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Walt’s early life was one of scarcity

Walt Disney was born in Chicago in 1901. He lived in a small home with his parents, Elias and Flora, and his three siblings. It was a life of frugality and scarcity. Elias’s jobs included earning just a dollar a day as a carpenter. As a result, Walt and his siblings were forbidden from simple indulgences like butter on their bread. “Waste not, want not” was a household maxim. Then, when two local boys got caught in a shoot-out with police, Walt’s dad decided it was time to move his young family to the country to start a new life.

In nature Walt found escape from an oppressive father

Walt’s parents plunged what savings they had into a 40-acre fruit farm in Marcelene, Missouri. And it was in this rural haven that elements of many Disney movies took root. Walt was surrounded by foxes, squirrels and birds, and he used nature as an escape from his father’s regular eruptions of verbal and physical abuse.

Walt saw glimpses of his father’s violence in himself sometimes. One day, he caught sight of an owl and climbed a tree to get closer. When the owl flapped its wings at him in a panic, he instinctively threw the owl to the floor, stomped on it and killed it. The young Walt was devastated and racked by guilt. He claimed to have nightmares about the incident for the rest of his life. From that moment on, he expressed a tenderness towards animals that was echoed in all his movies.

He experienced bankruptcy and personal loss

In 1923, Walt’s first animation studio, Newman Laugh-O-Grams, went under.

As a young man, Walt suffered a debilitating mental health crisis too. In 1931, his wife Lillian suffered a miscarriage and Walt was devastated. He frequently erupted in tears on phone calls with colleagues. The impact on his mental health was so great, he at one point grew convinced he was being eaten alive by an intestinal parasite.

Mickey Mouse was created on a train

The animator’s big breakthrough came in the form of a little mouse, dreamt up on a train journey back from New York where a business trip had ended badly. When Walt learnt that he had been kicked off a project for Universal, creating cartoons featuring Oswald the lucky rabbit, he was determined to create his own rival character.

A mouse was a natural choice. Walt loved them, often catching them in coffee tins and attempting to train them or feed them from his fingers. At first, the cartoon mouse was known as Mortimer, but Walt’s wife Lillian said the name was too “sissy”. And so, Mickey was born.

Mickey became a merchandising sensation

In 1928, Mickey appeared in a seven-minute short called Steamboat Willy. It was a landmark moment for animated movies, featuring innovative leaps forward in technology. Steamboat Willy was the first animation to have synchronised sound, rather than relying on music performed live in the theatre.

Soon the cheerful character was a phenomenon; a symbol of resilience in depression-gripped America. As Neal Gabler wrote in his book, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, “Mickey Mouse had become the graphic representation of indomitable happiness even in the face of national despair.”

Mickey became a merchandising sensation. Soon the mouse’s face was on soap, sweets, slippers – and just about everything. By 1934, Mickey merch was worth $600,000 a year to the Walt Disney Studio. This gave Walt the money he needed to begin work on his first feature film: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Walt moved into movies and pioneered new ways of working

Previously, Disney had sold cartoons to theatres to be shown before live action feature films. But the depression had given rise to double bill screenings, to give audiences more bang for their buck. Walt saw sales fall and realised something had to change.

Walt Disney: A Life in Films is narrated by Mel Giedroyc. Photo by Laurie Fletcher.

He set his heart on adapting the Snow White fairy-tale into an 83-minute musical animation full of spectacular colour and sound. The story was to be an enthralling tale of romance and triumph over evil, aspiring to make audiences not just laugh, but feel.

Walt obsessed over every detail of the production, relentless in his pursuit of perfection and innovation. His animators were sent to life drawing classes. Props and sets were brought in to help them create more authentic animation than had ever been seen before. Walt was hell bent on achieving full colour animation, despite the astronomical cost. He was also working on a new way to shoot: the multiplane camera would create a sense of depth on screen, never before seen. But again, it wasn’t cheap.

As costs spiralled out of control, Walt risked everything

Snow White was soon months overdue and hugely over budget. Walt had told his brother and business partner Roy that Snow White would cost $250,000, but debts ran into the millions. Stories of the film’s troubled production were the talk of tinsel town. Walt found himself under severe physical strain, in and out of hospital. The stress was felt at home too. Walt’s daughter Diane recounts walking downstairs to discover a stain on the wall where her mother had thrown a mug of coffee at Walt during a blazing row.

Walt had faced bankruptcy before, but this time was different. He now had a home, a family and a reputation to protect. He might have given up. Instead, he put on a charm offensive and managed to secure one final, extra $250,000 from the Bank of America. He gambled all that was left to him: the rights to Mickey Mouse. Fail and he would be left with nothing.

Snow White was a sensation

Somehow, against all the odds, the project came together. In 1937 Snow White premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles to rave reviews. Audiences were moved to tears. Screenings were sold out months in advance. The film generated $8 million at the box office. (With tickets costing only 23 cents, this was an incredible feat.) Walt was awarded an Oscar, along with seven miniature ones.

The filmmaker should have been on top of the world. Instead, he claimed privately to hate the film, describing it as overly sentimental. It wasn’t to be the last time he was dissatisfied. His wanderlust, drive and ambition left a black hole in Walt that could never be filled.

Walt’s great legacy

On his deathbed, Walt was convinced he would be forgotten. How wrong he was. Over 56 years after his death, there remain few names more internationally renowned. The entertainment empire he created out of a small Los Angeles studio is today a corporate colossus, among the biggest companies in the world. There are theme parks. Disney owns entertainment franchises like Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar. And now, with Disney +, they’re competing with Netflix for streaming supremacy too.

Audiences continue to be enchanted by Disney films and Walt’s special storytelling formulas. Seven of the top 10 highest grossing movies of all time belong to the “house of mouse”. Walt Disney is unlikely to be forgotten any time soon.