Back on their Missouri farm Walter always had a pencil in his hand, and spent his days curiously observing the workings of shadow and light, as well as the colours, the faces and the animals all around him. But what excited his passion most was movement, and how to capture it in his drawings. His childlike heart sought to transpose in his clumsy sketches the galloping of a horse, the leaping of a rabbit or the bounding of a filly in the field. The rustling of the branches, the flight of a swallow, the languorous descent of a sunset or the cow chewing his cud in dull monotony – he would draw on anything that came to hand, and never tired of it. As soon as they could his parents enrolled him in a drawing class, seeking to encourage their budding artist. At high school he became the artist for his school paper, a role that was both prestigious and fun. His schoolmates made fun of him, calling him a little kid, a weirdo who was always daydreaming. It was true that he’d never made much effort to fall in line; after all, what was the point in that? Nothing mattered more to him that the dreams of children, and above all, nothing was more interesting than sharing them with the world.
Now he was at the peak of his success, holding his famous duck in his right hand and a copy of Alice in Wonderland in his left. How did Walt Disney create the personality of Donald Duck? Donald Fauntleroy Duck was a hot-headed chap, who went about life with boundless optimism, always in a good mood until something came along to spoil his day (then, Donald Duck would get rather angry). Mr. Walter Disney was quite the opposite; in person he was shy and unimposing, yet willing to risk it all and go for broke when the chips were down. In 1928, before the creation of Donald Duck, he’d brought a character of quasi-mythical fame into the world: Mickey Mouse, his first major success. Mr. Walter Disney had brought this character into being, while his associate Ub Iwerks had given him his physical appearance. Mickey Mouse was not just an animated mouse that popped out of nowhere: he was inspired by Walt Disney’s own experiences working in a production studio, where he’d adopted a mouse and kept it in his garage. This mouse’s name was Mortimer, but Ub Iwerks preferred the name Mickey.
Success had not gone to his head: even after Pinocchio, Snow White or Cinderella, Walt Disney kept his feet on the ground, always on the hunt for new markets to captivate his audiences. Like Uncle Sam before him, Walt Disney became a leading figure of American imperialism. For of course, who now has not heard the name Mickey Mouse? From the furthest reaches of Asia or Europe, all over the world, children and adults alike came to know Mickey Mouse. All the while Walt Disney smoked more and more. He was the biggest smoker America had ever known, until sadly he succumbed to lung cancer in 1966 after moving to Hollywood. He never saw the park that would bear his name built in the town of Anaheim, the famous Walt Disney World. He was the most decorated man in the history of motion pictures, with over 22 Oscars in 52 nominations.
Alan Alfredo Geday