The Commemorative Edition of one of the most trusted and respected nonfiction books about Walt Disney ever written releases in paperback. It includes 4 commemorative essays; a photo insert with 60+ behind-the-scenes images; and an endnotes section with insights from 15 Disney historians. Walt Disney is an American hero. From Mickey Mouse to Disneyland, he changed the face of American culture. His is a success story like no other: a man who developed animated film into an art form and made a massive contribution to the folklore of the world. After years of research, respected Hollywood biographer Bob Thomas produced this definitive biography of the person behind the legend of Disney.; Inside the Commemorative Edition paperback: • Special essays by Christopher Miller,;Jeff Kurtti,;Marcy Carriker Smothers, and Rebecca Cline and an updated index, from the 2023 hardcover Commemorative Edition • Preface by Bob Thomas;from the;1994 edition • Foreground, 28 chapters, and sources by Bob Thomas;from the;1976 edition • Endnotes excerpting 15 books that have furthered Bob’s research from the;2023 edition • 32-page photo insert with more than 60 behind-the-scenes images from the 2023 edition

Autorentext
BOB THOMAS (1922–2014) is the author of numerous books, including biographies on Fred Astaire; Bing Crosby; Howard Hughes; and Joan Crawford, plus three editions of The Art of Animation (1958–1997) and the 1998 Roy O. Disney biography. He was issued a special commendation at the Disney Legends Awards Ceremony in 2001.

About the Commemorated Edition's Contributors:

• CHRISTOPHER MILLER grew up in southern California, the son of the late Ron and Diane Miller, and grandson of Walt and Lillian Disney. Christopher serves as a board member for The Walt Disney Family Museum and Walt Disney Family Foundation.
• JEFF KURTTI is a prolific author and leading authority on Disney history, with more than 40 volumes to his credit. He has enjoyed a career as an author, writer, producer, and consultant in the motion picture, theater, and themed-design industries.
• MARCY CARRIKER SMOTHERS is the author of the fan favorite Eat Like Walt, a New York Times New & Noteworthy selection in 2018. Her love of all things Disney inspired her to write Walt's Disneyland (2021) and 100 Disney Adventures of a Lifetime (2022).

• REBECCA CLINE, director of the Walt Disney Archives, is charged with collecting and preserving all aspects of Disney history and making the material available to researchers from all areas of the company. Becky also coauthored The Walt Disney Studios (2019) and Holiday Magic at the Disney Parks (2020).

  Leseprobe
  Foreground
   
  “Disneyland isn’t designed just for children. When does a person stop being a child? Can you say that a child is ever entirely eliminated from an adult? I believe that the right kind of entertainment can appeal to all persons, young or old. I want Disneyland to be a place where parents can bring their children—or come by themselves and still have a good time.”
   
  Walt Disney was talking to me as he drove his convertible along a wide boulevard lined with fragrant groves of orange trees. The car’s top was down, but he scarcely seemed to notice the cool April morning. Nor did he appear to be cognizant of the route he had taken from his Burbank studio to downtown Los Angeles and through the sprawling orchards of Orange County; he had traveled the same freeway and streets with regularity for a year. He was intent on describing the pleasure park he was building in Anaheim.
   
  “It all started when my daughters were very young, and I took them to amusement parks on Sunday,” he told me. “I sat on a bench eating peanuts and looking all around me. I said to myself, dammit, why can’t there be a better place to take your children, where you can have fun together? Well, it took me about fifteen years to develop the idea.”
   
  The convertible turned off Harbor Boulevard and entered the vast black expanse which was the Disneyland parking lot. It stretched almost immeasurably, with fresh white hash marks indicating spaces for future parkers; at the extremities, steamrollers were gliding back and forth, smoothing the steaming asphalt. Disney brought his car to a halt in front of the entrance, over which a newly painted railroad station loomed. One of the men awaiting his arrival was Joe Fowler, a plain-spoken ex-admiral who was construction boss for Disneyland.
   
  “How’s it going?” Disney asked.
   
  “Okay,” Fowler replied. “I took a look all around the park this morning, and I think we’ll make the opening all right. Just barely. But we’ll make it.”
   
  “Well, I hope so,” Disney said with a wry grin. “Otherwise we’ll have to paint a lot of signs saying, ‘Watch for the grand opening of this exhibit.’ ”
   
  “I don’t think we’ll have to do that, Walt,” Fowler assured.
   
  “Just in case, I’ve ordered a lot of bunting for the opening,” Disney said. “That’ll cover up what isn’t ready.”
   
  A handsome young Texan, Earl Shelton, said he would fetch a jeep for the inspection tour. Disney leaned against his car and pulled off his shoes and replaced them with brown cowboy boots. He was wearing gray slacks, black sport coat, and a red-checked shirt with a neckerchief bearing the symbol of the Smoke Tree Ranch of Palm Springs. He completed the costume with a white Western-style hat. Disney strode through the passageway under the railroad tracks, glanced around the town square, then climbed the stairs to the train station, with me following him. “This will be a nice shady place for the people to wait for the train,” he said, looking about the bright, airy station. “Look at that detail in the woodwork. We got hundreds of photographs and drawings of railroad stations in the last century, and we copied all the details.” He stood on the platform for a minute and seemed to be envisioning the locomotive huffing into the station with breaths of steam, the passengers anxious to climb aboard.
   
  Shelton was waiting with the jeep at the bottom of the stairs, and Disney and I climbed in. The jeep swung around the square and started idling down Main Street. The buildings were half-painted, and some of the steel superstructure was exposed. But to Walt it seemed the small-town Main Street of his youth, in turn-of-the-century Missouri.
   
  He described what the stores would be like. An ice-cream parlor with marble-topped tables and wire-back chairs. A candy shop, where taffy would be pulled and chocolate fudge concocted in view of the patrons. A music store with gramophones and player pianos and a silent-movie house with six screens.
   
  He talked in flat, matter-of-fact tones that were unmistakably middle-American. When he described how a part of Disneyland would dramatize itself to the customers, he seemed almost transported. The right eyebrow shot up, the eyes gleamed, the mustache waggled expressively. He had used the same persuasion in making fairy tales come to life; now he was telling how the half-finished buildings would soon contribute to the enjoyment of patrons making their way through the park.
   
  The jeep came to a circular park where workmen were straining to lower a huge olive tree into the ground. “This is the hub of Disneyland, where you can enter the four realms,” Disney said. “Parents can sit in the shade here if they want, while their kids go off into one of the other places. I planned it so each place is right o­ the hub. You know, when you go to a world’s fair, you walk and walk un…