But what was going on inside the heart and brain of Mr. Mickey Mouse himself? Even the most hardcore Disney-heads won’t know all of these facts about Uncle Walt.
He acted out the entirety of Snow White himself
Making the first feature-length animated movie was a huge undertaking, andWalt DisneyknewSnow White and the Seven Dwarfswas going to be a tough sell. So, to convince his team it was even possible, he gathered everyone around and performed some one-man theatre.
Disney acted out the entire movie by himself, from beginning to end. He fully performed each character, mimicking their physical stature and characteristics, and giving each one a unique voice. True to form, Disney captured everyone’s imagination, and convinced them the thing could work.
Art directorKen Andersonsaid, “We were spellbound. He was all by himself and he acted out this fantastic story.”
He was a fierce anti-Communist
Disney was completely opposed to the spread of communism, and accused many of his animator colleagues of being secret communists. He was also convinced the Screen Actors Guild was full of commies, and when his workers tried to unionize, he accused the union of being a communist front.
Disney even went so far as to testify in front ofSenator Joseph McCarthy’s House UnAmerican Activities Committee. The committee was the result of a nationwide scare over the possibility of communist sympathizers living in America, and Disney was happy to help root them out.
After Disney’s first studio went bankrupt, he started Disney Brothers Studio with the help of his older brotherRoy Disney, a banker. Walt changed the name to the Walt Disney Studio shortly thereafter, and that wasn’t the first sign that the brothers didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye.
Roy was more level-headed than Walt, and the two clashed frequently. When you worked at Disney, you were either one of Walt’s Boys or one of Roy’s Boys. Sometimes they argued bitterly in front of employees and didn’t speak for months. But things were eventually patched up, and there’s now a Roy Disney train and a statue of him withMinnie Mouseat Disney World.
He fudged a birth certificate to join the war
At age 16, Disney dropped out of high school. World War I had broken out, and he was eager to join the fight. But he was too young to enlist, so he forged a birth certificate claiming he was 18 years old.
Disney’s artistic talents must’ve extended to forgery, because the fake certificate worked! Disney joined the Red Cross American Ambulance Corps and got shipped off to France, where he drove ambulances for a wartime hospital.
There’s a heart wrenching reason why Bambi’s mother dies
FromBambitoFrozen, mother figures are generally absent in Disney films, or they suffer tragic deaths early on. As it turns out, there’s a heartbreaking reason for this – Disney may have felt indirectly responsible for his own mother’s death.
Disneybought a housefor his folks after he hit it big. He had some of his studio employees go over to fix the furnace, but they did it wrong, and his mom inhaled the poisonous gases and died. Disney never talked about the tragedy publicly.
He stole elements of Disneyland from a Danish attraction
Disney gets a lot of credit for inventing the modern idea of a theme park, and deservedly so. But he was greatly inspired by Tivoli Gardens, a famous European amusement park with roller coasters, musical attractions, and exhibits depicting an idealized version of the world.
Sounds a lot like Disneyland, doesn’t it? There are pictures of Disney visiting the park before Disneyland opened, and it’s clear he borrowed many of the park’s aesthetics and mission statements, including a pirate ship and parades. What’s more, It’s A Small World is nearly identical to a Tivoli Gardens ride!
Mickey Mouse enjoyed massive popularity and success in the Great Depression, but that success wasn’t totally good for Disney. He worked himself to the bone. It got so bad that his doctor told him to go away for awhile, for the sake of his health.
To try and recharge his batteries, Disney traveled all around America, to Kansas City, St. Louis, and Washington DC. He even went to Havana, then took a boat back from Cuba to Los Angeles. Once in LA, Disney went right back to work, and even built himself a new house. The man even vacationed like it was a job.
He loved entertaining from a young age
As a teenager, Disney was all about costumes and performing. He loved wearing uniforms as a cadet in high school, and in various odd jobs. When Roy came back from the Navy, the first comment Walt made was that he “looked swell in that sailor’s uniform.”
Walt actually wrote his principal a letter to tell him he found high school “disgusting,” and dropped out to make movies. He and a friend,Russell Maas, invested in a movie camera, and began making amateur children’s movies on their own.
He was friends with the founder of McDonald’s
While stationed at a military training base in South Beach, Connecticut, Disney befriended a 15-year-old corpsman namedRay Kroc. Kroc would go on to purchase McDonald’s from its original founders and turn it into a global empire. Like Walt, Kroc had also lied about his age to enlist.
Kroc nicknamed Disney “Diz,” andcalled hima “strange duck…whenever we went into town to chase girls, he stayed in camp drawing pictures.” Kroc wrote Disney many years later about building a McDonald’s in Disneyland, but the idea never materialized.
He wanted Epcot to be a futuristic utopian society
Nowadays, Epcot is known as the strange part of Disney World, with pavilions representing different countries, and a giant Coca-Cola stand where you can sample flavors from around the world. But Disney originally envisioned it as a utopian community where people would actually live.
The “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” would’ve been home to 20,000 people. In Disney’s words, “It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed but will always be introducing and testing, and demonstrating new materials and new systems.” The idea was scrapped after his death in 1966.
