GoneMovie.com -> Biography Walt Disney including Ub Iwerks Snow White Donald Duck

Ub Iwerks

Ub Iwerks, born in 1901 of Dutch lineage, met Walt Disney in 19?. They decided to set up their own company, the Iwerks-Disney studio. The studio only lasted a month. When Walt set up Laugh-O-gram films in 1922, Ub joined him as chief animator. Several years later when Walt lost the rights to Oswald the lucky rabbit, it was Ub who came to his salvation by helping him to design Mickey Mouse. Ub animated the entire cartoon, Plane crazy, all by himself. Ub left Disney in 1930 for 10 years. When he returned in 1940 he had turned to his first love, cameras and special effects. Ub won two academy awards.

Born 5 december 1901 Chicago USA
Died 15 december 1966 Los Angeles USA

I don't make pictures just to make money.
I make money to make more pictures.

Walt early became interested in drawing, selling his first sketches to neighbors when he was only seven years old. At McKinley High School in Chicago, Disney divided his attention between drawing and photography, contributing to the school paper. At night he attended the Academy of Fine Arts.

He dropped out of high school at the age of 17 to serve in World War I. After serving a year overseas as an ambulance driver, Disney returned in 1919 to Kansas City for an apprenticeship as a commercial illustrator and later made primitive animated advertising cartoons. By 1922, he had set up his own shop in association with Ub Iwerks, whose drawing ability and technical inventiveness were prime factors in Disney's eventual success.

Johnny Cannon, Walt Disney, Bert Gillett, Ub Iwerks, Wilfred Jackson, Les Clark. Carl Stalling, Jack King, Ben Sharpsteen

In August of 1923, Walt Disney left Kansas City for Hollywood with nothing but a few drawing materials. Walt's brother, Roy O. Disney, was already in California. Pooling their resources, they borrowed an additional $500, and set up shop in their uncle's garage. Soon, they received an order from New York for the first Alice in Cartoonland (1923-1926) featurette. After a brief year of Oswald the Rabbit shorts, Disney's lead animator Ub Iwerks created Mickey Mouse in time to capitalized on the coming sound era. Originally schedule to appear on the same bill as The Jazz singer (1929), Mickey's debut in Steamboat Willie (1928) put the Disney Studio in the spotlight.

Disney rapidly expanded his studio facilities to include a training school where a whole new generation of animators developed and made possible the production of the first feature-length cartoon, Snow White (1937). Produced at the unheard cost of $2 million during the depths of the depression, the film is still accounted as one of the great feats and imperishable monuments of the motion picture industry.

During the next five years, Walt completed such other full-length animated classics as Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi. With Seal Island (1948), wildlife films became an additional source of income, and in 1950 his use of blocked funds in England to make pictures like Treasure Island led to what became the studio's major product, live-action films, which practically cornered the traditional "family" market.

Disneyland, launched in 1955 as a gigantic projection of Walt´s personal fantasies in California,soon increased its investment tenfold and entertained. By the middle of its second decade, more than 100 million people, including Presidents, Kings and Queens, and royalty from all over the globe. In 1971, Disney World, in Orlando, Florida, opened. Since then, Disney theme parks have opened in Tokyo and Paris.

Mary Poppins (1964) marked the last big success that Disney would live to enjoy. His commitment and energy helped him become an industrialist whose product was entertainment. His enterprises had garnered him respect, admiration, and a business empire worth over $100 million-a-year.

Trivia