Rough Draft

The American dream is hard to achieve. Whether the dream is about being successful, famous, happy or
rich, its always been a challenge to follow through with your goals. How do you achieve your dreams?
Where do you start? Walt Disney is someone to look to for answers, he created one of the most
successful businesses in the world.
Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5th, 1901, at 2156 North Tripp Avenue in the neighborhood
of Hermosa, Chicago, to his parents, Elias and Flora Call Disney. From a young age he and his older
brother, Roy, had a love for trains. His uncle, Mike Martin, was a train conductor. Every time the train
passed, Walt and his brother would run up to higher ground and their uncle would pull the train whistle
for them. Walt often stood and watched the trains come and go, hoping to eventually have the day
come when he could afford to ride one to Hollywood. As Walt got older he started to work as a paper
boy, and later he drove an ambulance after World War I.
In January of 1920, Walt Disney and a fellow hopeful animator, Ub Iwerks, created a short-lived
company which they called Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists. They both eventually left this company
to find work at the Kansas City Film Ad Company. While they were working there, Walt became
interested in the cutout animation that they were using to create commercials. Later, Disney and a coworker, Fred Harman, started creating cartoons called Laugh-O-Grams. These fairy tale remakes were
extremely popular in the Kansas City area, and Disney soon got his own studio that he also named
Laugh-O-Gram. Eventually the studio went bankrupt because of the low profits and high salaries of the
employees, so he decided to set up another studio in Hollywood, California.
Two months after Disney and his brother Roy arrived in October of 1923, they joined their money
together and got another cartoon studio in Hollywood. This was the beginning of the Disney Brothers
Studio. They requested the actress Virginia David, the live action star of Alices Wonderland, and her
family along with Iwerks and his family to move to Hollywood as well, and so they did. In 1925 Walt
hired a woman named Lillian Bounds to ink and paint celluloid film. Briefly afterwards, they got married
on the 25th of July, in the same year. On December 26th they released their first Alice Comedy, Alices
Day at Sea, and the Disney Brothers Studio received their first pay of $1,500. The Alice Comedies
continued successfully up until 1927, when it started to lose its popularity. Charles Mintz, the distributor
of The Alice Comedies, demanded that Walt and his brother come up with something new, a new
character to keep the attention of their audiences.
This was the beginning of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, created by Iwerks. Oswald was an instant success.
Disney soon after the creation of Oswald went to New York to negotiate a higher pay per short. To his
surprise, Mintz not only wanted to reduce his pay, but he had almost all of Disneys animators except
Iwerks under a contract and threatened to start his own animation studio if Disney didnt accept the
reduced pay. Mintz owned the Oswald trademark and no longer needed Walt to create films. Disney still
refused to accept the lower pay, and it took him 78 years to get the rights to Oswald back.
After losing Oswald, Disney thought he needed to create another character to replace him. He based
this new character on a pet mouse he had while working at the Laugh-O-Gram studio. Iwerks made
Disneys sketches easier to animate, and Disney provided the voice of the character himself. Originally
named Mortimer Disneys wife, Lillian, later renamed him Mickey. The first animated short to

officially feature Mickey was a silent film called Plane Crazy. Although they couldnt find a distributor for
the short and another short called The Gallopin Gaucho, Disney created another animated short that
included sound called Steamboat Willie. A businessman named Pat Powers provided Disney with
distribution and sound-synchronization software. Steamboat Willie was instantly successful and soon
afterwards they released Place Crazy and The Gallopin Gauncho with soundtracks attached. Mickey
soon rose to fame, taking the place of Felix the Cat as the worlds most popular cartoon character. On
November 18th, 1932, Disney received an Academy Award for creating Mickey Mouse.
The years 1955 through 1966 were the years of theme park production. Walt Disney had begun
daydreaming and sketching ideas of a park for his employees to spend time with their children. These
ideas developed into a concept for a large amusement park that would soon become what we know as
Disneyland. Disney spent five year planning out and developing Disneyland. He explained to a concept
artist, Herbert Ryman, I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded
by a train. On July 17th, 1955, Disneyland had a live TV preview. Disney guided thousands through the
park, introducing every area one by one. With the success of Disneyland, they had several plans to make
bigger, better parks.
Walter Elias Disney passed away due to lung cancer in 1966, so he wasnt able to see Disney World or
EPCOT finished. He lived life to the fullest and he followed his dreams. He created a world famous
company along with several parks that entertain millions of people every single day. He is one of the
most successful and truly admirable businessmen to ever live.