Walt Disney

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VOICE ONE:

I'm Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Ray Freeman with the VOA Special English program, PEOPLE
IN AMERICA. Every week we tell about a person who was important in
the history of the United States. Today, we tell about Walt Disney
and the movie company he created.

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VOICE ONE:

That was the song "When You Wish Upon a Star." It is from Walt
Disney's animated movie "Pinocchio." For many people, it is the song
most often linked with Walt Disney and his work.

The song is about dreams ... and making dreams come true. That is
what the Walt Disney Company tries to do. It produces movies that
capture the imagination of children and adults all over the world.

VOICE TWO:

Millions of people have seen
Disney films and television programs. They have made friends with
all the Disney heroes: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Snow White,
Pinocchio, Peter Pan.

Millions more have visited the company's major entertainment
parks. There is Disneyland in California. Disney World in Florida.
Tokyo Disneyland in Japan. Euro-Disney in France. Probably no other
company has pleased so many children. It is not surprising that it
has been called a dream factory.

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VOICE ONE:

Walter Elias Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois in
Nineteen-Oh-One. His family moved to the state of Missouri. He grew
up on a farm there. At the age of sixteen, Disney began to study art
in Chicago.

Four years later, he joined the Kansas City Film Ad Company. He
helped make cartoon advertisements to be shown in movie theaters.
Advertisements help sell products. In Nineteen-Twenty-Three, Walt
Disney moved to Hollywood, California to join his brother Roy. He
wanted to be a movie producer or director. But he failed to find a
job. So he decided to make animated movies. In them, drawings are
made to move in a lifelike way. We call them cartoons. Disney the
artist wanted to bring his pictures to life.

VOICE TWO:

A cartoon is a series of pictures on film. Each picture is a
little different from the one before. Each shows a tiny change in
movement.

When we see the movie, the pictures seem to be alive. The cartoon
people and animals move. They speak with voices recorded by real
actors. Disney opened his first movie company in the back of an
office. For several years, he struggled to earn enough money to pay
his expenses. He believed that cartoon movies could be as popular as
movies made with actors. To do this, he decided he needed a cartoon
hero. Help for his idea came from an unexpected place.

VOICE ONE:

Disney worked with Ub Iwerks, another young artist. They often
saw mice running in and out of the old building where they worked.
So they drew a cartoon mouse. It was not exactly like a real mouse.
For one thing, it stood on two legs like a human. It had big eyes
and ears. And it wore white gloves on its hands.

The artists called him "Mickey." Earlier filmmakers had found
that animals were easier to use in cartoons than people. Mickey
Mouse was drawn with a series of circles. He was perfect for
animation. The public first saw Mickey Mouse in a movie called
"Steamboat Willie." Walt Disney himself provided the voice for
Mickey Mouse. The film was produced in Nineteen-Twenty-Eight. It was
a huge success.

VOICE TWO:

Mickey Mouse appeared in hundreds of cartoons during the years
that followed. He became known all over the world. In Japan, he was
called "Miki Kuchi." In Italy, he was "Topolino." In Latin America,
he was "Raton Miquelito."

Mickey soon was joined by several other cartoon creatures. One
was thefemale mouse called "Minnie." Another was the duck named
"Donald," with his sailor clothes and funny voice. And there was the
dog called Pluto.

VOICE ONE:

Mickey Mouse cartoons were extremely popular. But Walt Disney
wanted to make other kinds of animated movies, too.

In the middle Nineteen-Thirties, he was working on his first long
movie. It was about a lovely young girl, her cruel stepmother, and
the handsome prince who saves her. It was "Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs."

"Snow White" was completed in
Nineteen-Thirty-Seven after three years of work. It was the first
full-length animated movie to be produced by a studio. It became one
of Hollywood's most successful movies.

VOICE TWO:

Movie experts say Walt Disney was responsible for the development
of the art of animation. Disney's artists tried to put life into
every drawing. That meant they had to feel all the emotions of the
cartoon creatures. Happiness. Sadness. Anger. Fear.

The artists looked in a mirror and expressed each emotion. A
smile. Tears. A red face. Wide eyes. Then they drew that look on the
face of each cartoon creature.

VOICE ONE:

Many movie experts say Disney's art of animation reached its
highest point in Nineteen-Forty with the movie "Pinocchio." The
story is about a wooden toy that comes to life as a little boy.

Disney 's artists drew two-and-one-half-million pictures to make
"Pinocchio." The artists drew flat pictures. Yet they created a look
of space and solid objects.

"Pinocchio" was an imaginary world. Yet it looked very real.
Disney made other extremely popular animated movies in the
Nineteen-Forties and Nineteen-Fifties. They include "Fantasia,"
"Dumbo," "Bambi," "Cinderella," "Alice in Wonderland," "Peter Pan,"
"Lady and the Tramp," and "Sleeping Beauty." These movies are still
popular today.

VOICE TWO:

In addition to cartoons, Walt Disney produced many movies and
television programs with real actors. He also produced movies about
wild animals in their natural surroundings.

Real or imaginary, all his programs had similar ideas. In most of
them, innocence, loyalty and family love were threatened by evil
forces. Sad things sometimes happened. But there were always funny
incidents and creatures.

In the end, good always won over evil. Disney won thirty-two
Academy Awards for his movies and for scientific and technical
inventions in filmmaking.

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VOICE ONE:

In Nineteen-Fifty-Five, Walt Disney opened an entertainment park
not far from Hollywood, California. He called it "Disneyland." He
wanted it to be the happiest place on Earth.

Disneyland recreated imaginary places from Disney movies. It also
recreated real places...as Disney imagined them. For example, one
area looked like a nineteenth-century town in the American West.
Another looked like the world of the future.

Disneyland also had exciting rides. Children could fly on an
elephant. Or spin in a teacup. Or climb a mountain. Or float on a
jungle river. And -- best of all -- children got to meet Mickey
Mouse himself. Actors dressed as Mickey and all the Disney cartoon
creatures walked around the park shaking hands.

VOICE TWO:

Some critics said Disneyland was just a huge money machine. They
said it cost so much money that many families could not go. And they
said it did not represent the best of American culture.

But most visitors loved it. They came from near and far to see
it. Presidents of the United States. Leaders of other countries. And
families from around the world.

Disneyland was so successful that Disney developed plans for a
second entertainment and educational park to be built in Florida.
The project, Walt Disney World, opened in Florida in
Nineteen-Seventy-One, after Disney's death. The man who started it
all, Walt Disney, died in Nineteen-Sixty-Six. But the company he
began continues to help people escape the problems of life through
its movies and entertainment parks.

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VOICE ONE:

This Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. I'm
Shirley Griffith. VOICE TWO: And I'm Ray Freeman. Join us again next
week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program in Special English on the
Voice of America.