Walt Disney (1901 – 1966) was a film producer and co-founder of the Walt Disney Company. He was an iconic figure in the Twentieth Century media and entertainment industry, helping to produce many films.
he created famous cartoon characters, such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. He also planned and built Disneyland, a huge amusement park that opened near Los Angeles in 1955, and before his death he had begun building a second such park, Walt Disney World, near Orlando, Florida. The Disney Company he founded has become one of the world’s largest entertainment one .
During his lifetime, he received a record 59 Nominations for the Academy Awards, winning 22 Awards.

Walt Disney was born on 5 December 1901, in Chicago. His parents were of German/English and Irish descent. As a child, the Disney family moved between Marceline in Missouri, Kansas City and back to Chicago.
The young Walt Disney developed an interest in art and took lessons at the Kansas City Institute and later Chicago Art Institute. He became the cartoonist for the school magazine.
In 1919, he moved back to Kansas City where he got a series of jobs, before finding employment in his area of greatest interest – the film industry.
he was working for the Kansas City Film Ad company that he gained the opportunity to begin working in the relatively new field of animation. Walt used his talent as a cartoonist to start his first work.
The success of his early cartoons enabled him to set up his own studio called Laugh-O-Gram. However, the popularity of his cartoons was not matched by his ability to run a profitable business. With high labor costs, the firm went bankrupt.
After his first failure, he decided to move to Hollywood, California which was home to the growing film industry in America.

he created the character – Mickey Mouse (originally called Mortimer Mouse). Ub Iwerks drew Mickey Mouse, and Walt gave a voice to the character.
The Mickey Mouse cartoons with soundtracks became very popular and cemented the growing reputation and strength of Disney Productions. The skill of Walt Disney was to give his cartoons believable real-life characteristics. They were skillfully depicted and captured the imagination of the audience through his pioneering use of uplifting stories and moral characteristics.
In 1932, he received his first Academy Award for the Best Short Subject: Cartoons for the three coloured ‘Flowers and Trees’ He also won a special Academy Award for Mickey Mouse.
In 1924, Walt Disney began his most ambitious project to date. He wished to make a full length animated feature film of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Many expected it to be a commercial failure. But, using new techniques of filming, the production was met with glowing reviews. It took nearly three years to film – coming out in 1937 after Disney had run out of money. But, the movie’s strong critical reception, made it the most successful film of 1938, earning $8 million on its first release. The film had very high production values but also captured the essence of a fairy tale on film for the first time.

In the late 1940s, Walt Disney began building up plans for a massive Theme Park. Walt Disney wished the Theme Park to be like nothing ever created on earth. In particular, he wanted it to be a magical world for children and surrounded by a train. Disney had a great love of trains since his childhood when he regularly saw trains pass near his home.
After several years in the planning and building, Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955. Disney spoke at the address: " To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the pas and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”