20 facts about Walt Disney that even his biggest fans may not know

Walt Disney is one of the most legendary Americans in entertainment history.

A century ago, Walter “Walt” Disney and his brother, Roy Disney, co-founded Walt Disney Productions, which became one of the best-known and revered motion-picture production companies in the world.

During his lifetime, the innovative animator and television producer won many Academy Awards and founded theme parks Disneyland and Disney World.

Here are a few things about Walt Disney that even his biggest fans might not know.

Joanna Fantozzi and Melissa Wells contributed to an earlier version of this report.

Disney was born in 1901 on the second floor of a wooden cottage designed and built by his parents in Chicago.

He was the fourth child of Elias Disney, a carpenter, and his wife, Flora. 

It’s widely reported that it cost them $800 to build the house, which was not an insignificant sum as Elias Disney was making a dollar a day.

The house still stands today and has been restored to how it looked when the Disney family lived there.

Disney was a high-school dropout.

When he was 16, Disney dropped out of high school to try to enlist in the Army. As he was underage, he was rejected and volunteered with the Red Cross instead.

Before founding his studio, he worked as an artist for a Kansas City advertising agency.

When he returned to the US after serving in the Red Cross in Europe, Disney found work as a cartoonist in a Kansas City advertising agency.

His first animation studio went bankrupt in less than a year.

In 1920, Disney started his first animation studio, Laugh-O-Gram, in Kansas City, Missouri, where he produced animated cartoons based on fairy tales.

Shortly after completing the short film “Alice in Cartoonland,” in 1923, he filed for bankruptcy and moved to California.

Contrary to popular belief, he did not actually design the final version of Mickey Mouse.

Even though many think of Walt and Mickey as partners, Walt did not actually create the final design of Mickey Mouse, Disney archivist Dave Smith wrote in “Disney Trivia from the Vault: Secrets Revealed and Questions Answered.”

Walt provided initial sketches and ideas for the famous rodent, but it was Walt Disney Studios animator Ub Iwerks who animated the Mickey we know and love today.

Walt reportedly never even drew Mickey unless a fan specifically requested it for an autograph, Smith wrote.

But he did voice the iconic character for nearly two decades.

In 1929 through the mid-1940s, Walt Disney was actually the voice of Mickey Mouse. The famous mouse has been voiced by several other individuals since.

At one time, Disney was the only person allowed to make a cartoon in full Technicolor.

In 1932, Disney produced the first-ever full-color Technicolor cartoon, “Flowers and Trees.”

He had exclusive rights to use the new three-color animation process from then until the end of 1935, Variety reported.

All other color cartoons had to be made using the out-of-date two-color process.

Disney was laughed at for wanting to create a feature-length animated film.

It’s hard to imagine a time when animated films were considered a ridiculous concept, but when Walt Disney set out to create the first feature-length cartoon in 1937 — “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” — he was laughed at.

The project became known in the industry as “Disney’s Folly,” per the Sheboygan County Historical Society Museum. 

But he surprised everyone when “Snow White” premiered to packed houses, and Disney won an honorary Academy Award (and eight Oscar statuettes: one normal-sized and seven dwarf-sized) for the breakthrough project.

The tables soon turned — he still holds the record for most Academy Award wins ever.

Walt Disney won a record 22 Academy Awards throughout his career and still holds the record for the most Oscars won by an individual.

Disney and his studio worked for the United States government during World War II to create propaganda cartoons.

During World War II, Disney and his studio shifted the focus of their filmmaking to create training, propaganda, and health films for the US government.

Many of the propaganda films were cartoons featuring beloved Disney characters like Donald Duck.

He received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon B. Johnson.

President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Disney the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964.

The American Presidency Project reported that President Johnson described Disney as an “artist and impresario, in the course of entertaining an age, he has created an American folklore.”

Disney created a railroad in his own backyard.

In the 1950s, after moving into the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles, Disney laid tracks around his property to build a railroad.

Named Carolwood Pacific Railroad after the street he lived on, he would even dress up sometimes and give visitors rides on it.

His passion for trains found its way into his Disney parks, as Disneyland has been home to its own railroad since opening in 1955.

Supposedly, he came up with the idea of Disneyland while watching his daughters ride a merry-go-round.

Disney often took his daughters to Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

As the story goes, during one of these visits, while he was sitting on a park bench watching his daughters ride the merry-go-round, he thought of creating a large-scale park where families could enjoy multiple attractions in one place. 

Later, this would be Disneyland. The supposed park bench itself is on display at The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco.

Disney kept his identity secret when buying the land that would become Disney World.

By the mid-1960s, with the success of Disneyland reaching exponential heights, rumors swirled that Disney was looking to create an “East Coast Disneyland.”

While looking for a location for his next theme-park venture, he stumbled upon the ideal swamplands around Orlando.

In order to keep his purchase of 27,000 acres a secret, Disney created fake shell companies like Tomahawk Properties and the appropriately named M.T. Lott Co. to keep his identity hidden, the LA Times reported.

He based the design of Main Street, USA, on the main street in his hometown in Missouri.

Although Main Street, USA, in Disneyland and Disney World is supposed to represent every-town Americana, Walt drew inspiration from his childhood hometown of Marceline, Missouri.

He lived there from ages 5 to 9 after the family moved from Chicago. According to the town’s official website, Disney was specifically inspired by Kansas Avenue.

Disney had a secret apartment above the firehouse on Main Street.

One of the worst-kept “secrets” in Disneyland is Walt’s apartment, located above the fire department on Main Street.

Back then, it was where the Disney family would go to get work done without being disturbed or to entertain high-profile Disneyland guests.

Today, guests can pay to tour it.

He and his team invented audio-animatronics, and the first was on display at the 1964 World’s Fair.

If you’ve ever been to a Disney theme park, you’ve likely seen many audio-animatronics. These human-like robots can blink, talk, move, and even — as later models demonstrate — interact with guests.

The first audio-animatronic was an Abraham Lincoln figurine, created specifically for the 1964 World’s Fair, which later became the basis for Disney’s Hall of Presidents, The Orange County Register reported.

Disney’s housekeeper, whom he called the “real-life Mary Poppins,” died a multimillionaire thanks to the stocks he gave her every year.

Thelma Howard was the Disney family’s longtime housekeeper, who became an important part of the family throughout her 30 years of employment, the LA Times reported.

Walt often referred to her as the “real-life Mary Poppins.”

Every year, for the holidays, he would gift her shares of Disney stock. By the time she died in 1994, she had amassed a fortune of millions.

At one time, he came close to opening a major ski resort.

The success of Disneyland, which opened in 1955, prompted Disney to set his sights on another potential project: a ski resort in Mineral King Valley, near California’s Sequoia National Park.

The initial plans involved creating a vacation spot centered on a Swiss-style village with six ski areas and the capacity to house 20,000 people, 14 ski lifts, 10 restaurants, two hotels, and more, SF Gate reported.

The project almost came to fruition, with Disney even gaining approval from the Forest Service and creating a deal with the then-governor of California, Ronald Reagan.

However, after Disney’s sudden death in 1966, the company chose to focus on Disney World, which had just opened and cost much more than budgeted.

Not all of Mineral King Ski Resort was lost, though. The Country Bear Jamboree, an attraction planned for one of the resort’s restaurants, was given a new home in Disney World.

Contrary to popular belief, Disney was not cryogenically frozen.

Many believe that Disney’s body was preserved through cryogenics, frozen in a cryonic chamber containing liquid nitrogen to be later revived.

In early 1967, a reporter for a tabloid newspaper, The National Spotlite, claimed he saw the deceased Disney suspended in a cryogenic metal cylinder, PBS reported.

From there, the rumor went rampant and eventually became an urban legend. However, there is no truth to it: All available documentation states that Disney was cremated.

Also, the first-ever cryogenic freezings actually took place after Disney had passed, according to Snopes.com, which produced a point-by-point analysis refuting cryogenics and this legend.

This story was originally published in December 2017, and most recently updated on July 23, 2025.

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