A mouse pilots a riverboat, tortures a goat into playing 'Turkey in the Straw', and speaks in the producer's own falsetto (1928)
Steamboat Willie — the cartoon that made Mickey Mouse a star, with synchronised sound.
Film · Animation & documentary
Walt Disney
1901–1966 · American
Golden age of American animation
Walt Disney was an animator, producer and studio head who turned cartoons from a novelty into an industry and then into an empire of features, television and theme parks. He holds the record for both Academy Award nominations and wins by any individual, was the voice of Mickey Mouse for two decades, and gambled his studio on the first feature-length cel-animated film in English. Quiz questions tend to circle the firsts: the first sound cartoon, the first Technicolor cartoon, the first animated feature, and Disneyland.
How to spot them
- ▸The record holder: more Academy Awards and more nominations (59) than any other individual
- ▸Mickey Mouse, created with Ub Iwerks after Disney lost the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
- ▸Technical firsts bought at ruinous expense: synchronised sound, three-strip Technicolor, the multiplane camera
- ▸Snow White dubbed 'Disney's Folly' during production; Fantasia's Fantasound stereo system
- ▸Disneyland, opened in Anaheim in 1955, and the Florida project he did not live to see
Key films
A princess poisoned by an apple is laid in a glass coffin by seven miners with alliterative names (1937)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — the first full-length cel-animated feature in English, mocked during production as 'Disney's Folly'.
Eight pieces of classical music animated without dialogue, including an apprentice who cannot stop the brooms (1940)
Fantasia — conducted by Leopold Stokowski and released in the stereophonic Fantasound.
A wooden puppet's nose grows when he lies; a cricket sings the studio's future anthem (1940)
Pinocchio — 'When You Wish upon a Star' won the Oscar for Best Original Song.
A circus elephant mocked for his ears discovers he can fly, with a feather and a mouse for courage (1941)
Dumbo — made cheaply to recoup the losses of Fantasia, and released during the studio's animators' strike.
A fawn's mother is shot off-screen and a forest fire ends the second act (1942)
Bambi — from Felix Salten's novel.
Animated bluebirds and a live-action Julie Andrews slide up a banister in Edwardian London (1964)
Mary Poppins — the studio's greatest live-action success, and the first Disney film nominated for Best Picture.
A theme park opened at Anaheim in July 1955 around a central castle and five themed lands (1955)
Disneyland — the opening day, broadcast live on ABC, was so chaotic it became known as 'Black Sunday'.
Quick-fire facts
- •He holds the record for both the most Academy Awards won by an individual and the most nominations — 59; the competitive wins are usually counted as 22, with four honorary awards on top
- •He won four Oscars in a single evening at the 1954 ceremony, for the films of 1953: The Living Desert, The Alaskan Eskimo, Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom, and Bear Country
- •Steamboat Willie (1928) was the first widely released cartoon with synchronised sound; Disney voiced Mickey Mouse from 1928 until 1947
- •Flowers and Trees (1932) was the first commercial film in three-strip Technicolor and won the first Academy Award for Best Cartoon Short
- •For Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs he received an honorary Oscar consisting of one full-size statuette and seven miniature ones, presented by Shirley Temple in 1939
- •He lost the rights to his earlier character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, to Universal and its distributor Charles Mintz in 1928, and created Mickey in response
- •Mickey Mouse was drawn by Ub Iwerks; Disney's own drawing skills were limited and he stopped animating early
- •The multiplane camera, developed at the studio by William Garity, won a Scientific and Technical Oscar and gave depth to The Old Mill (1937)
- •Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California, on 17 July 1955; Walt Disney World in Florida opened in 1971, five years after his death
- •He died of lung cancer on 15 December 1966, aged 65; the story that he was cryogenically frozen is a persistent myth — he was cremated
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Sources
- The Walt Disney Family Museum — Walt's Oscars: An Overview
- The Walt Disney Family Museum — About the Walt Disney Family Museum