Continuing with the portraits I have recently made of some of the well-known artists of our day, I present today probably the best known of them all: Walt Disney.
Disney started as an artist---that is with a pen in his hand--but his real talent seems to have been recognizing opportunity and being willing to risk everything on what he thought would be a good, creative move--founded on the latest artistic technology, moving pictures.
That he was a success is apparent by his direct legacy, the huge Disney Corporation which, many years after his death controls most of the video entertainment of the Western World and which influences world culture at almost every level.
Materials available on his life story show him to have been keenly interested in his business activities, a tireless worker who hired the best artistic talent available to anyone in America, and a person who was sincerely interested in giving expression to the cultural values he held dear.
That he was also lucky and born in the right place at the right time is also obvious--but his fame and fortune were certainly dependent on his own personal drive and skill in working with other creative, and often egotistic people. He was apparently a generally healthy, happily married family man and was very fortunate to have had a very skillful, talented and totally supportive younger brother--a regular "Theo" to his more fortunate "Vincent".
People who worked for him and knew him intimately admit that he was one of the best story tellers they ever met, and it is as a wonderful story-teller that most of us who grew up in his time know him best from his movies and television programs.
Walt Disney (about 1945)
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