<![CDATA[Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination]]>

false <![CDATA[Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171759188m/118824.jpg 118824 5 Neal Gabler's meticulously researched biography, Walt Disney offers the full story (Gabler is the first writer to gain complete access to the Disney archives) of the American icon. Readers will discover the whole story, witnessing Disney's invention of a "synergistic empire that combined film, television, theme parks, music, book publishing, and merchandise." What fans don't know could fill a book (this book in fact), and we asked Gabler to point out a few of the juicy bits. Read our interview with him, and his "10 Things That May Surprise You" list below. --Daphne Durham <hr noshade="noshade" size="1" class="bucketDivider" /><div class="bucket"> 10 Second Interview: A Few Words with Neal Gabler <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/books/promos/a-plus/disney.author1.jpg" hspace="4" vspace="4" border="0" align="left"> Q: Why Walt Disney? A: When you write about someone as grandiose as Walt Disney, you may tend to get a little grandiose yourself, so forgive me. But I had always set the task for myself to examine the forces that helped define American culture in the twentieth century and those individuals who might be regarded as the architects of the American consciousness. Walt Disney was certainly one of those forces and one of those architects. His visual sensibility is arguably one of the two most important in the last century, along with Picasso's, yet Picasso has received dozens of biographies and Walt Disney had, when I began, not received a single full-scale, fully-annotated biography. I wanted to fill that gap in our cultural studies. I thought that if one could understand Walt Disney, one could go a long way to understanding American popular culture. Q: One thing that strikes you when reading the book is that Walt Disney never had any money. With all his success how is that possible? A: It is astonishing that Walt Disney was always--and I do mean always--in dire financial straits until the opening of Disneyland. The primary reason wasn't that his cartoons weren't making money, because they were--at least until the war in Europe when the loss of that market meant disaster for the features. But even as they were making money, the studio was losing money because Walt was constitutionally incapable of cutting corners, enforcing economies, laying off staff. The only thing about which Walt Disney cared was quality. He thought that quality was the way to maintain his preeminence, though quality also had the psychological advantage of letting him perfect his world. The problem was that quality was expensive. To cite just one example, Walt spent more than a hundred thousand dollars setting up a training program for would-be animators, though even then the return was small because Walt was so picky that very few of the candidates actually qualified to work at the studio. Money meant very little to Walt Disney. It was only a means to an end, never an end in itself. Q: When did Walt first conceive of the idea for Disneyland and what were the initial reactions to the idea? A: It is very difficult to determine exactly when Walt hatched the idea for Disneyland, though he seems to have been thinking about it for a long time, at least since the early 1930s. Certainly by the time he was taking his daughters, Diane and Sharon, to amusement parks on Sunday afternoons in the late 1940s, he had formulated the idea to establish a park that was clean and wholesome and where parents wouldn't be afraid to take their children. The original plan was to build the park on a plot adjacent to the studio in Burbank, where there would be a train, a town square, an Indian village and kiddieland rides, but as Walt's ideas expanded, so did the need for a bigger plot. As for the reactions to his idea, Roy was initially reluctant, as usual, and Walt's wife, Lillian, was firmly opposed, though she had also been opposed to his making Snow White. Still, Walt exaggerated the opposition as a way, I think of elevating his own foresight and determination. In fact, as the plan grew closer to realization, corporations sought to be included as lessees, and even banks, that had been skeptical, became more receptive. When the park opened, it was an instant success. Q: What do you think has been Walt's most lasting impact/legacy on American culture? A: One could answer this question in a dozen different ways depending on one's priorities, but I think his largest bequest is a matter of the American mind. Walt Disney helped change the national consciousness. He got people to believe in the power of wish fulfillment--in their own ability to impose their wills on a recalcitrant reality. That's what Walt Disney did all his life. He managed to replace reality with his illusions--what some people now refer to disparagingly as Disneyfication. He sold us on the idea of control because Walt Disney was himself a master of control. We see the results everywhere--from film to theme parks to virtual reality to virtual politics.</div> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1" class="bucketDivider" /><div class="bucket"> You Don't Know Disney: 10 Things That May Surprise You 1. He is not frozen. His body was cremated, and his ashes are interred at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California, near his studio. 2. Mickey Mouse's original name allegedly was Mortimer but Disney's wife Lillian objected because she thought it too "sissified." 3. Some of the names originally considered for the dwarfs in Snow White were: Deafy, Dirty, Awful, Blabby, Burpy, Gabby, Puffy, Stuffy, Nifty, Tubby, Biggo Ego, Flabby, Jaunty, Baldy, Lazy, Dizzy, Cranky and Chesty. 4. Walt Disney suffered a nervous breakdown in 1931 and descended into depression after the war, concentrating his attention on model trains rather than on motion pictures. 5. Fantasia was the result of a chance meeting between Walt Disney and symphony conductor Leopold Stokowski at Chasen's restaurant. 6. During World War II the Disney studio became a war factory with well over 90% of its production in the service of government training, education and propaganda films. 7. The studio stopped production for six months on Pinocchio because Walt felt the title character wasn't likable enough. During this time he devised the idea of introducing Jiminy Cricket as Pinocchio's conscience. 8. Walt Disney received more Academy Awards than any other individual--32. 9. Disney modeled Mickey Mouse on Charlie Chaplin and that Chaplin later assisted the Disneys by loaning them his financial books so they could determine what kind of proceeds they should be getting from their distributor on Snow White. 10. MGM head Louis B. Mayer once rejected the opportunity to distribute Mickey Mouse cartoons shortly after Walt had invented the character because Mayer said that pregnant women would be frightened by a giant mouse on screen. </div> <hr noshade="noshade" size="1" class="bucketDivider" /><div class="bucket"> 116983 10 4 2006 Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination total:277|5:98|4:110|3:53|2:12|1:4| 277 1117 577 81 4 1 false false Sun Nov 25 11:51:00 -0800 2007 Mon Nov 12 18:33:26 -0800 2007 Sun Nov 25 11:50:23 -0800 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jun 16 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Jan 17 18:58:20 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 17 19:00:10 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu May 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jan 16 17:59:57 -0800 2008 Sun May 18 08:33:31 -0700 2008
Next time I wa...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:50:27 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:50:27 -0800 2009 Neal Gabler, who penned a well-received biography of journalist Walter Winchell and An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, among other books, is the first writer to have complete access to the Walt Disney archives. Much of that wealth of information makes its way into this hefty to...

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That said, while I love books about Filmmaking, the first c...more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Feb 10 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 15 16:53:18 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 24 16:13:01 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jun 25 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 28 10:00:06 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 28 10:03:28 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jul 26 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat May 31 19:00:46 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 28 12:11:01 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Dec 12 20:59:25 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 12 21:02:16 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jan 08 16:59:46 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 08 17:05:05 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 15 14:09:53 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 15 14:12:53 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Sat Aug 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 05 11:59:39 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 05 12:00:53 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Mar 07 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Sep 17 12:37:49 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 17 12:39:12 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sun Sep 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jan 12 15:47:30 -0800 2009 Sun Sep 13 15:50:09 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 22 19:20:40 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 22 19:20:40 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue Dec 30 16:26:55 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 30 16:27:51 -0800 2008 2 0 false false Wed Dec 17 12:57:03 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 30 12:05:45 -0800 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=118824