Walt Disney epitomized the American Dream. Walt was born in 1901. He was the fourth of five children. The family was what could best be described today as "lower middle class." Walt mostly grew up on a farm in Missouri, although he had been born in Chicago. Those early years that Walt spent on the farm seemed to shape his vision of the world. His friends and playmates were pigs, cows, dogs, and mice.
Disney lied about his age so that he could participate in World War I. He served as an ambulance driver. After the end of the war in 1919, he returned to Chicago and landed a job with a commercial art studio. The best thing that came out of this job for Disney was meeting and becoming friends with Ub Iwerks. Iwerks was also a young artist who shared Disney's fascination with animation. Iwerks was much better at the mechanics of animating than Disney, but Disney was a great deal more creative than Iwerks. Iwerks provided the technical ability while Disney supplied the ideas, and together they were an unstoppable team.
Iwerks and Disney started a company called "Laugh-o-Grams". The company produced animated shorts using fairy tale characters — Little Red Riding Hood, the Four Musicians of Bremen, and Puss in Boots. The audiences loved the shorts, but the company went broke and had to declare bankruptcy in 1924.
Disney convinced his brother Roy, who was an astute businessman, to join himself and Iwerks. They moved to Hollywood to be closer to the heart of the movie industry. The Disney Company was born and the rest, as they say, is history. The Disney employees were pressed to incorporate all new technology in animated film making.
Disney died in 1966 of lung cancer, but he left the world with a body of work that will probably live forever.
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