



|
|
 |
Page 1 of 28 |
Early Exploits: |
Chicago |
Walt Disney as a 1-year old baby
|
As a child, Walt may have seemed unremarkable.
Occasional flashes of brilliance aside, for the most part his surroundings
were little different from other Midwestern children. His school
experience was not exceptional -- in fact, he only completed one year
of high school. Yet, a mysterious combination of events and
personalities with whom he was involved turned him into one of the
most successfully creative men of the twentieth century. His father
(often unfairly portrayed as an overbearing ogre) gave a model of
gritty determination and resilience. His mother contributed a love
of fun, jokes and pleasure in people. His life -- first on the farm
and later in Kansas City -- gave him a wealth of experience from which
he was to draw in films and other creative ventures for the rest of
his life. At an incredibly early age, he was already involved
in animation, starting his own (albeit unsuccessful) company. And
by his 21st birthday, he was on his way to California and incredible
success. |
EHistory has not been kind to Walt Disney's father,
Elias. Over the years, he has been portrayed as a cheap mean-spirited
fellow whose life was made up of a series of failed careers. One biographer
even goes so far as to claim that Walt's life with his father was
a never-ending series of beatings, major and minor -- and that in
this miserable childhood lay the roots of his personality flaws as
an adult. Rubbish. No question that Elias Disney was a man with a
temper. He held his five children to high standards, and sometimes
that meant corporal punishment. But the image of him as some kind
of turn-of-the century child abuser, working out his anger at the
world on five defenseless children, is an unfair slander.
Ironically, it was largely Walt's own words, misused by others, that
condemned his Dad to this unfair portrait. Walt, after all, always
liked a good story. And so, when he was interviewed in the mid 1950s,
he simply couldn't resist a few dramatic stories of confrontations
with Elias. "He'd pick up a saw and try to hit you with the broad
side of the saw," recalled Walt. "He'd pick up a hammer, you know
and hit you with the handle." |
Elias Disney, photographed
in Chicago around 1918
|
Elias with his wife Flora,
photographed around 1913
|
High drama? Sure. Truth? Who knows? (It does seem unlikely
that the fourteen year old Walt could have overpowered his angry father).
The whole truth? Absolutely not. In fact, these stories represent
only a tiny portion of the anecdotes Walt repeated concerning Elias.
Walt also recalled his father as "a good Dad (who)thought of nothing
but his family. "I had tremendous respect for him. I always
did. . . I worshipped him. Nothing but his family counted," Walt once
said.
Elias was a fiddler, who frequently spent Sundays playing with neighbors,
while Walt and Ruth listened. If a homeless man came into town --
and he could play a musical instrument -- Elias would invite him home
for a warm meal and a little music. "He'd bring home some of
the weirdest characters," Walt said. Walt also remembered, with
pride, his father's concern for his fellow man; in fact Elias had
socialistic political leanings and was deeply concerned about the
lot of the poor and disenfranchised. "I used to talk to my dad a lot
about it," said Walt, "And my dad used to love to talk. He loved to
talk to people. He believed people. He thought everyone was as honest
as he was." Listen, too, to Walt's siblings. Said Walt's younger sister
Ruth: "One thing that isn't told was that (my father) was a social
person. Very sociable. He had such a way of grace with people who
came to our house. I always wanted to be like that. I admired him.
His friendliness. Always such a gentleman."
|
Roy, who was eight years older than Walt, put Elias's
temper in context, "He was a strict, hard guy with a great sense of
honesty and decency. He never drank. I rarely even saw him smoke,
even. And he was. . . a good dad. So I don't like him put in the light
of being a brutal or mean dad. That he was not. But when (he hit us
on the back of the head with his hand) that (was) impulse. . . temper.
He wasn't a mean man at all." As for his legendary tight-fistedness,
it seemed to apply mostly to himself. "We had everything we needed
in every way," said Ruth. "He bought a fine piano for me when I was
nine years old. My mother and father gave us every opportunity for
education, and for extra education when we showed interest and talent."
Walt himself reported that "If I wanted to go to the show at night,
the only way I could go was to come and tell my dad it was an educational
picture on there that I wanted to see. And my Dad would shell out."
As for his father's fabled failures, it is true that he had a series
of careers; as a carpenter, farmer, newspaper route owner, and jelly
factory manager. But though he never got rich, he did well enough
all along the way. When he sold his newspaper route, in 1917, to
buy an interest in the O'Zell Company, a jelly manufacturer in Chicago,
he was able to put together $16,000. Consider that in 1917, a man
could easily support his family on $3,000 a year, and it puts that
accomplishment into context!
|
Walt with his baby sister Ruth,
from a photo dating around 1905
|
|
|
|