Disney in 1954
Despite the demands wrought by non-studio projects, Disney
continued to work on film and television projects. In 1955, he was involved in "Man in Space", an episode of
the Disneyland series, which was made in collaboration with NASA rocket
designer Wernher von Braun. Disney also oversaw aspects of the full-length
features Lady and the Tramp (the first animated film in CinemaScope) in 1955,
Sleeping Beauty (the first animated film in Technirama 70 mm film) 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.
In 1964, Disney produced Mary Poppins, based on the book
series by P. L. Travers; he had been trying to acquire the rights to the story
since the 1940s. It became the most successful Disney film of the 1960s,
although Travers disliked the film intensely and regretted having sold the
rights. The same year he also became involved in plans to expand the California
Institute of the Arts (colloquially called CalArts), and had an architect draw
up blueprints for a new building.
Disney provided four exhibits for the 1964 New York World's
Fair, for which he obtained funding from selected corporate sponsors. For
PepsiCo, who planned a tribute to UNICEF, Disney developed It's a Small World,
a boat ride with audio-animatronic dolls depicting children of the world; Great
Moments with Mr. Lincoln contained an animatronic Abraham Lincoln giving
excerpts from his speeches; Carousel of Progress promoted the importance of
electricity; and Ford's Magic Skyway portrayed the progress of mankind.
Elements of all four exhibits—principally concepts and technology—were
re-installed in Disneyland, although It's a Small World is the ride that most
closely resembles the original.
During the early to mid-1960s, Disney developed plans for a
ski resort in Mineral King, a glacial valley in California's Sierra Nevada. He
hired experts such as the renowned Olympic ski coach and ski-area designer
Willy Schaeffler. With income from Disneyland accounting for an increasing
proportion of the studio's income, Disney continued to look for venues for
other attractions. In 1963 he presented a project to create a theme park in
downtown St. Louis, Missouri; he initially reached an agreement with the Civic
Center Redevelopment Corp, which controlled the land, but the deal later collapsed
over funding. In late 1965, he announced plans to develop another theme park to
be called "Disney World"
(now Walt Disney World), a few miles southwest of Orlando, Florida. Disney
World was to include the "Magic
Kingdom"—a larger and more elaborate version of Disneyland—plus
golf courses and resort hotels. The heart of Disney World was to be the "Experimental Prototype Community of
Tomorrow" (EPCOT), which he described as:
An experimental prototype community of tomorrow that will
take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from
the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow
that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and
demonstrating new materials and systems. And EPCOT will always be a showcase to
the world for the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise.
During 1966, Disney cultivated businesses willing to sponsor
EPCOT. He received a story credit in the 1966 film Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. as
Retlaw Yensid, his name spelt backwards. He increased his involvement in the
studio's films, and was heavily involved in the story development of The Jungle
Book, the live-action musical feature The Happiest Millionaire (both 1967) and
the animated short Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968).
Illness, death and
aftermath
Disney had been a heavy smoker since World War I. He did not
use cigarettes with filters and had smoked a pipe as a young man. In early
November 1966, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was treated with cobalt
therapy. On November 30, he felt unwell and was taken by ambulance from his
home to St. Joseph Hospital where, on December 15, 1966, aged 65, he died of
circulatory collapse caused by the cancer. His remains were cremated two days
later and his ashes interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
The release of The Jungle Book and The Happiest Millionaire
in 1967 raised the total number of feature films that Disney had been involved
in to 81. When Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day was released in 1968, it
earned Disney an Academy Award in the Short Subject (Cartoon) category, awarded
posthumously. After Disney's death, his studios continued to produce
live-action films prolifically but largely abandoned animation until the late
1980s, after which there was what The New York Times describes as the "Disney Renaissance" that
began with The Little Mermaid (1989). Disney's companies continue to produce
successful film, television and stage entertainment.
Disney's plans for the futuristic city of EPCOT did not come
to fruition. After Disney's death, his brother Roy deferred his retirement to
take full control of the Disney companies. He changed the focus of the project
from a town to an attraction. At the inauguration in 1971, Roy dedicated Walt
Disney World to his brother. Walt Disney World expanded with the opening of
Epcot Center in 1982; Walt Disney's vision of a functional city was replaced by
a park more akin to a permanent world's fair. In 2009, the Walt Disney Family
Museum, designed by Disney's daughter Diane and her son Walter E. D. Miller,
opened in the Presidio of San Francisco. Thousands of artifacts from Disney's
life and career are on display, including numerous awards that he received. In
2014, the Disney theme parks around the world hosted approximately 134 million
visitors.
Personal life and
character
Early in 1925, Disney hired an ink artist, Lillian Bounds.
They married in July of that year, at her brother's house in her home town of
Lewiston, Idaho. The marriage was generally happy, according to Lillian,
although according to Disney's biographer Neal Gabler she did not "accept Walt's decisions meekly or his
status unquestionably, and she admitted that he was always telling people 'how
henpecked he is'." Lillian had little interest in films or the
Hollywood social scene and she was, in the words of the historian Steven Watts,
"content with household management
and providing support for her husband". Their marriage produced two
daughters, Diane (born December 1933) and Sharon (adopted in December 1936, born
six weeks previously). Within the family, neither Disney nor his wife hid the
fact Sharon had been adopted, although they became annoyed if people outside
the family raised the point. The Disneys were careful to keep their daughters
out of the public eye as much as possible, particularly in the light of the
Lindbergh kidnapping; Disney took steps to ensure his daughters were not
photographed by the press.
In 1949, Disney and his family moved to a new home in the
Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles. 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 back yard. The name of the railroad, Carolwood Pacific
Railroad, came from his home's location on Carolwood Drive. The miniature
working steam locomotive was built by Disney Studios engineer Roger E. Broggie,
and Disney named it Lilly Belle after his wife; after three years Disney
ordered it into storage due to a series of accidents involving his guests.
Disney grew more politically conservative as he got older. A
Democratic Party supporter until the 1940 presidential election, when he
switched allegiance to the Republican Party, he became a generous donor to
Thomas E. Dewey's 1944 bid for the presidency. In 1946, he was a founding
member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals,
an organization who stated they "believ[ed]
in, and like, the American Way of Life ... we find ourselves in sharp revolt
against a rising tide of Communism, Fascism and kindred beliefs, that seek by
subversive means to undermine and change this way of life". In 1947,
during the Second Red Scare, 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, as
communist agitators; Disney stated that the 1941 strike led by them was part of
an organized communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood. It was alleged by
The New York Times in 1993 that Disney had been passing secret information to
the FBI from 1940 until his death in 1966. In return for this information, J.
Edgar Hoover allowed Disney to film in FBI headquarters in Washington. Disney
was made a "full Special Agent in
Charge Contact" in 1954.
Disney's public persona was very different from his actual
personality. Playwright Robert E. Sherwood described him as "almost painfully shy ...
diffident" and self-deprecating. According to his biographer Richard
Schickel, Disney hid his shy and insecure personality behind his public
identity. Kimball argues that Disney "played
the role of a bashful tycoon who was embarrassed in public" and knew
that he was doing so. Disney acknowledged the façade and told a friend that "I'm not Walt Disney. I do a lot of
things Walt Disney would not do. Walt Disney does not smoke. I smoke. Walt
Disney does not drink. I drink." Critic Otis Ferguson, in The New
Republic, called the private Disney: "common
and every day, not inaccessible, not in a foreign language, not suppressed or
sponsored or anything. Just Disney." Many of those with whom Disney
worked commented that he gave his staff little encouragement due to his
exceptionally high expectations. Norman recalls that when Disney said "That'll work", it was an
indication of high praise. Instead of direct approval, Disney gave
high-performing staff financial bonuses, or recommended certain individuals to
others, expecting that his praise would be passed on.
Reputation
Views of Disney and his work have changed over the decades,
and there have been polarized opinions. Mark Langer, in the American Dictionary
of National Biography, writes that "Earlier
evaluations of Disney hailed him as a patriot, folk artist, and popularizer of
culture. More recently, Disney has been regarded as a paradigm of American
imperialism and intolerance, as well as a debaser of culture." Steven
Watts wrote that some denounce Disney "as
a cynical manipulator of cultural and commercial formulas", while PBS
records those critics have censured his work because of its "smooth façade of sentimentality and
stubborn optimism, its feel-good re-write of American history".
Disney has been accused of antisemitism for having given
Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl a tour of his studio a month after
Kristallnacht, something he disavowed three months later, claiming he was
unaware who she was when he was issued the invitation. None of Disney's
employees—including the animator Art Babbitt, who disliked Disney
intensely—ever accused him of making anti-Semitic slurs or taunts. The Walt
Disney Family Museum acknowledges that ethnic stereotypes common to films of
the 1930s were included in some early cartoons but also points out that Disney
donated regularly to Jewish charities, was named "1955 Man of the Year" by the B'nai B'rith chapter in Beverly
Hills, and his studio employed a number of Jews, some of whom were in
influential positions. Gabler, the first writer to gain unrestricted access to
the Disney archives, concludes that the available evidence does not support
accusations of antisemitism and that Disney was "not [anti-Semitic] in the conventional sense that we think of
someone as being an anti-Semite". Gabler concludes that "though Walt himself, in my estimation,
was not anti-Semitic, nevertheless, he willingly allied himself with people who
were anti-Semitic [meaning some members of the MPAPAI], and that reputation
stuck. He was never really able to expunge it throughout his life." Disney
distanced himself from the Motion Picture Alliance in the 1950s. According to
Disney's daughter Diane Disney-Miller, her sister Sharon dated a Jewish
boyfriend for a period of time, to which her father raised no objections and
even reportedly said "Sharon, I
think it's wonderful how these Jewish families have accepted you."
Disney has also been accused of other forms of racism
because some of his productions released between the 1930s and 1950s contain
racially insensitive material. The feature film Song of the South was
criticized by contemporary film critics, the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, and others for its perpetuation of black stereotypes, but
Disney later campaigned successfully for an Honorary Academy Award for its
star, James Baskett, the first black actor so honored. Gabler argues that "Walt Disney was no racist. He never,
either publicly or privately, made disparaging remarks about blacks or asserted
white superiority. Like most white Americans of his generation, however, he was
racially insensitive." Floyd Norman, the studio's first black animator
who worked closely with Disney during the 1950s and 1960s, said, "Not once did I observe a hint of the
racist behavior Walt Disney was often accused of after his death. His treatment
of people—and by this I mean all people—can only be called exemplary."
Watts argues that many of Disney's post-World War II films "legislated a kind of cultural Marshall
Plan. They nourished a genial cultural imperialism that magically overran the
rest of the globe with the values, expectations, and goods of a prosperous middle-class
United States." Film historian Jay P. Telotte acknowledges that many
see Disney's studio as an "agent of
manipulation and repression", although he observes that it has "labored throughout its history to link
its name with notions of fun, family, and fantasy". John Tomlinson, in
his study Cultural Imperialism, examines the work of Ariel Dorfman and Armand
Mattelart, whose 1971 book Para leer al Pato Donald (trans: How to Read Donald
Duck) identifies that there are "imperialist
... values 'concealed' behind the innocent, wholesome façade of the world of
Walt Disney"; this, they argue, is a powerful tool as "it presents itself as harmless fun for
consumption by children." Tomlinson views their argument as flawed, as
"they simply assume that reading
American comics, seeing adverts, watching pictures of the affluent ...
['Yankee'] lifestyle has a direct pedagogic effect".
Disney has been portrayed numerous times in fictional works.
H. G. Wells references Disney in his 1938 novel The Holy Terror, in which World
Dictator Rud fears that Donald Duck is meant to lampoon the dictator. Disney
was portrayed by Len Cariou in the 1995 made-for-TV film A Dream Is a Wish Your
Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story, and by Tom Hanks in the 2013 film
Saving Mr. Banks. In 2001, the German author Peter Stephan Jungk published Der
König von Amerika (trans: The King of America), a fictional work of Disney's
later years that re-imagines him as a power-hungry racist. The composer Philip
Glass later adapted the book into the opera The Perfect American (2013).
Several commentators have described Disney as a cultural
icon. On Disney's death, journalism professor Ralph S. Izard comments that the
values in Disney's films are those "considered
valuable in American Christian society", which include "individualism, decency, ... love for
our fellow man, fair play and toleration". Disney's obituary in The
Times calls the films "wholesome,
warm-hearted and entertaining ... of incomparable artistry and of touching
beauty". Journalist Bosley Crowther argues that Disney's "achievement as a creator of
entertainment for an almost unlimited public and as a highly ingenious
merchandiser of his wares can rightly be compared to the most successful
industrialists in history." Correspondent Alistair Cooke calls Disney
a "folk-hero ... the Pied Piper of
Hollywood", while Gabler considers Disney "reshaped the culture and the American consciousness". In
the American Dictionary of National Biography, Langer writes:
Disney remains the
central figure in the history of animation. Through technological innovations
and alliances with governments and corporations, he transformed a minor studio
in a marginal form of communication into a multinational leisure industry
giant. Despite his critics, his vision of a modern, corporate utopia as an
extension of traditional American values has possibly gained greater currency in
the years after his death.
In December 2021, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
opened a three month special exhibit in honor of Disney titled "Inspiring Walt Disney".
Awards and honors
Disney received 59 Academy Award nominations, including 22
awards: both totals are records. He was nominated for three Golden Globe
Awards, but did not win, but he was presented with two Special Achievement
Awards—for Bambi (1942) and The Living Desert (1953)—and the Cecil B.
DeMille Award. He also received four Emmy Award nominations, winning once, for
Best Producer for the Disneyland television series. Several of his films are
included in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress
as "culturally, historically, or
aesthetically significant": Steamboat Willie, The Three Little Pigs,
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo and Mary
Poppins. In 1998, the American Film Institute published a list of the 100
greatest American films, according to industry experts; the list included Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs (at number 49), and Fantasia (at 58).
In February 1960, Disney was inducted to the Hollywood Walk
of Fame with two stars, one for motion pictures and the other for his
television work; Mickey Mouse was given his own star for motion pictures in
1978, and Disneyland received one in 2005. Disney was also inducted into the
Television Hall of Fame in 1986, the California Hall of Fame in December 2006,
and was the inaugural recipient of a star on the Anaheim walk of stars in 2014.
The Walt Disney Family Museum records that he "along with members of his staff,
received more than 950 honors and citations from throughout the world".
He was made a Chevalier in the French Légion d'honneur in 1935, and in 1952 he
was awarded the country's highest artistic decoration, the Officer d'Academie.
Other national awards include Thailand's Order of the Crown (1960); Germany's
Order of Merit (1956), Brazil's Order of the Southern Cross (1941), and
Mexico's Order of the Aztec Eagle (1943). In the United States, he received the
Presidential Medal of Freedom on September 14, 1964, and on May 24, 1968, he
was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. He received the Showman
of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners, and in
1955, the National Audubon Society awarded Disney its highest honor, the
Audubon Medal, for promoting the "appreciation
and understanding of nature" through his True-Life Adventures nature
films. A minor planet discovered in 1980 by astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina, was
named 4017 Disneya, and he was also awarded honorary degrees from Harvard,
Yale, the University of Southern California and the University of California,
Los Angeles.
Notes
In 1909, in a renumbering exercise, the
property's address changed to 2156 North Tripp Avenue.
Disney was a
descendant of Robert d'Isigny, a Frenchman who had traveled to England with William
the Conqueror in 1066. The family anglicized the d'Isigny name to "Disney" and settled in the
English village now known as Norton Disney in the East Midlands.
The book, Edwin G.
Lutz's Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Development
(1920), was the only one in the local library on the subject; the camera he
borrowed from Cauger.
Cutout animation is
the technique of producing cartoons by animating objects cut from paper, material
or photographs and photographing them moving incrementally. Cel animation is
the method of drawing or painting onto transparent celluloid sheets ("cels"), with each sheet an
incremental movement on from the previous.
In 2006, the Walt
Disney Company finally re-acquired Oswald the Lucky Rabbit when its subsidiary
ESPN purchased rights to the character, along with other properties from
NBCUniversal.
Several stories about
the origins exist. Disney's biographer, Bob Thomas, observes that "The birth of Mickey Mouse is obscured
in legend, much of it created by Walt Disney himself."
The name Mortimer
Mouse was used in the 1936 cartoon Mickey's Rival as a potential love-interest
for Minnie Mouse. He was portrayed as a "humorous
denigration of the smooth city slicker" with a smart car, but failed
to win over Minnie from the more homespun Mickey.
By 1931 he was called
Michael Maus in Germany, Michel Souris in France, Miguel Ratonocito or Miguel
Pericote in Spain and Miki Kuchi in Japan.
$1.5 million in 1937
equates to $30,534,722 in 2023; $6.5 million in 1939 equates to $137,076,739 in
2023, according to calculations based on the Consumer Price Index measure of
inflation.
The citation for the
award reads: "To Walt Disney for
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a significant screen innovation
which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field for the
motion picture cartoon."
The trip inspired two
combined live-action and animation works Saludos Amigos (1942) and The Three
Caballeros (1945).[89][90]
$4 million in 1944
equates to $66,495,274 in 2023, according to calculations based on the Consumer
Price Index measure of inflation.
These included Make
Mine Music (1946), Song of the South (1946), Melody Time (1948) and So Dear to
My Heart (1949).
$2.2 million in 1950
equates to $26,759,059 in 2023; $8 million in 1950 equates to $97,305,671 in
2023, according to calculations based on the Consumer Price Index measure of inflation.
The patriotic films
include Johnny Tremain (1957), Old Yeller (1957), Tonka (1958), Swiss Family
Robinson (1960), Polyanna (1960).
The Nine Old Men
consisted of Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Les Clark, Milt Kahl, Ward
Kimball, Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas and John Lounsbery.
Even repeats of the
program proved more popular than all other television shows—aside from Lucille
Ball's I Love Lucy; no ABC program had ever been in the top 25 before
Disneyland.
The program, which
was produced by Ward Kimball, was nominated for an Academy Award for the Best
Documentary (Short Subject) at the 1957 Awards.
Disney's death in
1966, and opposition from conservationists, stopped the building of the resort.
A long-standing urban
legend maintains that Disney was cryonically frozen. Disney's daughter Diane
later stated, "There is absolutely
no truth to the rumor that my father, Walt Disney, wished to be frozen."
Roy died two months
later, in December 1971.
One possible
exception to the stable relationship was during the making Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs (1937), where the stresses and turmoil associated with the
production led to the couple discussing divorce.
Lillian had two
miscarriages during the eight years between marriage and the birth of Diane;
she suffered a further miscarriage shortly before the family adopted Sharon.
Riefenstahl's visit
was also likely financially motivated as an attempt by Disney to recover more
than 135,000 Reichmarks owed from his German film distributor and to get the
ban on Disney films lifted in Germany.
Another example
included animator Art Babbitt, an organizer of the 1941 strike at Disney's
studio, claimed in his later years that he saw Disney and his lawyer attend
meetings of the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization, during the late
1930s. Gabler questions Babbitt's claim on the basis that Disney had no time
for political meetings and was "something
of a political naïf" during the 1930s. Disney's office appointment
book makes no mention of him attending Bund rallies, and no other animators
ever made claims of Disney attending such meetings. Disney had previously told
one reporter in the mid-1930s – as tensions in Europe were brewing – that
America should "let 'em fight their
own wars" claiming he had "learned
my lesson" from the last one.
Examples include The
Three Little Pigs (in which the Big Bad Wolf comes to the door dressed as a
Jewish peddler) and The Opry House (in which Mickey Mouse is dressed and dances
as a Hasidic Jew).
As pointed out by
story artist Joe Grant, which included himself, production manager Harry Tytle,
and head of merchandising Kay Kamen, who once quipped that Disney's New York
office had "more Jews than The Book
of Leviticus" In addition songwriter Robert B. Sherman recalled that
when one of Disney's lawyers made anti-Semitic remarks towards him and his
brother, Disney defended them and fired the attorney.
Examples include
Mickey's Mellerdrammer, in which Mickey Mouse dresses in blackface; the
black-colored bird in the short Who Killed Cock Robin; the American Indians in
Peter Pan; and the crows in Dumbo (although the case has been made that the
crows were sympathetic to Dumbo because they knew what it was like to be
ostracized).
Baskett died shortly
afterward, and his widow wrote Disney a letter of gratitude for his support.
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