Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/50583
birth of the disney legend The Seeds for Disneyland Grew From Los Feliz Roots by Donald Seligman & Lynne T. Jewell Steamboat Willie was the first in a long line of Mickey Mouse animated adventures (1928) Copyright Disney Company® can Red Cross serving in France driv- ing an ambulance he decorated with car- toon drawings. After studying animation at the Kansas City Art Institute, he started his own company which created the popular but financially unsuccessful "Alice Comedies", a se- ries about a little girl who travels to a world eastern part of Hollywood—Los Feliz—where animation mogul Walt Disney's em- pire began. Walt Disney, one of filmdom's most im- portant innovators, was born in 1901 in Chicago, Illinois and raised in a small town in Missouri. He had a very early interest in art selling drawings to neighbors for extra money. Pursuing a career in art and photogra- phy was interrupted in 1918. At only 16, we wanted to join the war effort but could only enlist in the Ameri- I Disney was only 22 when he moved into his uncle's Craftsman style house on Kingswell Ave. t was in the filled with animated characters, and went bank- rupt. With only his suitcase and $20, he headed west. He was 22 years old and settled in the Los Feliz area to be close to its bur- geoning entertain- ment industry. He moved into a modest Craftsman style home owned by his uncle Robert Disney on Kingswell Avenue between Hillhurst and Vermont Avenues in the heart of what would become Los Feliz Village. The first thing he did was construct a stand in his uncle's garage for his newly purchased animation camera. His brother, Roy joined him soon after to become his business partner. Within a few months in October 1923, he had sealed a contract for "Alice Comedies," with a New York dis- tributor. Walt and Roy rented some additional space on Kingswell Avenue and were in production. eir out- door shooting location was a rented vacant lot at the nearby corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Rodney Drive. e fledgling company grew and additional space was rented in a nearby Kingswell garage. is was the birth of the Disney Brothers Studio and beginning of the Walt Disney Company. In July 1925, Walt married one of his first employees, Lillian Bounds, in Lewiston, Idaho. He and Lillian rented a kitchenette apartment nearby on Melbourne Avenue, and two years later an even larger unit on Commonwealth Avenue. eir union would be blessed with two daughters, Diane and 16 DISCOVER HOLLYWOOD / WINTER 2011