








|
|
|
|
|
THE EARLY YEARS, 1901-1923
by Katherine and Richard Greene
|
|
Walt's passport photo,
taken in 1918
|
As a child, Walt may have seemed unremarkable.
For the most part his surroundings were little different from those of other
midwestern children. Occasional flashes of brilliance aside, his school experience was not exceptional -- in fact,
he completed only one year of high school. Yet a mysterious combination
of events and relationships turned him into
one of the most successfully creative men of the 20th century. His
father (often unfairly portrayed as an overbearing ogre) provided a model
of gritty determination and resilience. His mother contributed a love
of fun and jokes and a 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 extremely 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.
|
|
History 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. There is 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 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." One time, Walt
said, when he was 14, Elias took him into the basement to teach him
a lesson. "He picked up the hammer," recalled Walt, "and he started to
hit me, and I took the hammer out of his hand. He raised the other arm,
and I held both of his hands. And I just held them there. I was stronger
than he was. I just held them. And he cried. He never touched me after
that."
|
|
|
High drama? Sure.
Truth? Who knows? (It does seem unlikely that the 14-year-old Walt
could have overpowered his angry father.) The whole truth? Absolutely
not. 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 Disney, photographed in Chicago around 1918
|
|
Elias was a fiddler, and he 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 hot 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." He loved to listen, too, to Walt and his 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 tightfistedness, 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,
"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!
|
|
A case can even be made
that Elias' willingness to take risks, to change jobs in an effort to make
a better life for his family, represented the seeds of Walt's own fearless
attitude toward life. In fact, it's deeply evocative of the relationship between
Thomas Edison and his own father. As historian Paul Israel reports, Edison's father "saw every failure as a success, because it channeled his thinking in a more fruitful direction. . . . This sent a very positive message to his son -- that it's OK to fail -- and may explain why he didn't get discouraged if an experiment didn't work out."
|
|
If Walt's father was the source of his courage and self-confidence, his mother, Flora (who has been dealt with somewhat more kindly by biographers and historians), was the source of his humor and love of fun and play. One day Walt brought home a store-bought practical joke called a plate lifter. Simplicity itself, it allowed the joker to force a plate to jiggle up and down from
across the table by simply squeezing a little bulb and forcing air into
a mechanism placed under the plate. "Let's pull that on your father,"
suggested Flora, who proceeded to do so.
|
|
Elias and Flora Disney, photographed around 1920
|
|
That night at dinner, Elias' soup bowl danced around on the table as though enchanted. "My mother was just killing herself laughing," said Walt. "She kept doing this, and finally
my dad said, 'Flora, what is wrong with you? Flora, I've never seen you look
so silly.' So overwhelmed with mirth was Flora that eventually she had to
leave the room. "We had a wonderful mother," said Roy, "that could kid the
life out of my dad when he was peevish."
|
|
Decades later, she was a terrific grandmother as well. "I remember her, as a kid, being fun to play with," recalled Roy's son, Roy E. Disney. "She had a way of getting back on
your level. I remember rolling marbles back and forth in a hallway one time.
She was enjoying it as much as I was." In 1988, Ruth wrote this description
of her mother that goes a long way in summing her up: "She was a great family
manager and very capable in doing anything she undertook. My father liked
to have her take care of all money matters except those requiring participation
by both. She had a very even temperament, never displaying anger or lack of
self-control, yet she held her own in any situation requiring it."
|
|
"Before
her marriage, she had taught school. Her father, Charles Call, who had been
a schoolteacher, was a scholarly, kind, and high-principled man. And her mother,
Henrietta Gross, was described by our mother in this way: 'If I could be half
as good as she was, I would be a very good woman.' Mother did love to read.
She did sewing of every description, making most of our clothes, men's shirts,
quilts, was a great cook, a lover of babies, excellent with children. She
was loved by everyone who knew her."
|
|
A study in contrasts,
Flora and Elias' commitment to one another was doubted by no one. In addition
to raising five children together, they were often partners in business, with
Flora helping Elias design plans for construction projects. Walt was their
fourth child, born on December 5, 1901. He had three older brothers: Roy,
8; Raymond, 10; and Herbert, 12. Two years later, sister Ruth was born. Elias
was working as a carpenter and builder in Chicago. But by the time Walt was
four, Elias and Flora had become concerned that Chicago was no place to raise
children. Then, as Bob Thomas recounts in his biography of Walt, "two
neighborhood boys were arrested for killing a policeman in a car barn robbery.
One was sentenced to Joliet Prison for 20 years, the other to life imprisonment.
'Flora, those two boys are no older than Herb and Ray!' Elias said to his
wife. 'We've got to get out of this cesspool of a city.'"
|
|
From the cesspool they
moved to a tiny town called Marceline that was flowering in the middle of
Missouri thanks to the proximity of the Santa Fe railroad. Elias bought a
45-acre farm there (thus making Walt a "farm" child as opposed to one of
the "city" children who lived a few miles down the road). The Disney's white
frame house was set off by many shades of green. Leaf-heavy weeping willows,
cedars, and majestic silver maples populated the front yard. When the harsh
Missouri winters melted in the face of a gentle spring sun, the fragrance
of grape arbors, berries, peach and plum trees, and apple blossoms mingled
in the air with the promise of fruit to come. In the fall, tree branches were weighed down with crispy red Wolf River apples the size
of grapefruit. It was, in a word, paradise for Walt. He thirstily drank in
life on the farm, his soul nourished in a way that was to provide him with
warm feelings that he tried to communicate for the rest of his life. The idealized
Main Street in Disneyland, the country life depicted in "Old Yeller," even the
fascination with animals that led to the True-Life Adventures all had their
origins on that farm in Marceline.
|
|
In fact, had Walt featured
many of the stories of his life on the farm in his films, critics would have
accused him of presenting an idealized version of life. As he remembered
it, neighbors pitched in selflessly to help one another at harvest time,
wives putting out heaping meals of cornbread, chicken, and pie. All his
life, Walt held the view that this was how people should work together; a
dream from which he was frequently awakened by the disillusioning events
of real life in the film business. Winters, the children skated on a nearby
pond and warmed their hands by a big bonfire. In summertime, they'd go fishing
for catfish and bowheads in a creek. If the day got hot, they'd take off their
clothes and swim.
|
|
Meanwhile, Ruth was always available for fun. She regarded
Walt as the most fascinating of companions -- even when he led her into trouble.
There was, for example, the time he persuaded Ruth that they could use a big
barrel of tar to paint the side of the house. Ruth did have the sense to question
-- at least briefly -- the wisdom of this act. "Will this come off?" she wanted
to know. Ever confident even
then, Walt assured her there would be no problem. Soon thereafter, the two
children discovered that they had permanently marred the house with dry, hard
tar. For years, Flora and Elias reminded the two children of the time they
used tar to paint the house. On other occasions, Walt and Ruth would cut through
the big bull pasture that separated the Disney house from the open fields
where they played. Before they were halfway to safety, the children invariably
heard the bull snorting. When they made it across, Ruth collapsed in a panting
heap -- safe for the moment. On the way home, she knew Walt would have her
running from that bull again.
|
|
Throughout his life, Walt
retained loving memories of the adults in Marceline. His inquisitive
nature and expressive brown eyes attracted an unusual number of older friends.
These were people like Erastus Taylor, a Civil War veteran who regaled Walt
with dramatic battle stories of Shiloh and Bull Run. Or L.I. Sherwood, a retired
doctor who enjoyed young Walt's company. They presented an odd couple as
they walked the streets of Marceline, the elderly doctor in his black Prince
Albert frock coat and the young boy bouncing by his side. Doc Sherwood won
Walt's everlasting gratitude by paying him 25 cents to draw a picture of his
horse, Rupert. Family was ever-present. Grandma Disney was energetic, even
into her 70s. Walt always had a fond memory of the time she encouraged
him to sneak into a neighbor's yard to filch some turnips. "She loved turnips,"
he said.
|
|
His mother's brother-in-law,
Mike Martin, was a railroad engineer. Walt happily anticipated his arrival
behind the throttle of the powerful locomotive when it came roaring into town.
Sometimes Uncle Mike would even bring along a striped bag of candy for the
children. In this relationship was likely born Walt's lifelong love of trains,
a love that, in part, led to the building of Disneyland. One of Elias' brothers,
Uncle Ed, was "a little slow," the relatives said. He would just show up from
time to time and stay with the Disneys. His childlike approach to life may
have been the subject of whispers among family members, but Walt loved this
uncle who enjoyed playing children's games.
|
|
Yet
another brother of Elias' was Uncle Robert, a fastidiously dressed
man who always had a cigar in his mouth. Robert did well in
business and would be a source of cash for Walt in his early years
in the cartoon business. Robert's wife, Aunt Margaret, had a special
place in Walt's life. "When she'd come she loved us kids, and she'd
always bring something for my sister and me. And she'd bring me big
tablets -- Crayola things -- and I'd always draw Aunt Margaret
pictures and she'd always rave over them."
|
|
Unfortunately, paradise
for Walt became a sort of purgatory for his oldest brothers, Herb
and Raymond. Their father paid them nothing for their back-breaking
labor on the farm. In fact, even when they worked on neighboring
farms to pick up a little extra cash, Elias had them add it to the
family's coffers to help pay debts.
|
|
In 1908, Herbert and
Ray snuck out of the house and left for Chicago. Some writers have described
them as "running away from home." But they were 16 and 18
years old, men by the standards of the time. This was hardly running away,
any more than a 22-year-old could be said to run away from home in the 1990s!
Still, their departure was painful for Elias. Roy was his only farmhand.
|
|
Meanwhile,
Elias, tough and hardy though he was, suffered while enduring recurring
bouts of chills and fever that stemmed from a case of malaria in his 20s.
The last straw came in 1910, when he came down with typhoid fever. Flora was
terrified. Typhoid fever was a member of a hellish club whose roster also
included tuberculosis, cholera, and diphtheria; together these diseases killed hundreds of thousands
of adults and children in those days.
|
|
Young Walt and his sister, Ruth,
around 1910
|
Walt and Ruth were too young to be alarmed. Flora would hold orange slices up to Elias' dry lips, and the children regarded him jealously. "Those orange slices looked so wonderful to me, I almost wished I was sick so I could have some too," Ruth remembered. The family was fortunate. Elias survived. But he knew that he could never again hope to make a big success out of the farm. So it was sold for $5,175, and Elias invested in a newspaper route, delivering the "Kansas City Star" to some 2,000 customers.
|
|
Flora and Elias rented
a house in Marceline so the children could finish their school year. In the
summer of 1911, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri. When they first
arrived they rented some rooms a couple of blocks from an amusement area
called Fairmont Park. Built by Arthur E. Stilwell, a railroad baron, Fairmont
Park was an enchanting, fountain-filled, colorful place with a dining room
that sat 600 and a lecture hall for 2,000. It was far enough
from downtown Kansas City that visitors had to use Stilwell's railroad to
get there.
|
|
But for Walt and Ruth
it was a short walk away -- and an endless frustration. As Ruth recalled, "It
was a fairyland that you couldn't get into. All the fencing around it was
white . . . We never dreamed there could be such an interesting-looking place.
Walt and I used to go there and peek in all we could. But we didn't get in,
ever . . . and then we moved away." It's probably no coincidence that the boy
who couldn't afford the admission to fairyland as a child would spend most
of his adult life creating fantasies for others -- and most notably Disneyland. To
be sure, as much as Marceline was a place of magic for Walt, Kansas City was
home to exhausting reality. Elias counted on Walt and Roy to work
on his newspaper route, a job very distant from the lot of modern suburban
newsboys. In fact, Walt's descriptions of his newspaper work sound like something
out of Dickens. He was awakened in the middle of the night to deliver
papers for two hours before school. Afternoons, he took on the same task for
another two hours. He had few toys, and "there would be kids' toys out on
these big porches. . . . I'd go up and put my paper bag down and go up and
play with these . . . wind-up trains. I'd sit there and play all alone with
them. Then I'd have to run like the dickens to catch up." Meanwhile,
rising at 3:00 or 3:30 in the morning, he was desperate for a little more
sleep. "I'd say, if I could just lay down for five minutes, if I could just
lay down for five minutes, you know?"
|
|
Elias insisted on quality
work -- every paper had to be delivered behind the storm door. So, as Walt
told the story, "I remember those icy cold days of crawling up these icy steps .
. . crawling up and slipping and sliding and crying, you know? Crying -- I was
all alone, I could cry. There was nobody around. I was so darn cold, I'd slip
and I could cry, so I cried." In his six years delivering papers, Walt had
four weeks off. Two weeks were for a trip the family took to visit relatives.
The other two were when he accidentally jammed a horseshoe nail hidden by
a chunk of ice into his foot. Of course, Elias wasn't paying Walt anything
for his labor. And while he was willing to provide money for educational experiences,
he was disinclined to part with pennies for the little pleasures of life that
Walt craved: little toys, candies, and movies. So Walt picked up odd jobs
during his few free hours. He ran deliveries for the drug store and worked
in the candy store during recess. He sold newspapers on the streetcar after
he had finished his regular route. Elias confiscated the cash he earned selling
those papers, so Walt secretly ordered another 50 papers a day, which he
sold without his father's knowledge.
|
|
This childhood experience
developed a work ethic in Walt that would wear out all but the sturdiest of
staff members. He rarely slept a full eight hours. He was never content with
anything less than the best he could do and was impatient with workers who
didn't give 100% of their effort. "I've been a slave driver," he admitted.
"Sometimes I feel like a dirty heel the way I pound, pound, pound." At home,
however, he was a very different man. Of course, it's impossible to know if
he was thinking about his own arduous childhood as he raised his daughters,
Diane and Sharon. But it's abundantly clear that he believed that their childhood
should be a time for fantasy, for play and education. While he was stingy
with praise at the studio, at home he was most generous. "If I was in a play,
no matter how bad I was, he'd say, 'You did a great job, kid,'" recalled Sharon.
|
|
The exhausting job of
delivering newspapers left Walt with little energy for school. In fact, his
entire formal education -- which was to end after only one year of high school
-- was a peculiar mixture of sleepwalking indifference and occasional spurts
of brilliance that surprised all around him. Many days, he could barely stay
awake. His grades were often poor. One teacher arranged the children's seats
according to their intellect. In what must go down in history alongside Albert
Einstein's famously mediocre school career, Walt was placed in a chair near
the back door; the teacher had labeled him the "second dumbest" in the class.
To make matters worse, he had to repeat second grade when he arrived in Kansas
City (teachers there didn't think Marceline had provided a sufficient education).
He had started school late in Marceline, and as a result he was older than
most of the other children in his class, doubtless a humiliation.
|
|
The Disney home on 3028 Bellefontaine Avenue in Kansas City
|
|
In the fifth
grade, however, he memorized the Gettysburg Address for fun(!) and surprised
everyone by arriving at school dressed as the 16th president of the United
States. In addition to a costume that consisted of Elias' old coat and a homemade
beard, he pasted a putty wart to his cheek. Miss Olson, Walt's teacher,
was delighted, and summoned the principal to see his act. Walt was then shepherded
around to perform for every class in the school -- and repeated the performance
the following year. "Miss Olson always said I was going to be a real actor because
I squinted my eyes on certain passages," Walt reported proudly. Walt enjoyed
recognition and applause. He had been bitten by the acting bug.
|
|
At about this
time -- Walt was now a teenager -- the Disneys moved to a bigger house, at
3028 Bellefontaine in Kansas City. As luck would have it, Walt's love for
performing was shared by a neighbor named Walt Pfeiffer -- Walt's first really
good friend. The two boys studied Charlie Chaplin's movies and tried to emulate
the world-famous clown in a series of skits they worked out. They were
encouraged in this pursuit by the Pfeiffer clan, a large, fun-loving family
that enjoyed singing around the piano and telling jokes. They performed at
school every chance they got.
|
|
Walt assumed his father
would never permit him to participate in amateur-night contests in Kansas
City, so he snuck out at night to join in. As it happened, Elias was somewhat
more open-minded than the boy knew. "One time Roy got wind that Walt was going
to be in an amateur night somewhere," recalled Ruth. "So we all hurried down
to the theater and sure enough he was acting like Charlie Chaplin. According
to us, he was the best. But he didn't win the prize." It's worth noting
that this was just one of the occasions when Elias supported Walt's artistic
bent. As Walt began to explore his knack for art as well as performing, Elias
agreed to pay for Sunday classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. Walt enjoyed
drawing -- and he was good at it. So good, in fact, that he often ignored
his lessons in favor of sketching. His notebooks were littered with scrappy
little mice. Classmates were particularly entertained by Walt's own versions
of a popular comic strip of the time, Maggie and Jiggs. "He wouldn't just
copy what was in the newspaper either," recalled one classmate, still with
an admiring tone in his voice some 60 years after the fact.
|
|
Now in the seventh grade,
Walt had a great stroke of good luck. He was given Daisy A. Beck as his homeroom and math teacher. By all reports from men and women who recalled Beck's
years teaching, she was not just a good teacher, she was extraordinary. A
slender, tall, elegant woman with a taste for stylish clothing, Beck was coach
of the school's track team at a time when a female coach was about as commonplace
as a harp-playing horse. She spoke softly, slowly, and with perfect
grammar to her students. Decades later a cadre of former students living in
Kansas City remembered her with the greatest affection. (One woman in her 80s
recalled Beck as "very much a favorite of the boys." Accordingly, a couple
of the men recalled, with the happy glint of memory, that she certainly had
a "good build.")
|
|
Walt was never much
for athletics. As his brother Roy recalled, "He could never catch a ball with
much certainty." But Daisy A. Beck encouraged him to try out for the
track team. "Hop out there at recess and show me what you can do,"
she said. Walt learned how to sprint and even won a medal on the relay team
at the school's annual track meet. Perhaps her greatest gift was that of "unconditional
acceptance," as a great-nephew of hers recalls. She realized that Walt's indifference
toward school was not indicative of a lack of intellect, but that he was often
worn out by his many activities. She did not react to his dozing in class
with the slap of a ruler on his knuckles; she let him sleep if he needed to.
No pushover, Beck did once slap Walt on the cheek when he brought a live mouse
into the classroom. But as Walt wrote to her in 1940, "What a wallop you had!
But I loved you all the more for it." With patience, she encouraged his artwork
-- inviting him to draw Maggie and Jiggs or Mutt and Jeff on the blackboard
for the pleasure of his classmates on Friday afternoons. Walt would create
his drawings while telling stories about the characters. Beyond this encouragement,
she tried to focus his mind elsewhere. "You've got to have something in your
brain," she told him. "You can draw all you like -- after you've finished
your arithmetic work."
|
|
For years Walt and his seventh-grade teacher traded letters, a
correspondence initiated by Walt in 1931. Even as Walt became an international
celebrity, a letter from his seventh-grade teacher was greeted with
excitement. Walt Pfeiffer, who went on to work for Walt in the studio,
recalled, "Walt would get a letter from her and he'd call me up and ask
me if . . . I could come in. He said, 'I want to show you something.' It'd
be a letter from Daisy A. Beck; that's how she always signed her name."
|
|
Daisy A. Beck,
Walt's seventh-grade teacher
|
In June 1917, Walt graduated
from the seventh grade at Benton School and surprised his parents by delivering
a patriotic speech. Ruth led the graduation procession (a position due more to her
diminutive size than anything else.) Meanwhile, through the graduation
exercises Walt drew pictures in his fellow-students' class books.
|
|
Not only was Walt done
with grammar school, he was also finished delivering newspapers. Elias had
been successful with his newspaper route and had been steadily investing
in a jelly firm in Chicago, the O'Zell Company. Now he sold his route and
brought his stake in the firm to some $16,000. It was time to go to Chicago
to oversee his investment and become the head of the company's plant construction
and maintenance. The investment, however, would turn out to be an unfortunate
one. An unscrupulous company president embezzled corporate resources, and
the company was bankrupt by 1920. But when Elias had made his investment it had made good sense.
He thought that there was a big future in bottled carbonated beverages
like Coca-Cola, and O'Zell had developed just such a product. Once again, although
Elias may not have had great luck, a fair observer has to admire the courage
he had in his own ideas -- a trait thoroughly shared by his famous son.
|
|
Flora,
Elias, and Ruth left for Chicago. For a short time, while the man who bought
the newspaper route from Elias took a vacation, Walt became "the boss of the
route," supervising the other newsboys. He stayed with his oldest brother,
Herbert, Herb's wife, Louise, their two-year-old daughter, Dorothy, and of course
Roy. It was Roy who came up with a great idea for Walt's summer. "Kid," he
said, "I think you ought to go and be a news butcher. It would be very educational
for you." Of course at 15, Walt was too young for the job of selling newspapers,
candy, and soda on the Santa Fe Railroad. So he simply lied about his age,
and the next thing he knew he was happily dressed in a shiny blue uniform
with brass buttons. After years of grueling work for Elias, this job was heavenly.
He visited faraway places and met interesting people. And the 15-year-old learned a little about the world. "I got to Pueblo, Colorado," Walt recalled.
"This fellow says, 'You ever been to Pueblo, Colorado?' I said, 'No.' He gave
me a card. He said, 'Here's a good place to stay.' He said, 'You'll like it
there. You go over there and they're wonderful people.'
|
|
"So I went over there
and I looked this place up. When I went up to the place, it was a house, you
see? And I went up and I rang the doorbell and this woman came to the door. . . . There was a piano there and everything. And pretty soon I heard some laughter
upstairs. She says, 'Let me get you some beer, son.' So she went out for a
can of beer. And pretty soon, down the stairs came this guy and this dame,
and they were laughing and everything else. Well, I was pretty naive, but
I soon caught on to where the hell I was, you see? Then I got out of there
as fast as I could drink the beer."
|
|
Unfortunately, Walt was no businessman.
He was shortchanged, and cheated by suppliers. Once all his candy was stolen,
and another time he accidentally lost the soda bottles that he was supposed
to return. By summer's end, he had forfeited Roy's $15 deposit. But Walt wasn't
disappointed. He was never really in any job for the money. Sometimes he did
things for the experience. Other times he took opportunities to create something
new. But never was the cash his overriding concern. This was why -- in later
years -- his relationship with Roy was so important. After summer's end, Walt
rejoined his parents and sister in Chicago, where he attended the McKinley
School for one year -- at least physically. His mind was generally in a million
places other than school. Three nights a week, he attended the Chicago Institute
of Art, where he got formal training in cartooning from local illustrators.
He was able to utilize that training in cartoons he drew for the school newspaper.
|
|
Many of those drawings
displayed Walt's patriotic tendencies and his interest in the First World
War. He was hard-pressed to think about English or algebra while the world
was being saved from the forces of evil in Europe. In the words of the George
M. Cohan song, he yearned to be "over there." His brother Roy was in the navy,
and that only intensified his desire to be fighting on the front lines. But
Walt was still far too young for the military. So he went to school and helped
his father at the O'Zell Company, running the bottle washer and the machine
that mashed apples. One night he unhappily served as an extremely jittery
night watchman. He was dating a young girl named Beatrice at the time. Though
history has lost all but a few fragments of the relationship, a letter
she wrote Walt after he had become famous sheds a little light: "Do you
remember the fun we used to have at school?" she wrote in 1933. "Remember
the night we sat in Virginia's morris chair and told ghost stories? Remember
Humboldt Park?" The reference to Humboldt Park is cryptic; but for generations
young men and women used that dark, tree-filled part of the city as a safe
outpost for necking.
|
|
The summer of 1918, Walt
lied about his age and got a job with the post office. He had a brush with
death that summer -- but not fighting under General Pershing. The post office
in Chicago was bombed; four men were killed and 30 wounded. A mailman who
worked only a couple of desks from Walt was among the deceased. Walt had missed
being in that exact spot by only a few minutes.
|
|
Flora's letter, in which Walt expertly changed his December 16 birthdate from 1901 to 1900
|
Meanwhile, Walt was trying
to enlist in the army, navy, marines -- anyplace. But they wouldn't accept
any 16-year-olds. The Red Cross Ambulance Corps would take 17-year-olds, so that seemed like his best shot. It required adding only one
year to his age. Walt asked his parents to sign the necessary paperwork, and
Elias refused. But Flora gave in to her headstrong son and signed the paperwork
for both herself and Elias. Then Walt made the necessary changes to add a
year to his age. Thus he found himself living in a tent near the University
of Chicago, getting training in motors and ambulance driving.
|
|
When he was so close to being shipped
overseas that he could almost smell the gunpowder, yet another historical
event touched Walt's life -- the flu epidemic of 1918. More than 20 million
people would die of the flu in those years, and Walt came close to joining
them. He was sent home, where Flora nursed him to health -- even after she
got the flu herself. They recovered, but not in time for Walt to rejoin his
unit; his friends had shipped out. He was sent to another unit, based in Sound
Beach, Connecticut. But then, on November 11, the war ended. "We were so darn
naive," Walt recalled of his disappointment at the war's end. "We didn't know
what it meant. We just knew that we'd missed out on something." Then, in a
stroke of something that only a 16-year-old could possibly regard as
luck, the Red Cross shipped 50 more men over to Europe for cleanup operations.
Walt was one of the 50, and the next thing he knew, he was aboard a cattle
boat called the "Vauban," on his way to France.
|
|
His memories of the
trip overseas again betray the heedless sense of indestructibility that is
the special province of the young. "We were sleeping down there in the ship
and there was a lot of TNT and everything," he said. "It could have blown
us up anytime. . . . We said, 'Gee, this is thrilling!'" On December 4 -- just
a day short of Walt's 17th birthday (when he would actually catch up to the
age on his passport) -- Walt arrived in France. The next day, by way of initiation,
Walt's friends held a big birthday bash for him at a bistro in St. Cyr. The
wine flowed like water. But when the time came to pay the tab, Walt discovered
that he was all alone. His limited resources were drained to pay for his own
party.
|
|
Walt was soon transferred
to Paris, where he made deliveries and chauffeured officers. In off times,
he played poker, developed his lifelong addiction to cigarettes, and wrote
letters home -- including many to Beatrice. One of the most persistent myths
about Walt Disney is that he was dishonorably discharged from the army. Notwithstanding
the fact that he was never in the army and was most certainly not discharged
from it, that story most likely originated in an incident that occurred a few months later. Here is Walt's recollection of it, with only repetitions
and superfluous language omitted: "It was in February. . . . They sent me with
a white truck. I was the driver, and I had a helper. A white truck loaded with
beans and sugar to the devastated area in Soissons. Well, I went out of Paris
and it started to snow. I got up partway and I burned out a bearing on the
truck. . . . Finally I think the whole connecting rod came loose. And I did
get it around the corner by a little watchman's shanty in a railroad, and
the town was only about three miles away then. . . . So the orders were never
to leave your truck. Sugar and beans were gold. So the helper was then supposed
to go. The idea was I'd stay with the truck and here was this little watchman's
shed. . . . And I sat with the watchman. I sat two nights and no help came.
And I was dead. . . . We carried a big loaf of bread. We carried some canned
beef and we carried hunks of cheese, you know, or chocolate. So I ate that
and I shared it with the watchman. . . . So the third day I was so tired,
so sleepy, and I was getting hungry. And I left my truck and walked up to this
town and ordered a meal. Then I got a bed and I flopped into this French bed.
And I flopped into there and I slept clear around the clock. Right around
to that next morning."
|
|
Walt with other members of the Red Cross Ambulance Corps in France
|
"And then I went back and my truck was gone. . . . I didn't know what had
happened. . . . And then I got a train into Paris. When I got into Paris,
I found out the story. This helper got into Paris. . . . He went out that
night before he reported to the headquarters . . . and got drunk, and he
was drunk for two days. Then he finally reported and he came to find me.
I was gone and he picked up the truck. So I was court-martialed. They
brought me up before this board, and . . . the greatest disgrace would
be to be kicked out of the Red Cross, you know. . . ." Then this fellow that
I had worked for . . . came to my defense. . . . He was almost like my attorney.
He said, 'Look, this boy sat there for two nights.' He said, 'What happened
to the helper?' He said, 'Have you court-martialed the helper?' They said,
'Yes.' He was in the brig. So they let me off."
|
|
Nothing quite so
dramatic happened to Walt the rest of his time in France. He did, however,
make a few dollars with his artwork, creating decorations for the men
in his outfit. Ultimately he worked with a somewhat dishonest young fellow
who sold faked "sniper" helmets to Americans. His job was to shoot bullet
holes into new German helmets he had somehow procured. Walt's job was
to paint them with fake camouflage colors and then bang them up to make
them look like authentic, battle-scarred helmets. It was fortunate that
Walt was able to make some money this way; the cartoons he was sending
home to magazines were being rejected as quickly as he could draw them. When
it was time to come home, Walt stocked up on blouses, French perfume, and
other presents for Beatrice. But when he arrived back in Chicago, he discovered
she had gotten married while he was away -- and had never mentioned a
word of it in her letters. "I never even went to see her," Walt recalled.
"I gave the blouses and perfume and all the presents to my sister-in-law.
I was through with women."
|
|
Responding to Beatrice's
1933 letter, Walt wrote, "I still remember and appreciate those letters
you wrote so faithfully to me while I was in France. It was quite lonesome
over there and a newsey [sic] letter from you was more than welcome. I
also remember how greatly surprised I was when I returned to find you
had married. I think my pride must have been hurt and that might account
for my leaving Chicago for Kansas City without seeing you."
|
|
Even more bad
news greeted Walt on his homecoming. Elias had found Walt a great job
at O'Zell. "I said, 'Dad, I don't want that kind of a job.' And he says,
'Well, what do you want to do?' And I said, 'I want to be an artist.'
And my dad, he just couldn't buy that thing. He thought that was a very
risky thing to go out and do something with that." But Walt was adamant.
He described his reaction as "pulling stakes" and moving to Kansas City.
|
|
It was hardly such
a risk. Walt moved back in to the old family home on Bellefontaine with
Herbert and Roy while he tried to get a job drawing for the "Kansas City
Star." That didn't work out -- but he did get a job at the Pesmen-Rubin
Commercial Art Studio. When Louis Pesmen offered the 18-year-old
a position drawing horses, cows, and bags of feed for farm equipment catalogues,
Walt was so happy he didn't even ask about the salary (as always, that
was the last thing on his mind). The first week at his drawing board he
worked his head off. On Friday, when one of the bosses approached him,
Walt was afraid he was going to be fired. Instead he was told he'd be
getting the grand sum of $50 a month. "I could have kissed him," said
Walt.
|
|
The first thing
Walt did after getting the job was to seek out his favorite aunt -- Margaret
Disney, who had encouraged his drawing way back in Marceline. "She was
getting old and she had some kind of a thing that made it hard for her
to get around," said Walt. "I don't know just what it was. But I thought
the first one I should tell was Auntie. And I went down to see Auntie.
And I went in and Auntie was pretty sick. And all I wanted to tell her
was, 'Auntie, look, they're paying me to draw pictures! They're paying
me money to draw pictures!' And Auntie was so sick, she didn't get
much enthusiasm for it and everything. And it was kind of a heartbreak
to me that . . . she couldn't share it. She died shortly after that. But
I thought that Auntie would be happy to know that after all that encouragement
she gave me that somebody was paying me $50 to draw pictures."
|
|
While at Pesmen-Rubin
Walt made friends with a quiet, talented young man named Ubbe Iwwerks
(who was later to change the spelling to Ub Iwerks). Walt took many things
away from his first job, confidence in his drawing skills among them,
but perhaps most important was his relationship with Ubbe. Around Christmas,
with business slacking off, Louis Pesmen laid Walt off, and he went to
work for the post office for a while. Shortly thereafter, Ubbe and Walt
visited. Ubbe, too, had been laid off. Unlike Walt, he was supporting his
mother and had to start making money -- quickly. When Walt suggested they
go into business together, Ubbe jumped at the chance. They called the
firm Iwwerks-Disney because the other way around would have made it sound like an eyeglass
store. The business was never terribly successful, and when Walt had a
chance to leave for a job with Kansas City Slide Company (soon renamed
Kansas City Film Ad Company), he did so. Ubbe joined him there weeks later.
|
|
Walt at his drawing table at the Kansas City Film Ad company around 1920
|
|
It was at Kansas City
Film Ad that Walt got his indoctrination into early cartoon-making. He learned
still more with a borrowed camera at home, and soon enough had begun his first
real cartoon studio, Laugh-O-gram Films. His home life while he was at Kansas City
Film Ad was -- to put it mildly -- crowded. In the summer of 1920, after O'Zell's
bankruptcy, Flora, Elias, and Ruth moved back to their Kansas City house. Roy
had returned after the war. Herbert and Louise couldn't afford their
own home on the pay he got as a mail carrier in those days. So, along with
little Dorothy, they shared the house as well. It was not a big house to begin
with, and eight people were too many. Only brother Ray was now away from home,
traveling and working in Canada. But despite the cramped
conditions, it was a happy home. "There was always a lot of kidding going
on," said Ruth. "I remember the first date I had. I had the phonograph
going. Then when the doorbell rang, my three brothers were all in the room,
and suddenly they went creeping out of there with grins on their faces. After
a bit Walt came in and sat down. He said, 'I'd like to see what kind of fella
my sister is going out with.'"
|
|
Working on his career and surrounded by family,
it must have come as a shock to Walt when both seemed to fall apart. In 1921,
Herbert moved to Portland, Oregon, with Louise and Dorothy for a new post
office job. Then, doctors found that Roy had tuberculosis. "He lost so much
weight you wouldn't know him," said Ruth. "Everyone was very alarmed. It was
very hard to cure it at that time." Roy was sent to a government hospital
in Arizona to recover. As if that wasn't enough, Flora and Elias decided that
they would join Herbert in Oregon. After all, this was where their only married
child and granddaughter lived. They packed their bags and brought young Ruth
with them to Portland.
|
|
Said Ruth, "When Walt
took us to the train . . . I never knew Walt's emotions much, but he suddenly
couldn't keep his face straight. He suddenly turned and left. He was upset.
Very upset. He realized, I know, that he was going to be alone then." Walt
rented a small room and threw himself into his work. But though Laugh-O-gram Films
was an incredible learning experience, it was never a money-maker. After a
while Walt couldn't pay himself, so he moved into his office. He slept on
a bunch of old canvas on the floor and ate at the coffee shop downstairs,
until finally the shop's generous owner cut off his credit. Then he was reduced
to eating beans from a can, and leftover bread. Typically, Walt didn't complain
to his family. Also typically, Roy came to the rescue. When he hadn't heard
from his younger brother for a while, he figured he had troubles. "Kid, I
haven't heard from you, but I just have a suspicion that you could use a little
money," he wrote. "I am enclosing a check. Fill it out for any amount up to
30 dollars." Naturally, Walt took $30. Though there were some successful
moments at Laugh-O-gram Films, even Walt soon had to give up. In July 1923
he sold his movie camera. Bearing a frayed cardboard suitcase and a print
of an unfinished film called "Alice's Wonderland," he headed for California.
"I was just free and happy," he said. "I was 21 years old, going on 22."
|
|
|
|
|