Defying the Disney Image: The Testimony of Walt Disney

Walt Disney was born in 1890 to a woman named Señora Isabelle Zamora. His father, Elias, met Isabelle in California of that same year and the two carried on an affair that ended with the birth of Walt. Later, Elias brought the two back to Chicago, Illinois where Isabelle became a housekeeper for the Disney family. Walt was assimilated into the Disney household and treated as the biological son of Elias and Flora Disney. Isabelle was with the family for years, being passed on from the Elias and Flora household to the Walt and Lillian family years later (Eliot 152-157). This account of Walt Disney’s birth poses many questions about myths, legends, and rumours that encircled the life of the “man behind the mouse”. Biographies and documentaries attempt to give accurate chronicles of his life and delve into the mind of this genius. Even people who make a career of studying the man’s life can only make theories about his actions from oral descriptions given by those who knew Disney personally. However, On Friday, October 24, 1947, Walt Disney testified in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and left his legacy on record for the entire world. While the testimony was documented and cannot be questioned, Disney’s motives for testifying, impact it had on his animated features, and how the ordeal affected his image are issues that are still scrutinised and debated.

The strike of 1941 at the Disney Studios was one of the prime purposes for Disney’s testimony in front of HUAC years later. The problem is that historians cannot agree on the exact specifics of the strike. Leonard Mosley and Marc Eliot are two biographers who have both written versions of Disney’s life. The two biographies a...

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... the animated feature film and brought entertainment to family audiences during the Great Depression and WWII, a dark time when American morale was low. This created an image of Disney that could never be ruined and to this day he still remains one of the most highly respected men in Hollywood. It is not common knowledge that Disney even played a part in the HUAC hearings, as it has been long forgotten in the chaos of honours he has achieved. Leonard Mosley, an acclaimed historian, even left his cowardly testimony out of the biography. However, Disney’s testimony is documented and will always be available to critics searching for the truth about the man Disney really was.

Works Cited

Eliot, Marc. Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince. Great Britain: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1994.

Mosley, Leonard. Disney’s World. Lanham, MD: Scarborough Press, 1985.