Walt Disney (Biography) – Book Review

“Walt Disney: An American Original (Commemorative Edition)” is the biography of Walt Disney, who was active professionally during 1920s-1960s in the US. Initially he was making Cartoon Movies under the banner of Disney Studios, and then he built the Disney Land amusement park.

You may not believe that Walt Disney was from a middle class family in the US, or that his company was in huge debt even until early 1960s – almost three decades after he started making animated movies.

Walt never cared about his finances, that was the domain of his brother Roy – who constantly supported his venture throughout, and even after Walt.

Instead, Walt focused on how to give the best entertainment to people – how much ever that might cost. That led him to think better, and of course – bigger!

Walt faced huge backlashes in his professional life. Imagine, this man goes through both the world wars – serving as an ambulance corp driver during the first world war, and watching his company space being taken over by the Air Force personnel during the second war. His first company, Laughograms, where Mickey Mouse was initially created, went bankrupt.

To add to that, he had huge debts almost throughout his movie making career. Although many of his movies made profits, he would promptly reinvest more into his company to make better animated films. Frankly, it was due to the patience of Bank of America (his main lender) that his company even survived the world war II.

When Walt conceived Disney Land amusement park, the largest and the best amusement park until then, his company was under enormous debt. Banks did not even lend money for that new venture. That didn’t deter him from dreaming big, and of course, achieving big.

In the book it is mentioned that after the enormous success of Disney Land, one day Walt sees a Mercedes Coupe and wishes he could buy one. And then, it strikes him, that he can indeed afford it. By then Walt was already in his 60s!

His life shows that where there is a will, there is a way. And that one doesn’t need a big stash of investment to make big things happen.

Walt Disney: An American Original: Commemorative Edition is the second best biography I read. The best biography I read until now was about Steve Jobs.

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