Biography
Born on 23 August 1901 in Chicago, Illinois, USA, and dying on 15 December 1966 in New York, USA, Walt Disney oversaw the creation of his studio’s iconic cartoon figures including Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto while also launching an unbroken run of box-office triumphs in the full-length animated field. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, the first such feature, reached screens in December 1937 after three years of work during which 600 artists completed more than two million Technicolor drawings, only one-eighth of which appeared in the finished picture.
Ted Sears, Dorothy Ann Blank, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Richard Creedon, Dick Richard, Merrill de Maris and Webb Smith shaped the brothers Grimm tale for the screen. Each dwarf—Grumpy, Doc, Sleepy, Happy, Sneezy, Bashful and Dopey—received a distinct personality; Charlie Chaplin later singled out Dopey as one of the screen’s greatest comic creations. Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille LaVerne, Roy Atwell, Pinto Colvig, Otis Harlan, Billy Gilbert, Scot Mattraw and Moroni Olsen supplied the voices, matched precisely to the dwarfs and to the remaining cast, among them the Prince whose kiss revives Snow White after the evil Queen’s attempt on her life. Frank Churchill composed the music and Larry Morey the lyrics for “Whistle While You Work,” “Heigh-Ho,” “Someday My Prince Will Come,” “With A Smile And A Song,” “I’m Wishing,” “One Song” and “Isn’t This A Silly Song?” David Hand supervised the editing. Although released late in the decade, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs out-grossed every other American film of the 1930s except Gone With The Wind.
In 1938 Walt Disney accepted a special Academy Award—one full-sized statuette and seven miniatures—honouring “a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field for the motion picture cartoon.” By 1993 cumulative worldwide receipts had reached an estimated £92 million, a record for any animated title until Disney’s own Aladdin surpassed it, adjusted for inflation, after only eleven weeks of release. In 1992 an original hand-painted production cel from the film sold at Sotheby’s in New York for £115,000, triple the pre-sale estimate. A digitally restored print appeared in 1994, the same year the picture became available on home video in the United States for the first time. Most subsequent Disney features followed the same pattern of limited-time video release. In May 1994 industry reports indicated that nine out of every ten home videos sold worldwide were Disney titles.
Pinocchio (1940), drawn from Carlo Collodi’s nineteenth-century Italian stories, follows a wooden puppet whose lies cause his nose to lengthen until, guided by Jiminy Cricket, he rescues Geppetto the wood-carver from Monstro the whale and is transformed into a real boy by the Blue Fairy. Cliff Edwards voiced Jiminy Cricket and performed Leigh Harline and Ned Washington’s “Give A Little Whistle” and “When You Wish Upon A Star,” the latter winning an Academy Award; Harline, Washington and Paul J. Smith also received an Oscar for the original score. Additional songs included “Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (An Actor’s Life For Me),” “I’ve Got No Strings,” “Three Cheers For Anything,” “As I Was Say’n’ To The Duchess” and “Turn On The Old Music Box.” Dickie Jones, Christian Rub, Evelyn Venable, Walter Catlett, Charles Judels and Frankie Darro supplied the remaining principal voices. Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske supervised; photographed in Technicolor, the film earned more than $40 million in the United States and Canada, ranking fourth among the decade’s highest-grossing releases.
Fantasia (1940) combined animation with classical music performed by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, narrated by Deems Taylor. The eight selections were Bach’s “Toccata And Fugue In D Minor,” Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker Suite,” Dukas’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” Stravinsky’s “The Rite Of Spring,” Beethoven’s “Pastoral Symphony,” Ponchielli’s “Dance Of The Hours,” Mussorgsky’s “Night On The Bald Mountain” and Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” Mickey Mouse appeared alongside hippopotami, dinosaurs, alligators, elephants, ostriches, nymphs, satyrs and the Goddess of Night. Ben Sharpsteen served as production supervisor. Filmed in Technicolor and Fantasound, the picture placed second among 1940s American box-office champions. Fifty years later a single “piccaninny centaurette” was removed from all prints before home-video release at a cost reported in hundreds of thousands of pounds in the name of political correctness.
Bambi (1942), widely regarded as Disney’s most naturalistic feature, traces a young deer’s growth amid changing seasons. The animators’ rendering of graceful movement and expressive faces lent the story exceptional realism. Peter Behn voiced Thumper the rabbit. Frank Churchill and Larry Morey wrote the score, which contained “Love Is A Song,” “The Thumper Song,” “Let’s Sing A Gay Little Spring Song,” “Twitterpated” and “Little April Showers.” David Hand supervised production; the screenplay was adapted from Felix Salten’s novel. By 1993 Variety listed Bambi as the highest-earning American film of the 1940s.
Cinderella (1950), drawn from Charles Perrault’s fairy tale, introduced resourceful mice Jaq and Gus, voiced by James MacDonald, who help the heroine prepare for the ball. Ilene Woods, William Phipps, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton and Luis Van Rooten headed the cast, with Rhoda Williams and Lucille Bliss as the stepsisters. Mack Gordon, Jerry Livingston and Al Hoffman supplied “A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes,” “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo,” “The Work Song,” “So This Is Love,” “Sing Sweet Nightingale” and “Cinderella.” Ben Sharpsteen supervised; Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske and Clyde Geronimi directed. Some sources, including Variety, date the release to December 1949 and rank the film third among that decade’s domestic rental leaders.
Peter Pan (1953), adapted from J. M. Barrie, featured Bobby Driscoll as Peter, Kathryn Beaumont as Wendy, Hans Conried as Captain Hook, Heather Angel as Mrs. Darling, Paul Collins as Mr. Darling, Bill Thompson as Smee and Tommy Luske as John, with Tom Conway narrating. Frank Churchill and Jack Lawrence wrote “Never Smile At A Crocodile”; Sammy Cahn and Sammy Fain contributed “You Can Fly,” “Your Mother And Mine,” “The Elegant Captain Hook” and “What Makes The Red Man Red?” Oliver Wallace and Erdman Penner supplied “A Pirate’s Life,” while Wallace, Winston Hibler and Ted Sears wrote “Tee Dum-Tee Dee.” Production and direction credits matched those of Cinderella. The picture finished third among 1950s American earners.
Lady And The Tramp (1955), Disney’s first CinemaScope animated feature, was based on Ward Greene’s story of a streetwise mongrel and a pampered cocker spaniel. Erdman Penner, Joe Rinaldi, Ralph Wright and Don DaGradi wrote the screenplay. Sonny Burke and Peggy Lee composed “He’s A Tramp,” “The Siamese Cat Song,” “Bella Notte,” “Peace On Earth” and “La La Lu.” Peggy Lee voiced Peg, the Siamese cats and Darling; Barbara Luddy, Larry Roberts, George Givot, Bill Thompson, Stan Freberg, Bill Baucon, Verna Felton and Alan Reed completed the cast. Nearly forty years later Lee remained in litigation with the studio over video royalties. Production and direction credits were identical to those of Cinderella and Peter Pan.
Sleeping Beauty (1959), the studio’s final animated fairy-tale for some years because of its growing commitment to live-action features beginning with Treasure Island (1950) and continuing through Mary Poppins, proved costly and initially unprofitable. Later reissues elevated it into the top six American earners of the 1950s. Charles Perrault’s tale supplied the plot in which fairies Flora, Fauna and Merryweather protect Princess Aurora from Maleficent’s curse. Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, Candy Candido and Bill Thompson voiced the principals. Songs included “Once Upon A Dream” (Sammy Fain–Jack Lawrence), “Hail The Princess Aurora” and “The Sleeping Beauty Song” (Tom Adair–George Bruns), “I Wonder” (Winston Hibler–Ted Sears–Bruns) and “The Skump Song” (Adair–Erdman Penner–Bruns), together with excerpts from Tchaikovsky. Don DaGradi and Ken Anderson supervised; Clyde Geronimi directed. The Technicolor production was filmed in Super Technirama 70.
The Jungle Book (1967), released the year after Walt Disney’s death, returned the studio to form with a jazz-inflected adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli stories. Phil Harris, Louis Prima, Sebastian Cabot, George Sanders and Sterling Holloway voiced Baloo, King Louie, Bagheera, Shere Khan and Kaa. Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman wrote “Colonel Hathi’s March,” “Trust In Me,” “I Wan’na Be Like You,” “That’s What Friends Are For” and “My Own Home”; Terry Gilkyson contributed “The Bare Necessities.” Larry Clemmons, Ralph Wright, Ken Anderson and Vance Gerry wrote the screenplay; Wolfgang Reitherman directed. Subsequent screen versions comprised Disney’s Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1994), starring Jason Scott Lee, and The Second Jungle Book: Mowgli & Baloo (1997, TriStar-MDP).
Further 1970s features—The Aristocats, Robin Hood and The Rescuers—were respectable yet did not match earlier achievements. A sustained revival began in 1989 with The Little Mermaid and continued through Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. Additional major releases included Pocahontas (1995), Toy Story (1995), The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997) and Mulan (1998). An elaborate stage adaptation of Beauty And The Beast opened on Broadway in 1994; King David, Disney’s first original stage musical, followed in 1997 at the restored New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street, where the company had spent roughly £21 million returning the former home of the Ziegfeld Follies to Art Nouveau condition. The same venue hosted the stage version of The Lion King later that year. Elaborate Lives: The Legend Of Aida premiered on 7 October 1998 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Ted Sears, Dorothy Ann Blank, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Richard Creedon, Dick Richard, Merrill de Maris and Webb Smith shaped the brothers Grimm tale for the screen. Each dwarf—Grumpy, Doc, Sleepy, Happy, Sneezy, Bashful and Dopey—received a distinct personality; Charlie Chaplin later singled out Dopey as one of the screen’s greatest comic creations. Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille LaVerne, Roy Atwell, Pinto Colvig, Otis Harlan, Billy Gilbert, Scot Mattraw and Moroni Olsen supplied the voices, matched precisely to the dwarfs and to the remaining cast, among them the Prince whose kiss revives Snow White after the evil Queen’s attempt on her life. Frank Churchill composed the music and Larry Morey the lyrics for “Whistle While You Work,” “Heigh-Ho,” “Someday My Prince Will Come,” “With A Smile And A Song,” “I’m Wishing,” “One Song” and “Isn’t This A Silly Song?” David Hand supervised the editing. Although released late in the decade, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs out-grossed every other American film of the 1930s except Gone With The Wind.
In 1938 Walt Disney accepted a special Academy Award—one full-sized statuette and seven miniatures—honouring “a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field for the motion picture cartoon.” By 1993 cumulative worldwide receipts had reached an estimated £92 million, a record for any animated title until Disney’s own Aladdin surpassed it, adjusted for inflation, after only eleven weeks of release. In 1992 an original hand-painted production cel from the film sold at Sotheby’s in New York for £115,000, triple the pre-sale estimate. A digitally restored print appeared in 1994, the same year the picture became available on home video in the United States for the first time. Most subsequent Disney features followed the same pattern of limited-time video release. In May 1994 industry reports indicated that nine out of every ten home videos sold worldwide were Disney titles.
Pinocchio (1940), drawn from Carlo Collodi’s nineteenth-century Italian stories, follows a wooden puppet whose lies cause his nose to lengthen until, guided by Jiminy Cricket, he rescues Geppetto the wood-carver from Monstro the whale and is transformed into a real boy by the Blue Fairy. Cliff Edwards voiced Jiminy Cricket and performed Leigh Harline and Ned Washington’s “Give A Little Whistle” and “When You Wish Upon A Star,” the latter winning an Academy Award; Harline, Washington and Paul J. Smith also received an Oscar for the original score. Additional songs included “Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee (An Actor’s Life For Me),” “I’ve Got No Strings,” “Three Cheers For Anything,” “As I Was Say’n’ To The Duchess” and “Turn On The Old Music Box.” Dickie Jones, Christian Rub, Evelyn Venable, Walter Catlett, Charles Judels and Frankie Darro supplied the remaining principal voices. Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske supervised; photographed in Technicolor, the film earned more than $40 million in the United States and Canada, ranking fourth among the decade’s highest-grossing releases.
Fantasia (1940) combined animation with classical music performed by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, narrated by Deems Taylor. The eight selections were Bach’s “Toccata And Fugue In D Minor,” Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker Suite,” Dukas’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” Stravinsky’s “The Rite Of Spring,” Beethoven’s “Pastoral Symphony,” Ponchielli’s “Dance Of The Hours,” Mussorgsky’s “Night On The Bald Mountain” and Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” Mickey Mouse appeared alongside hippopotami, dinosaurs, alligators, elephants, ostriches, nymphs, satyrs and the Goddess of Night. Ben Sharpsteen served as production supervisor. Filmed in Technicolor and Fantasound, the picture placed second among 1940s American box-office champions. Fifty years later a single “piccaninny centaurette” was removed from all prints before home-video release at a cost reported in hundreds of thousands of pounds in the name of political correctness.
Bambi (1942), widely regarded as Disney’s most naturalistic feature, traces a young deer’s growth amid changing seasons. The animators’ rendering of graceful movement and expressive faces lent the story exceptional realism. Peter Behn voiced Thumper the rabbit. Frank Churchill and Larry Morey wrote the score, which contained “Love Is A Song,” “The Thumper Song,” “Let’s Sing A Gay Little Spring Song,” “Twitterpated” and “Little April Showers.” David Hand supervised production; the screenplay was adapted from Felix Salten’s novel. By 1993 Variety listed Bambi as the highest-earning American film of the 1940s.
Cinderella (1950), drawn from Charles Perrault’s fairy tale, introduced resourceful mice Jaq and Gus, voiced by James MacDonald, who help the heroine prepare for the ball. Ilene Woods, William Phipps, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton and Luis Van Rooten headed the cast, with Rhoda Williams and Lucille Bliss as the stepsisters. Mack Gordon, Jerry Livingston and Al Hoffman supplied “A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes,” “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo,” “The Work Song,” “So This Is Love,” “Sing Sweet Nightingale” and “Cinderella.” Ben Sharpsteen supervised; Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske and Clyde Geronimi directed. Some sources, including Variety, date the release to December 1949 and rank the film third among that decade’s domestic rental leaders.
Peter Pan (1953), adapted from J. M. Barrie, featured Bobby Driscoll as Peter, Kathryn Beaumont as Wendy, Hans Conried as Captain Hook, Heather Angel as Mrs. Darling, Paul Collins as Mr. Darling, Bill Thompson as Smee and Tommy Luske as John, with Tom Conway narrating. Frank Churchill and Jack Lawrence wrote “Never Smile At A Crocodile”; Sammy Cahn and Sammy Fain contributed “You Can Fly,” “Your Mother And Mine,” “The Elegant Captain Hook” and “What Makes The Red Man Red?” Oliver Wallace and Erdman Penner supplied “A Pirate’s Life,” while Wallace, Winston Hibler and Ted Sears wrote “Tee Dum-Tee Dee.” Production and direction credits matched those of Cinderella. The picture finished third among 1950s American earners.
Lady And The Tramp (1955), Disney’s first CinemaScope animated feature, was based on Ward Greene’s story of a streetwise mongrel and a pampered cocker spaniel. Erdman Penner, Joe Rinaldi, Ralph Wright and Don DaGradi wrote the screenplay. Sonny Burke and Peggy Lee composed “He’s A Tramp,” “The Siamese Cat Song,” “Bella Notte,” “Peace On Earth” and “La La Lu.” Peggy Lee voiced Peg, the Siamese cats and Darling; Barbara Luddy, Larry Roberts, George Givot, Bill Thompson, Stan Freberg, Bill Baucon, Verna Felton and Alan Reed completed the cast. Nearly forty years later Lee remained in litigation with the studio over video royalties. Production and direction credits were identical to those of Cinderella and Peter Pan.
Sleeping Beauty (1959), the studio’s final animated fairy-tale for some years because of its growing commitment to live-action features beginning with Treasure Island (1950) and continuing through Mary Poppins, proved costly and initially unprofitable. Later reissues elevated it into the top six American earners of the 1950s. Charles Perrault’s tale supplied the plot in which fairies Flora, Fauna and Merryweather protect Princess Aurora from Maleficent’s curse. Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, Candy Candido and Bill Thompson voiced the principals. Songs included “Once Upon A Dream” (Sammy Fain–Jack Lawrence), “Hail The Princess Aurora” and “The Sleeping Beauty Song” (Tom Adair–George Bruns), “I Wonder” (Winston Hibler–Ted Sears–Bruns) and “The Skump Song” (Adair–Erdman Penner–Bruns), together with excerpts from Tchaikovsky. Don DaGradi and Ken Anderson supervised; Clyde Geronimi directed. The Technicolor production was filmed in Super Technirama 70.
The Jungle Book (1967), released the year after Walt Disney’s death, returned the studio to form with a jazz-inflected adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli stories. Phil Harris, Louis Prima, Sebastian Cabot, George Sanders and Sterling Holloway voiced Baloo, King Louie, Bagheera, Shere Khan and Kaa. Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman wrote “Colonel Hathi’s March,” “Trust In Me,” “I Wan’na Be Like You,” “That’s What Friends Are For” and “My Own Home”; Terry Gilkyson contributed “The Bare Necessities.” Larry Clemmons, Ralph Wright, Ken Anderson and Vance Gerry wrote the screenplay; Wolfgang Reitherman directed. Subsequent screen versions comprised Disney’s Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1994), starring Jason Scott Lee, and The Second Jungle Book: Mowgli & Baloo (1997, TriStar-MDP).
Further 1970s features—The Aristocats, Robin Hood and The Rescuers—were respectable yet did not match earlier achievements. A sustained revival began in 1989 with The Little Mermaid and continued through Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. Additional major releases included Pocahontas (1995), Toy Story (1995), The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997) and Mulan (1998). An elaborate stage adaptation of Beauty And The Beast opened on Broadway in 1994; King David, Disney’s first original stage musical, followed in 1997 at the restored New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street, where the company had spent roughly £21 million returning the former home of the Ziegfeld Follies to Art Nouveau condition. The same venue hosted the stage version of The Lion King later that year. Elaborate Lives: The Legend Of Aida premiered on 7 October 1998 in Atlanta, Georgia.
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