Dinner with a historical figure by Abbagail

Dinner with a historical figure by Abbagail - February 2016 Scholarship Essay

Walt Disney is a person who has achieved a lifetime of great things but his overwhelming success also comes with failure, Disney persevered and continued working and trying new things to reach his goals during the best and worst of times. If I were able to have dinner with Walt Disney I would have so many questions to ask him about how and why he created the characters and theme park that was and still is my childhood joy.
Walter Elias “Walt” Disney was born in Hermosa Illinois; he started his love of pictures at a young age. He started painting pictures and selling pictures to neighbors and family friends. At age 16 Disney dropped out of high school to join the army but was rejected due to being under age, instead he joined the Red Cross and was sent to France for a year to drive an ambulance. When he returned he started cartoonist career, Disney was able to open his own animation business he created cartoons called Laugh-o- Grams, which would later be the name of his own studio. After doing a series of seven-minute fairytales after the studio became durned with debt in 1923 Disney declared bankruptcy.
Disney and his brother Roy moved to California along with a friend and opened the Disney brother’s studios, where they created new characters but the rights were stolen from Disney along with all of his animators except one. The three men created the ever-popular Mickey mouse and in 1929 Mickeys friends were introduced: Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto. Snow White and the seven dwarfs the first full -length production in color was released on December 21,1973 making $1.499 million even in the midst of the depression it won eight Oscars. Walt Disney studio’s also produced: Pinocchio in 1940, Fantasia also in 1940, Dumbo in 1941 and Bambi in 1942.
In 1941 a setback for the company occurred when there was a strike by Disney animators, many resigned it would be years for the company to fully recover. In 1950 he once again focused on animated features and Cinderella was released in 1950 followed by Treasure Island a live- action film also released in 1950. Along with: Alice in Wonderland in 1951, Peter Pan in 1953, Lady and the Tramp in 1955, Sleeping Beauty in 1959 and 101 Dalmatians in 1961. His studio in all produced more than 100 features. Disney’s last major success produced himself was Mary Poppins in 1964.
Disney’s widely popular theme park opened on July 17,1955 opening day involved mishaps including the distribution of thousands of counterfeit invitations. The park became known for what it is know as today a place where children and families could explore, enjoy rides and meet Disney characters.
If I were to have dinner with Walt Disney I would ask, him how did he come up with the many names of his bubbly characters? Working with siblings can stressful at times, how did you get along with your brother so well to make this booming business? Every time a Disney movie is watched in my household the question is always asked why does everyone but Donald Duck wear pants? The Great Depression was an extremely dark time in our country’s history. Snow white and the seven dwarfs still produced $1.499 million despite the depression. How did you make that possible, how did you convince the penny pinching people of that time to spend their hard earned money on a movie? The Walt Disney theme park is every child’s dream to visit, how did you recover from the fiasco of the opening day of the theme park? By being the first person in my family attending a four year university I hope I can experience just a small fraction of success that Walt Disney did by taking failure and using them create success.