paris and Orlando were closed, and the main studio in Burbank was converted to a computer animation production facility, firing hundreds of people in the process. In 2004, Disney released what was announced as their final "traditionally animated" feature film, Home on the Range. However, since the 2006 acquisition of Pixar, and the resulting rise of John Lasseter to Chief Creative Officer, that position has changed with the largely successful 2009 film The Princess and the Frog. This marked Disney's return to traditional hand-drawn animation and the studio hired back staff who had been laid-off in the past. Today, Disney produces both traditional and computer animation.

CalArts[link]

In his later years, Disney devoted substantial time to funding The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Formed in 1961 through a merger of the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and the Chouinard Art Institute, which had helped in the training of the animation staff during the 1930s, when Disney died, one-fourth of his estate went to CalArts, which helped in building its campus. In his will, Disney paved the way for the creation of several charitable trusts which included one for the California Institute of the Arts and other for the Disney Foundation.^[109] He also donated 38 acres (0.154 km²) of the Golden Oaks ranch in Valencia for construction of the school. CalArts moved onto the Valencia campus in 1972.

In an early admissions bulletin, Disney explained: "A hundred years ago, Wagner conceived of a perfect and all-embracing art, combining music, drama, painting, and the dance, but in his wildest imagination he had no hint what infinite possibilities were to become commonplace through the invention of recording, radio, cinema and television. There already have been geniuses combining the arts in the mass-communications media, and they have already given us powerful new art forms. The future holds bright promise for those who imaginations are trained to play on the vast orchestra of the art-in-combination. Such supermen will appear most certainly in those environments which provide contact with all the arts, but even those who devote themselves to a single phase of art will benefit from broadened horizons."^[110]

Walt Disney Family Museum[link]

In 2009, The Walt Disney Family Museum opened in the Presidio of San Francisco. Thousands of artifacts from Disney's life and career are on display, including 248 awards that he received.^[111]

Antisemitism accusations[link]

Disney was long rumored to be antisemitic during his lifetime, and such rumors have persisted after his death. Indeed, in the 1930s he welcomed German filmmaker and Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl to Hollywood.^[112] Disney biographer Neal Gabler, the first writer to gain unrestricted access to the Disney archives, concluded in 2006 that available evidence does not support such accusations. In a CBS interview Gabler summarized his findings:

Disney eventually distanced himself from the Motion Picture Alliance in the 1950s.^[114]

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 and The Opry House. However, the museum points out that Disney employed Jews throughout his career, donated to several Jewish charities (The Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Yeshiva College^{[disambiguation needed ]}, Jewish Home for the Aged, The American League for a Free Palestine)^[114] and was named "1955 Man of the Year" by the B'nai B'rith chapter in Beverly Hills.^[114][115]

Academy Awards[link]

This display case in the lobby of the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco shows many of the Academy Awards he won, including the distinctive special award at the bottom for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Walt Disney holds the record for both the most Academy Award nominations (59) and the number of Oscars awarded (22). He also earned four honorary Oscars. His last competitive Academy Award was posthumous.^[116]

• 1932: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Flowers and Trees (1932)
• 1932: Honorary Award for creation of Mickey Mouse.
• 1934: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Three Little Pigs (1933)
• 1935: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: The Tortoise and the Hare (1934)
• 1936: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Three Orphan Kittens (1935)
• 1937: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: The Country Cousin (1936)
• 1938: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: The Old Mill (1937)
• 1939: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Ferdinand the Bull (1938)
• 1939: Honorary Award for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) The citation read, "For Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field." (The award, unique in the history of the Oscars, is one large statuette and seven miniature statuettes.)^[5]
• 1940: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Ugly Duckling (1939)
• 1941: Honorary Award for Fantasia (1940), shared with: William E. Garity and J.N.A. Hawkins. The citation for the certificate of merit read, "For their outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia."^[5]
• 1942: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Lend a Paw (1941)
• 1943: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Der Fuehrer's Face (1942)
• 1949: Best Short Subject, Two-reel: Seal Island (1948)
• 1949: Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (Honorary Award)
• 1951: Best Short Subject, Two-reel: Beaver Valley (1950)
• 1952: Best Short Subject, Two-reel: Nature's Half Acre (1951)
• 1953: Best Short Subject, Two-reel: Water Birds (1952)
• 1954: Best Documentary, Features: The Living Desert (1953)
• 1954: Best Documentary, Short Subjects: The Alaskan Eskimo (1953)
• 1954: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom (1953)
• 1954: Best Short Subject, Two-reel: Bear Country (1953)
• 1955: Best Documentary, Features: The Vanishing Prairie (1954)
• 1956: Best Documentary, Short Subjects: Men Against the Arctic
• 1959: Best Short Subject, Live Action Subjects: Grand Canyon
• 1969: Best Short Subject, Cartoons: Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day

Other honors[link]

Walt Disney was the inaugural recipient of a star on the Anaheim walk of stars awarded in recognition of his significant contribution to the city of Anaheim and specifically Disneyland, which is now the Disneyland Resort. The star is located at the pedestrian entrance to the Disneyland Resort on Harbor Boulevard. Disney has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures and the other for his television work.

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.^[117] In 1935, Walt received a special medal from the League of Nations for creation of Mickey Mouse, held to be Mickey Mouse award.^[118] He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on September 14, 1964.^[119] 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 Karachkina, is named after him.^[120]

The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, opened in 2003, was named in his honor.

Waltograph, a freeware typeface, is based on his signature and handwriting.

In 1993, HBO began development of a Walt Disney biopic, directed by Frank Pierson and produced by Lawrence Turman, but the project never materialized and was soon abandoned.^[121] However, Walt - The Man Behind the Myth, a biographical documentary about Disney, was later made.^[122]

See also[link]

	Disney portal
	Animation portal

• Disney family
• Walt Disney anthology television series

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Thomas, Bob (1994). Walt Disney: An American Original. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 0-7868-6027-8. 

Further reading[link]

• Barrier, Michael (1999). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-516729-5.
• Broggie, Michael (1997, 1998, 2005). Walt Disney's Railroad Story. Virginia Beach, Virginia. Donning Publishers. ISBN 1-56342-009-0
• Eliot, Marc (1993). Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince. Carol. ISBN 1-55972-174-X
• Mosley, Leonard. Disney's World: A Biography (1985, 2002). Chelsea, MI: Scarborough House. ISBN 0-8128-8514-7.
• Gabler, Neal. Walt Disney: The Triumph of American Imagination (2006). New York, NY. Random House. ISBN 0-679-43822-X
• Schickel, Richard, and Dee, Ivan R. (1967, 1985, 1997). The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt Disney. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher. ISBN 1-56663-158-0.
• Sherman, Robert B. and Sherman, Richard M. (1998) "Walt's Time: From Before to Beyond" ISBN 0-9646059-3-7
• Thomas, Bob (1991). Disney's Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1-56282-899-1. 
• Watts, Steven, The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life, University of Missouri Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8262-1379-0

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Walt Disney

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Walt Disney

• Walt Disney at the Internet Movie Database
• Walt Disney at the TCM Movie Database
• Works by or about Walt Disney in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Walt Disney Family Museum
• Walt Disney Gravesite