Walt Disney was born in 1901 in Chicago and grew up in Missouri. He had an early interest in art and pursued cartooning. After serving in World War I, he started his career in commercial art and founded Laugh-O-Gram Studios, which failed. With $40, he moved to Hollywood and found success with animated shorts. He later created feature films like Snow White and founded Disneyland, growing his company into an entertainment giant that continues today under CEO Robert Iger.

1. Walt DisneyBy: Deborah Chandler

2. BiographyWalt Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago Illinois, to his father Elias Disney, and mother Flora Call Disney. Walt was one of five children, four boys and a girl.After Walt's birth, the Disney family moved to Marceline Missouri, Walt lived most of his childhood here.Walt had very early interests in art, he would often sell drawings to neighbors to make extra money. He pursued his art career, by studying art and photography by going to McKinley High School in Chicago.Walt began to love, and appreciate nature and wildlife, and family and community, which were a large part of agrarian living. Though his father could be quite stern, and often there was little money, Walt was encouraged by his mother, and older brother, Roy to pursue his talents.During the fall of 1918, Disney attempted to enlist for military service. Rejected because he was under age, only sixteen years old at the time. Instead, Walt joined the Red Cross and was sent overseas to France, where he spent a year driving an ambulance and chauffeuring Red Cross officials. His ambulance was covered from stem to stern, not with stock camouflage, but with Disney cartoons.Once Walt returned from France, he began to pursue a career in commercial art. He started a small company called Laugh-O-Grams, which eventually fell bankrupt. With his suitcase, and twenty dollars, Walt headed to Hollywood to start anew.

3. After making a success of his "Alice Comedies," Walt became a recognized Hollywood figure. On July 13, 1925, Walt married one of his first employees, Lillian Bounds, in Lewiston, Idaho. Later on they would be blessed with two daughters, Diane and Sharon .In 1932, the production entitled Flowers and Trees(the first color cartoon) won Walt the first of his studio's Academy Awards. In 1937, he released The Old Mill, the first short subject to utilize the multi-plane camera technique.On December 21, 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated musical feature, premiered at the Carthay Theater in Los Angeles. The film produced at the unheard cost of $1,499,000 during the depths of the Depression, the film is still considered one of the great feats and imperishable monuments of the motion picture industry. During the next five years, Walt Disney Studios completed other full-length animated classics such as Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi.

4. EducationHe was educated in a public school until he dropped out in ninth grade because of his bad grades which resulted from spending all his time drawing.Disney had a difficult time gaining an education because of his family’s constant moving and his need to work to help support the family. When he was 16, though, he was able to join an art class at the Chicago Academy and Fine Arts, where he developed his modest drawing skills.

5. Social aspectDisney met Lillian Bounds, one of the employees in his first cartoon-film studio in the early 1920s, and they married on July 13, 1925. The marriage lasted a lifetime, and they produced two daughters.

6. Disney was known as a perfectionist and a demanding man. Some people saw him as self-centered, and he seemed often baffled when people disagreed with him. He was described by friends and coworkers as a driven man, even “a workaholic.” Disney’s personal life was filled with paradoxes. He smoked constantly, yet seemed to dislike this bad habit in others. Politically, he was the total opposite of his father. Disney joined the Republican Party in California and remained a firm political conservative. Though he loved country life, he spent most of his life in cities.

7. His startWalt returned to Kansas City, where he began his career as an advertising cartoonist. Here, in 1920, he created and marketed his first original animated cartoons, and later perfected a new method for combining live-action and animation.

8. In August of 1923, Walt Disney left Kansas City for Hollywood with nothing but a few drawing materials, $40 in his pocket and a completed animated and live-action film. Walt's brother, Roy 0. Disney, was already in California, with an immense amount of sympathy and encouragement, and $250. Pooling their resources, they borrowed an additional $500, and constructed a camera stand in their uncle's garage. Soon, they received an order from New York for the first "Alice Comedy" featurette, and the brothers began their production operation in the rear of a Hollywood real estate office two blocks away.

9. MistakesWhen his work began to catch on, he and Ubs raised $15,000 to start the Laugh-O-Gram Company. These cartoons contained so much humor and imagination that a film distributor in New York offered to send them to theaters all over the world... and business was booming! Laugh O Grams Screen title Laugh O Grams office-May 1923This was the birth of a series of cartoons to be called "Alice in Cartoonland". The concept used a live actress and film against a plain white background. Later the cartoon figures would be drawn in. A New York distributor loved the idea and they sent a sample cartoon. Unfortunately, the New York distributors were using Walt and Ub's work and not paying for it. At the age of twenty-two, Walt put Laugh-O-Grams into bankruptcy.he suffered two nervous breakdowns in his life, one at age 30, and another a decade later, after half the cartoonists of his company went out on strike against him in a dispute about his labor practices

10. Current positionUnfortunately Walt Disney died on December 15 1966 The company is now owned by CEO Rovert A. Iger

11. Business organizationOriginally Walt's business started as a partnership between him and his brother Roy but later was incorporated in 1936

12. Business philosophyWALT: There's a little plaque out there that says, "As long as there is imagination left in the world, Disneyland will never be complete." quality will win out

13. Business nameIt’s his last name

14. Interesting factHe Wasn't Adopted, But "Disney" Is Not Walt's Real Last NameWalt Disney's ancestors, whose last name was actually "d'Isigny", came from a village in France. The name is pronounced "Deez-nay." Fortunately, the name was changed to "Disney". It's much easier to plan a trip to Disney World, don't you think?

15. The most magical place on earth