Walt Disney – His Early Life and Work

Walt Disney was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, in 1901. When he was 5 years old, his family moved to Marceline, Missouri. There, he became interested in drawing when a doctor paid him to draw his horse. At that time, his father regularly bought a newspaper called Appeal to Reason, and Walt used the front-page cartoons of the newspaper to practise drawing.

When he was 18 a company employed him as an illustrator for adverts, theatre programmes and catalogues. After some time, the company fired him, so he started a company with his friend Ub Iwerks, but they closed the company because it wasn’t successful. Disney had to go to Kansas City to work for an advertising company to earn money. That was the time when he became interested in animation. After working for another company, he moved to Hollywood to start his own animation company with his brother Roy in 1923. Until 1927, they worked hard and produced characters like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. In 1928 they created their famous character, Mickey Mouse.