Walter Elias Disney better known as Walt Disney (December 5, 1901, Chicago, Illinois– December 15, 1966, Burbank, California) was America's iconic cartoon entrepreneur and a pioneer in the film and theme park industries. He was the founder of The Walt Disney Company, along with his older brother Roy O. Disney, in 1923. Walt Disney was not only an artist (animator, cartoonist, voice-actor, director), but he also hired several of the most talented animators and performers of his day. In politics, since around the year 1940, Walt Disney was socially a prominent conservative Republican, and even had a bumper sticker supporting Barry Goldwater on his golf cart during the opening of Walt Disney World.
Counted among the leading filmmakers of the 20th century, co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of the Walt Disney Company, today one of the world's largest companies, and recognized as one of the fathers of film animation, he also created Disneyland, the first in a series of theme parks; he is also known for his great skill in storytelling as a television star and one of the 20th century's most charismatic artists in the entertainment field. With his collaborators, he has created many of the world's most famous cartoon characters; one of them, the most famous, Mickey Mouse.
He holds the record for the number of Academy Awards won,[1] having received, over a 34-year career, for his short films and documentaries, 59 nominations and 26 awards, including three honorary ones and an Irving G. Memorial Award. Thalberg. In 1956 he won the David di Donatello for best foreign producer for Lady and the Tramp. Honorary Oscars were awarded to him, in the first case, for the creation of Mickey Mouse;[2] in the second, for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as "a significant cinematic breakthrough that enchanted millions and pioneered a new area of entertainment in the field of cartooning";[3][4] and, finally, for "his astounding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in cartoons through his production of Fantasia".[5][6] He was nominated three times for Golden Globes, but received only two honorary ones, for Bambi (1942) and Living Desert (1953), as well as the Cecil B. DeMille Award in the same year. 14 films he produced were included in the Library of Congress being deemed "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant": Steamboat Willie, Flowers and Trees, The Three Little Pigs, The Old Mill, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, The Story of Menstruation, Cinderella, Old Yeller, Sleeping Beauty, and Mary Poppins.
The family's last name is the anglicization of d'Isigny, deriving from Isigny-sur-Mer, a village in Normandy, France, where Hugues D'Isigny lived, who, together with his son Robert, moved to England, where the two settled at the time of the Norman conquest. In 1834, two of his descendants who resided in Liverpool, moved to Canada, where in 1888 Elias Disney (1859-1941), their grandson, married Flora Call (1868-1938): these were Walt's future parents.
He married an employee Lillian Bounds in 1925, and, unlike many Hollywood marriages, their marriage lasted for over 40 years.[7] They've had two children, two daughters, Diane Disney Miller their biological child, and Sharon Mae Disney who was adopted shortly after. Walt always dedicated all his work to his wife and his daughters.
Disney first gained fame with Mickey Mouse in the 1920s-30s and for creating in 1937 the very first full-length animated feature ever, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Late in life, in the 1950s, he developed Disneyland in Southern California, which the company duplicated in Walt Disney World (Orlando, Florida), as well as Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Paris.
After his death, his brother Roy Disney ran the business until his death in 1971.
Walt Disney was a strong believer in traditional values like family and American patriotism and supporter of freedom of creative and artistic expression. He is often falsely and baselessly accused of being a Mason/Freemason and even an Illuminati even by other so-called "conservatives" and "Christians" and fake QAnon accounts due to Internet and media mis/disinformation basing merely on links to the juvenile Order of DeMolay[8] (just like John Wayne and Mel Blanc) and apparent subliminal messages in a number of Disney Company films and marketing images (many of which are clearly fake, unofficial and manipulated videos and images by trolls and detractors and others are simply forcefully too read into or were edited and corrected just at the first notice[9][10][11][12]), however, Walt never joined any Masonic lodges (the same Masonry denies his belonging to it) and those films containing those specific infamous suspect subliminal images were made after the death of Walt and Roy. Others that are instead CLEARLY subliminal sexual images and messages, even in toys and other physical products, are creations of the "secular progressive" Disney Company post-Eisner (liberal progressive, like Bob Iger and Bob Chapek). He is also accused today by the same aforementioned fake patriots and fake QAnons of being a Satanist, basing merely on the modern "Walt Disney" signature used by the company turned from conservative to liberal after his death, that would have, apparently, the number "666" in it.[13][14][15] However, Walt Disney's own actual and authentic autograph is different than the modern corporative yet still iconic one used today since after his death and has never been identical to all the other variations of his own.[16][17][18] Also, his homages to Christianity don't help these baseless theories and accusations. These accusations and lies come from divisive, ignorant, phony and disrespectful fakers, slanderers, parasites and (real) conspiracy theorists who are incapable to separate the man, Walt Disney, from what his company still using his name and image has become today since after his death. President Donald J. Trump praised Walt Disney, and in a 2022 interview he stated, after the modern liberal-progressive company openly admitted their woke and gay agenda, that "Walt Disney is looking down, and he's not happy with what they have done to his magic kingdom! It's a terrible thing!".[19]
Also, unlike modern Disney Company, Walt was strongly against by declaration to any sequels and remakes for his films.[20][21]
Not counting the aforementioned recent slanders created by the fake-conservative and fake-patriotic side, posthumously, Walt Disney had been accused of being a Nazi sympathizer, a fascist, a racist, and an anti-Semite by various liberals/leftists, including Meryl Streep and his feminist "heiress" Abigail Disney (who was barely 5 y. o. when Walt died and never actually met him), as well as being depicted that way in shows such as Seth MacFarlane's animated show Family Guy and also in Robot Chicken. This is false, as during World War II, he made various propaganda cartoons for America, with some of his cartoons, including Education of Death and Der Fuerher's Face, being explicitly anti-Nazi in nature due to his strong American patriotism, that made him also a strong and convinced anti-Communist.[22][23][24][25][26][27]
Speaking about "racism", specifically about the 1946 film Song of the South, a (stupidly and senselessly) controversial film based on Black American folklore so dear to Walt Disney since his childhood, with a true, spontanoeus and genuine anti-racist message and not released since 1986 due to liberal judgement basing merely on the surface content and not the message, upon review of his voice, Disney wanted to meet talented actor James Baskett (the very first male Black American actor to be awarded with an Oscar, though honorary) personally, and had him tested for the role of Uncle Remus. Walt was so impressed with Baskett to the point that not only did Baskett get the part of the butterfly's voice, but also the voice of Br'er Fox and the live-action role of Uncle Remus as well. Additionally, Baskett filled in as the voice of Br'er Rabbit for Johnny Lee in the "Laughing Place" scene after Lee was called away to do promotion for the picture. Walt Disney liked Baskett a lot, and told his sister, Ruth Disney, that Baskett was "the best actor, I believe, to be discovered in years". Even after the film's release, Walt stayed in contact with Baskett and treated him with love and respect, unlike the liberals who wanted to deny Baskett his deserved Oscar just like they did a few years before with Hattie McDaniel because of their, words of theirs, "demeaning role(s)", and Hattie McDaniel and James Baskett already called out at their time the liberal hypocrisy, entitlement and desire to only bring perfectly avoidable racial division. Walt, unllike "modern" Disney Company since Micheal Eisner, fought against the accusations towards the film and defended it, and also campaigned for Baskett to be given an Academy Award for his performance, saying that he had worked almost wholly without direction and had devised the characterization of Remus himself. Thanks to Disney's efforts, Baskett won an honorary Oscar in 1948, a few months before his death. After Baskett's death, his widow wrote Disney and told him that he had been a friend indeed and [we] certainly have been in need.[28][29][30][31][32]
Neal Gabler, the first writer to gain unrestricted access to the Disney archives, argued that "Walt Disney was no racist. He never, either publicly or privately, made disparaging remarks about blacks or asserted white superiority." Floyd Norman, the studio's first Black animator who worked closely with Disney (his "Old Maestro", as he always called him) 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." In 1989, African-American actor and voice-actor Nick Stewart, who voiced Disney characters like Br'er Bear from Song of the South and Specks Crow from Dumbo, was called back to Disney to reprise the role of Br'er Bear for the Splash Mountain ride. Famous Disney historian Jim Korkis asked him if he thought it was at all degrading to play Br'er Bear in Song of the South, regarding all the controversy of the portrayal of African-Americans. Stewart laughed and replied "Walt Disney treated us like Kings". He concluded saying that the money he earned being Br'er Bear in Song of the South went to a theatre for Black actors to play roles other than butlers and maids.[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]
Throughout his Disney career, actor Tommy Kirk was a closeted homosexual, and although no one knew, some people hated him. According to Kirk, the two most notable were Fred MacMurray and Jane Wyman. Who the latter Kirk described very harshly. "She was very mean to me. She went out of her way to be sh**ty ... but she was a total b**ch and I think she was homophobic." During the production of The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, Kirk sexually molested a 14-year-old boy at the Burbank pool, which infuriated Walt Disney to the point he fired him. However, Merlin Jones was a massive hit, so Disney allowed him to return to film The Monkey’s Uncle which was a sequel to Merlin Jones. It was also successful, but they soon cut tires with Kirk. Afterwards, his own family disowned him. After being fired by Disney, Kirk retired from acting, and lived a quiet life, before The Walt Disney Company, by then under new leadership, brought him back to do special features for DVD releases of his movies, and gave him the Disney Legends award in 2006, and this shows even more the big differences between Walt Disney and "progressive" liberal-globalist Disney Company.
Famous Disney animations include:
Live action hits include:
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