American animator, producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor and entrepreneur, founder of The Walt Disney Company (1901–1966)
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (5 December 1901 – 15 December 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, and animator. One of the most well-known motion picture producers in the world, Disney was also the artist responsible for works in a variety of other media, the creator of Disneyland and Walt Disney World, and the founder of The Walt Disney Company, the world's largest entertainment and media organization, Walt Disney characters including Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Mary Poppins, Pinocchio and many others.
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I always felt that Uncle Remus should be played by a living person, as should also the young boy to whom Harris' old Negro philosopher relates his vivid stories of the Briar Patch. Several tests in previous pictures, especially in The Three Caballeros, were encouraging in the way living action and animation could be dovetailed. Finally, months ago, we 'took our foot in hand,' in the words of Uncle Remus, and jumped into our most venturesome but also more pleasurable undertaking.
Until a character becomes a personality it cannot be believed. Without personality, the character may do funny or interesting things, but unless people are able to identify themselves with the character, its actions will seem unreal. And without personality, a story cannot ring true to the audience.
No story in English literature has intrigued me more than Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. It fascinated me the first time I read it as a schoolboy and as soon as I possibly could after I started making animated cartoons, I acquired the film rights to it. People in his period had no time to waste on triviality, yet Carroll with his nonsense and fantasy furnished a balance between seriousness and enjoyment which everybody needed then and still needs today.