WDW Daily News

No discussion of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs would be complete without a nod to Walt Disney, whose namesake empire — The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) — still ranks among the top 10 most valuable brands more than five decades after his passing.

On the anniversary of his birth, let’s take a look back at some of interesting tidbits from Disney’s life, and how the renowned animator went from scribbling pictures for neighbors to being known around the world for creating the company that still bears his name.

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The park is quiet — something rare for Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. Guests gather at Town Square Theater, awaiting tours beginning promptly at 8 a.m. My tour guide, Anibal Soto, who has worked at Disney World for 16 years, leads my group outside, asks us to don our headsets and begins the story of how Walt Disney shaped Magic Kingdom as many fairy tales begin, “Once upon a time … ”

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Decades before the city rejected paying millions for a new football stadium, St. Louis leaders rankled entrepreneur Walt Disney by refusing to pay the bulk of costs for a domed theme park in downtown St. Louis.

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The former home of innovator Walt Disney is for sale in Palm Springs. The 4-bedroom, 4-bathroom stucco home was constructed for Disney in 1962 and will cost buyers $899,000.
The house was owned by the Disney family until 2015 — and Disney’s influence can be seen in the home’s colors, design and art deco influences.

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When the Great Depression ended in 1939, millions of American workers, having endured years of unemployment, began demanding job security and a stake in the new prosperity, leading to a radicalism that influenced labor relations—not least in the movie business.

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The Walt Disney Company’s official encyclopedia, Disney A to Z, says that the “first real location” of Walt Disney Studios was a pair of unassuming Los Feliz storefronts on Kingswell just east of Vermont Avenue.

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Most casual Disney fans know that Walt Disney was a real person and not just a brand name for a major company. Those with a bit more savvy know that Main Street U.S.A. at Disneyland is based on an idealized version of the turn-of-the-century town of Marceline, Mo., the place where Walt Disney lived as a child.

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The only known existing scrapbook of original cartoons drawn by Walt Disney will be auctioned at Bonhams in New York City this month, Phil Sears Collectibles LLC announced today. Walt Disney was no more than 17 years old when he drew the 13 cartoon characters in the scrapbook. Two of the characters are rodents, drawn a full 10 years before he created his iconic Mickey Mouse.

The rodents are trench rats; the young Disney drew the cartoons at the close of World War One while serving as a Red Cross ambulance driver. The drawings, dated 1918, include soldiers, the German Kaiser (being kicked off a cliff by an allied soldier), non-war cartoons, and of course the two rodents. The young Disney gave the 11-inch x 14-inch scrapbook to a female friend fromChicago’s McKinley High School. Disney dropped out of high school after only one year, forging his birth date on the Red Cross application to serve in France at the age of only 16.

The Bonhams auction also features the earliest autographed photo of Walt Disney ever offered for public sale. Just 16 or 17 years old in the photo (Walt celebrated his 17th birthday while serving in France), the future entertainment mogul tries to look serious and older than his young age.

Walt Disney collectibles dealer Phil Sears (www.philsears.com) consigned the items to the auction. “This is the earliest collection of original Walt Disney cartoon drawings not locked away in a museum or the Disney Company archives,” says Sears. “In terms of Walt Disney’s life story, these are the ‘cave paintings’ of his creative timeline.”

The drawings and signed photograph are two of ten lots of teenage Walt Disney artifacts, all of which are considered to be the earliest of their type ever publicly sold. They go under the gavel November 23rd, 2015 in New York City as part of the “Bonhams & Turner Classic Movies Presents Treasures from the Dream Factory” auction. The auction lots (including photos, details and bid estimates of Disney lots 138 through 147) are online at http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22486/lot/138/.

With the popularity of the recent PBS documentary about Walt Disney, there’s a growing curiosity about the man behind Mickey Mouse.

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Everybody talks breathlessly (or jokes knowingly) about the large playground-like campuses companies like Google and Facebook maintain for their employees.

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