[close] Walter Elias Disney was a multiple Academy Award-winning American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Disney is notable as one of the most influential and innovative figures in the field of entertainment during the twentieth century. As the co-founder (with his brother Roy O. Disney) of Walt Disney Productions, Disney became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation he co-founded, now known as The Walt Disney Company, today has annual revenues of approximately U.S. $35 billion.

Disney is particularly noted for being a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He received sixty-four Academy Award nominations out of which he won on twenty-six occasions.[2] He holds the record for an individual with the most awards and the most nominations. Disney has also won seven Emmy Awards. Disney and his staff created a number of the world's most famous fictional characters, including the one many consider Disney's alter ego, Mickey Mouse. He is also well-known as the namesake for Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States, France, Japan and China.

Disney died of lung cancer on December 15, 1966, a few years prior to the opening of his Walt Disney World dream project in Orlando, Florida.

Walt Disney Company and its multiple subsidiaries carry on his entertainment legacy. [close]