Walt Disney

Walt Disney is one of the 20th century's most famous filmmakers, most famous for revolutionizing animation and turning our most famous folk tales into blockbuster animation movies. He also went into the theme park business, establishing Disneyland, Disney World and many others with great success.

He was born in Chicago in 1901, but his family moved to Missouri, and then Kansas City when he was growing up. He moved out to California in the early 1920's. He'd been interested in drawing from the beginning, and had taken some classes before he went. He set up the Disney Brothers Studio with his brother Roy, but it became the Walt Disney Company and eventually became one of the U.S.'s largest and most successful companies. He developed the character Mickey Mouse early on, and adapted well with the development of color and technicolor, often with animation, in movies. Snow White (1940), Dumbo (1941), Bambi (1942), and Cinderella (1950) were some of his earliest movie versions of popular folk tales, but Fantasia (1940) was the one where he really showed his skill with mixing animation, color, and music. He did non-animated movies as well; Mary Poppins (1964) received five Academy Awards.

Having made as many movies as he did, Disney had a huge influence on American culture. His movies came out at critical times while the nation moved through two world wars, a depression, and other difficult experiences. He has been accused of racism and anti-semitism because of things in his movies, but he also has many defenders who say it would be difficult to make so many movies in that era and not be accused of those things later.

He had a wife and two daughters, whose privacy he protected strongly, and his love of theme parks came from his desire to have a place where families could go to enjoy life and spend time together. Although Disney World did not open until after he died, and EPCOT Center became an attraction rather than a model city as he'd intended, the success of his parks was based on the success of his movies and thus they were ensured success in the broader cultural variety of places to go.

He was a heavy smoker all his life, and died of cancer in 1966. He ended up being involved in 81 movies, many of them blockbusters, and all of which will play an important role in American entertainment for years to come.



___ 1. Without using a dictionary, figure out whether a "blockbuster" movie is:
a. very short
b. very long
c. very fast-moving
d. very successful

___ 2. Bambi (1942) is given as an example of:
a. a movie that features an animal
b. an animated movie taken from a folk tale
c. a movie that received Academy Awards
d. an animated movie with Mickey Mouse in it

___ 3. Without using a dictionary, figure out whether "animated" means a movie:
a. has animals in it
b. is like a cartoon in nature
c. is very fast-moving
d. is about the war and depression

___ 4. Disney is most famous for his influence on:
a. American entertainment
b. American politics
c. American sports
d. American family dynamics