My Interview With Walt Disney Biographer Neal Gabler
In October 2006, I interviewed film historian and Walt Disney biographer Neal Gabler for MiceChat. At the time, Gabler's book, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, was just days from being released to mostly favorable reviews. The book is a detailed chronicle of Walt's lif – he best biography written about him to dat – nd it would go on to win the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography.
With today being Walt's 109th birthday, I'm happy to repost the interview and share some very revealing insight on Walt Disney, the man.
Walt Disney is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To many, he is a visionary founder of an entertainment empire that includes movies, television, theme parks and Mickey Mouse. To others, he's "Uncle Walt," a paternalistic icon of a childhood fantasy world. To many of those who knew Walt personally, he is an ambitious, driven, even obsessive, creative force with a short temper and few friends.
Contradictions. Walt was a series of them and biographers have attempted repeatedly over the years, with varying success, to capture the essential Walt. Books have ranged from the reverential (Bob Thomas's Walt Disney: An American Original) to the critical (Richard Schickel's The Disney Version) to the scathing and apocryphal (Marc Eliot's Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince).
Neal Gabler may have finally nailed it.
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Persons
Neal Gabler (interviewee)Art Babbitt (reference)
Becky Cline (reference)
Johnny Depp (reference)
Elias Disney (reference)
Walt Disney (reference)
Diane Disney Miller (reference)
Michael Eisner (reference)
Ub Iwerks (reference)
Charles Mintz (reference)
Marty Sklar (reference)
Dave Smith (reference)
Bob Thomas (reference)
Bill Walsh (reference)
Roy Williams (reference)
Keywords
AnimationBambi (1942)
Disneyland
Dumbo (1941)
EPCOT
Fantasia (1940)
Goofy
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
Marceline
Mary Poppins (1964)
Mickey Mouse
New York World's Fair 1964/65
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
Peter Pan (1953)
Pinocchio (1940)
Pirates of the Caribbean
Pollyanna (1960)
Silly Symphonies
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Studio
Television
The Walt Disney Family Museum
Unions
Walt Disney Archives
World War II