Customer Reviews

Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (Vintage)

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Having collected and read about Walt Disney and animation for 30+ years, I found that the only proper way to read Gabler's biography is as follow-up to the great book by Michael Barrier, "An Animated Man", also available on Amazon. Barrier gives the structure of Walt's life as centered on Walt's true loves: his animation and his parks. While Barrier's book is a very pleasant read, and gives insight in what made Walt tick. As a contrast, Gabler recites data as if it was a class in Latin and represents Walt as a kind of nut. Gabler clearly neither likes nor understands Walt. He also has no knowledge of--or love for--the medium of animation, and he keeps talking of Walt's "animations," an expression that is only used by people who have no idea what they are talking about. But he did have access to the Archives, and thus some things are only to be found in his book. There are many, many factual errors in Gabler's book. A huge list can be found on Barriers's site (Google "GablerErrata"). And as a final note, on that same site, one can read that Diane Disney Miller herself thinks the Gabler book is a gross misrepresentation of her father (Google "Diane_On_Gabler"). So buy both books, read Barrier first, then Gabler, and then make up your own mind!

Walt Disney has become a legendary character of the twentieth century. So much was written about him, and so much was inaccurate, that the legends often attained a currency that was not deserved. How many times have we heard that he was frozen? Gabler (who was the first of Walt's biographers to work with rare Disney family records) opens the book with this statement (it's not true.)
The truth is much more interesting than that.
Disney was an optimistic, hardworking go-getter with an astounding capacity for concentration who fell in love with the early twentieth century's high technology--motion pictures. Motion pictures drawn by hand.
He had the perseverance to start over again every time he failed artistically and financially. And fail he did. This is one of the most unlikely success stories ever told, since the Disney Brothers studio was working in a marginal field (animation) in a minor city (Kansas, then Hollywood, when the animation studios were all in New York), and attempting to make it as an independent producer just as the big studios were forming, eliminating independent competition in all but a few areas by 1928.
He made it because he had the unfashionable idea that quality would out, he had a tremendous amount of luck and he knew how to make appealing entertainment(Mickey Mouse was NOT the first successful character he created). Disney also had a real genius for hiring talented people. A surprising number of remarkable artists started with him in Kansas City, others were trained right on the studio lot.
Mr. Gabler's book is readable and contains much new information. Who would have thought that Charlie Chaplin was, at one time, Snow White's Prince? Chaplin, one of the few independent producers left by 1936, loaned his books for MODERN TIMES to the Disneys to help them ask fair prices for their landmark feature. For Disney's weak spot was running the business--he once actually forgot to add on the profit to the budget for a job in Kansas City, and was forced to work for cost of materials, with no salary for him or his animators! The 1941 strike by his artists was seen as a personal betrayal--but this strike can be predicted when you read about that early project. The Dream was the goal but (as an old cartoon states) coal is still somewhat important. Disney had his head in the clouds, and his brother Roy, who played the father's role to his sibling since childhood, was a major reason why Walt's feet were kept on the ground. It was a fine parntership and this is really a dual biography.
The truth about Disney is not sensational or scandalous--just refreshing after decades of inaccuracy and outright fabrication that somehow passed for fact.
The weakest part of the book is Gabler's attempts to psychoanalyze Walt's obsession with animation production as a desire to control his world. Of course he controlled his world. This is what all artists do. We animators love creating characters that APPEAR to think and move for themselves. They are really just an expression of our own sentiments and desires; we create life. That's what animation means. It's wonderful being able to control every aspect of the film's production-to be leading man, leading woman, and sets as well! Disney is hardly exceptional in this respect and the psychological insights don't ring true for me.
As one other animator told me, Disney was remarkable because 'he was the only man in the world who ever got 500 artists to work together in one building without KILLING each other!"
Buy this book.

Neal Gabler's Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination is a very speical book. Every aspect of Disney's life is covered in detail. It is a vivid, acurate book about one of Hollywood's only geniuses.
Disney himself was not a jolly, happy man as we all think he was. Throughout his life he was often depressed and felt lonely. He went through finaical problems at his studio. (The book makes it clear that Disney was an awful businessman.) He overworked himself and his animators. But look at his product! Pinnochio, Snow White, Fantasia and so on.
As he aged, he became less obsessive, less sad, less of a workaholic. Disneyland, perhaps his most successful project finacially, put him out of the debt that he had been dealing with since the beginning of his carreer. He watched his grandchildren grow.
However, Disney's life was cut short due to years of chainsmoking. He greatest dream, EPCOT and Disney World were not fully realized before his death. Instead of the absolutely extraordinary city and vacation area he planned, his company threw together a resort with a lame, already dated world's fair (the oposite of his plan) and a replica of Disneyland.
Gabler, while telling this magnificent story, also puts to rest the legend that Disney was anti-Jew and anti-Black. Disney, while being an avid republican from the 1940s on, was not any of these things. Many Jewish people and Black people were employed at the studio and treated fairly. Disney was a supporter of McCarthy's witchhunts, but only because a terrible, communist-fueled strike took a toll on his studio and work ethic.
It also puts to rest the myth that Disney was frozen. He was cremated! (Other biographies have stated that as well.)
This book is far better than the soapy Bob Thomas book that made Disney to look like a saint. Although Walt Disney was a considerate, good person, he did have a darker side. This book is an absolute must read for any Disney or Hollywood fan AND for anyone who just wants to read a great story about a great man.

Other reviewers have already covered most of the key points to be made. The remarks that follow are somewhat more personal than theirs. Throughout my childhood, films were "magic carpets" which transported me to distant lands, past centuries, and human experiences almost (not quite) too good or too bad to be true. However, I knew that the murders, plane crashes, train wrecks, buildings ablaze, earthquakes, and attacks by Apaches - albeit exciting -- were not "real." One exception: Disney's animated feature films: they touched my young heart in ways and to an extent no other films did.

Decades later, I still vividly recall how upset I was by separations of "children" from their parents (e.g. Dumbo from his mother, Pinocchio from Gepetto) and especially upset when Bambi eagerly awaited the return of his mother from the meadow, and when the seven dwarfs incorrectly assumed (as did I) that Snow White was dead. With all due respect to brilliant musical scores (I saved up from what my paper routes earned to purchase most of the sound track albums) and to the delightful and wholesome humor of characters such as Thumper and the chorus of crows reacting to a flying elephant, there were always darker themes and ominous elements at work in a series of animated feature films.

Now having read Neal Gabler's book which will probably be the definitive biography of Walt Disney, at least for a while, I have a much better understanding of the creative genius who deserves and has received primary credit for the "magic" to be found in so many of the films and to be experienced while visiting the theme parks. I also have a much better understanding of the tormented man whose emotional complexity and ambiguity are reflected in so many of his animated feature films.

There is a scene in another of my favorite films, "The Wizard of Oz," when Toto pulls a curtain back, exposing an obviously embarrassed fraud rather than an authentic wizard. As I worked my way through Gabler's book, I frequently recalled that scene. But there is a significant difference: L. Frank Baum's wizard created no magic whatsoever whereas Walter Elias Disney did in collaboration with hundreds of associates, creating incomparable magic in dozens of feature and documentary films as well as in long-running television programs.

Now a grandfather of ten, I am pleased and reassured that at least the younger ones among them enjoy the Disney "magic" as much as I once did...and still do. Our troubled world seems to need it at least as much today as it did more than 60-70 years ago when the Great Depression gave way to World War II. Perhaps it needs the Disney magic even more now. In my opinion, that will continue to be Walt Disney's heritage but only so long as the human heart is open to it and is nourished by it.

Ever since I purchased this book and began eagerly devouring it, I've debated whether I am qualified to write a review for it, or conversely, whether I may be uniquely UN-qualified, and should recuse myself due to bias. You see, my family's mythology is deeply intertwined with that of the late Mr. Disney. I was born in Marceline, MO, Disney's boyhood home, the small Midwestern railroad town which, as I was told growing up and the book clearly relates, formed the foundation for so much of his character, outlook, and artistic vision. The town really is a great slice of small-town American life, even to this day. My parents grew up and got married there, my Father and grandparents are buried there, and I still visit it when I get the chance, which isn't nearly often enough. For those and many other reasons, the Disney mythology deeply resonates with me. But, with as much objectivity as I could muster, I decided to go for it.
I apologize for the long back story, but it's an integral part of my review and is what inspired me to write, so it bore mentioning. Neal Gabler's "Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination" is a fascinating, absorbing, and detail-filled examination of the life of a man who not only desired to re-create his own earlier, idealized rural (translation: Marceline) experiences, but who expanded that vision to the rest of the world through his pioneering work in both animation and entertainment. Nothing is missed: Walt's early and (perhaps even over-dramatized) difficult childhood; The creation of the Disney studio and it's early successes including Mickey Mouse, one of the world's most recognized artistic and commercial symbols; the animated triumph of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves; the devastating animator's strike of 1941, and the post-war metamorphosis from cutting edge folk artist to corporate defender of cold-war conservatism and "right-wing" values. Gabler manages to portray the whole story in a disarming and captivating, straight-forward, one would almost say, mid-western, tone that I for one can certainly relate to.
The resultant impact that Disney (and the huge mega-corporation he almost single-handedly created) has had on society, culture, and even politics has been mixed to say the least, and the book argues, successfully I think, that there is no clear-cut, clean and simplistic answer to the question, was it for good or ill? Ironic, considering that black and white, good versus evil simplicity versus shaded, ambiguous and complex meaning were recurring themes throughout his artistic life, and by extension, that of our country, more relevant than ever in this day and age. I found the book to be very balanced, with equal credence given to both sides of that coin. Occasionally, I found myself getting bogged down in the pedantic details of the development of the animation and the inner dynamics of the company. But they weren't too overwhelming, and in the end, they were both necessary and complementary to the main story of Disney's life. In fact, the book works on several levels: in-depth biography, socio-cultural exposition, artistic history lesson, and to boot, a damned interesting business read.
For me, in the end analysis, I was able to capture, or really re-capture through reading this fine book, a sense of my own childhood as seen through my family experiences in literally THE small-town America (once I got that Main Street, USA in both Disneyland and Disney World were modeled after his youthful memories of Main Street in Marceline, it all became clear). The idea that a substantial part of my world-view was shaped by watching Disney movies as a kid and heck, even as an adult, and the way Disney created an alternative universe, simplistic or not, that one can escape to (or do we live in it at least partially today?) is compelling. The book captures all of these ideas and more. I think that anyone, regardless of their connection to the Disney story, would feel the same, and that is the mark of a good book, now isn't it?

Finally, a shout-out: To my Aunt Erma, who still lives in that wonderful small town, I love you, Aunt Erma!

Please be kind if you read, this is my first book review!

Randy Blew

I consider myself a historian on the life of Walt Disney, so when I opened Neal Gabler's 'Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination', I was quite honestly ready to shred it apart by finding inconsistancies, errors, and glaring ommissions on the life and trials of Walt Disney. Well folks . . . I couldn't. So complete and accurate and stylistically refreshing is Gabler's bio-epic on the man that changed the American media market, that I was somewhat stunned (happily) to find and confirm facts presented by Gabler that I did not know. And there are many!

Walt Disney was an American Dreamer. He was a perfectionist who cared about the quality of what he did and how his actions affected the American public. So too was he an American Patriot willing to serve his country in plausible ways using his resources. Disney never cared about the money . . . but about his staff and the consumers who counted on him to create movie magic . . . and movie magic he did.

Neal Gabler has written an honest and dignified epic on the life and ongoing legend of Walt Disney. Simply put, if you're interested in learning about Walt Disney, and how Disney's approach to live has professional meaning and merit in today's media business enviornment, then stop reading my review and pick up this book. Mr. Gabler, thank you for writing such a wonderful work on this amazing gentleman. Well done.

Gabler's Walt Disney biography gracefully details this American icon's life. What's thoroughly enjoyable is that Gabler uses countless, if ever seen before pieces from the company's archives sprinkling them throughout the book with many references to the telegrams that were sent back and forth between Los Angeles and New York among other places pertaining to company business. Besides the tremendous details in the book, Gabler has shown us the personal side of a man that was barely ever detailed.

Past works either towed the company line or vilified Disney. Gabler shows us a man who is driven by perfectionism. Disney is also shown to be childlike in many ways including how his project of the moment lost interest to him once he moved on to the next idea. From animation then to live action animal programs to television to Disneyland to EPCOT, Disney was constantly moving towards the next greatest thing. One of the most interesting notions is that the sacred Disneyland theme park in the minds of Disney fans had already seemingly lost Disney's interest as the EPCOT concept began.

The book is tremendous. One of the finest biographies that I have read and it reminded me of my fascination of Disney and his creations when I was a child. It truly shows how this one person made a profound impact on American society and continues to this day.

I heartily disagree with the ONE reviewer who gave this book 1 star. Did he actually even read the book? First of all, the actual book is only 633 pages. The rest of the books 851 pages are the index and notes on sources. Second, what business would take their company founder, a person revered but millions of people, and tell an author to expose his faults? And that is exactly what this book does. It exposes the real Walt that few people saw. The one who did have faults (who doesn't?). But also the man who persevered in the face of great odds and created a company that has no rivals. This is a GREAT book and I can't recommend it highly enough. After reading this book, Walt Disney, despite his imperfections, is my hero!

...well, almost never. Walt Disney was always more interested in "the next thing," and making money on a venture was usually just a way to finance his projects. Initially drawn to drawing and animation but burned by dishonest partners, he created his own studio to produce animated "shorts" - short Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons shown before regular feature movies. But he was always pushing for better animation and better quality, eventually creating "Snow White," the first feature-length animated movie, with the best quality animation for the time. But even then, he wasn't breaking even and eventually had to cut corners just to pay the bills, and some movies were made purely to generate income ("Dumbo" and some of the live-action movies). As Walt became bogged down in the studio and trying to make too many movies at once and always striving to create something bigger or better (realism in "Bambi" and high-class art in "Fantasia"), plus with WWII forcing him to rely on government work just to keep going, he became discouraged and turned his attentions elsewhere. As a result, the animation that was once the top in the industry lost it's edge, and Walt became more interested in trains and eventually television and Disneyland. In the end though, Walt left a legacy of memorable characters and family-friendly entertainment.

A very enjoyable biography about one of the most influential people of the 20th century and our present-day culture, although it often bogs down in too much detail about finances. I was surprised that he was always financially strapped and borrowing wherever he could until after Disneyland. But it was especially interesting while reading the book to go back and watch some of the movies, like "Three Little Pigs" and "Snow White" (which I had never really cared for before) and compare the styles, knowing what went into them and what made them great. I even visited Disneyland after reading about it in the book, and noticed some of the details I hadn't before. It certainly gave me a new appreciation for some of the Disney movies, even if he wasn't particularly involved in some of my favorites. But I was also surprised to learn that the genius behind "the happiest place on earth" usually wasn't a very happy man himself. Mr. Gabler describes Walt's constant need to create "control" in his surroundings that drove his efforts at perfection. Animation, his trains, and Disneyland each in turn provided his escape from reality into an environment where he had near-total control.

Most books about Walt Disney either paint him as a saint or an evil tyrant, and I guess he was both. Gabler is careful to point out where the "legends" were embellished, and that "Walt Disney" became more of a brand than a man, but in my opinion he portrayed him fairly and honestly. He didn't shy away from his faults, telling about his ego and the complaints many of his employees had, but he also honestly tried to tell why he did what he did and what motivated him. In the end, if you're looking for a book that only tells the good things or only the bad things, this book will leave you a bit disappointed. But if you want a fair biography that not only documents his numerous accomlishments but shows that he was as human as all of us, I think you'll enjoy this. I did.

I read a lot of books as research for writing. Every so often, I come across a book that is so excellent, interesting, and deep that I simply have to read it cover to cover carefully, slowly, and more than once. This is such a book, a truly first rate literary masterpiece. I would recommend it to anyone interested in a great story of an entrepreneurial genius as well as the history of entertainment media.

Gabler starts with the standard bio, that of Walt Disney living first in a rural near-paradise, and then, when his father fails at farming and the family descends into poverty, as a hard-working boy that lost his childhood to several paper routes in support of the family; he was a child laborer. While I do not know if we can ever prove whether Disney's search for a heartland ideal explains the worlds that he later portrayed and then built, Gabler makes a strong and irrefutable argument that he did. It is told with wonderful detail and narrative power.

Whatever the reason, Disney was afflicted with that bug you find in the greatest artists: ever dissatisfied with what he had just accomplished, he felt impelled to enter into new domains. Each time he turned his full attention and energy onto an area, he fundamentally transformed it, forever changing the conditions for anyone who followed him. In this respect, Walt Disney has many of the same personality traits that Miles Davis, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Alessi, and other innovators of genius had: they could not stand still, but always lived in the present, in their effort to create/conquer the next big thing. Gabler shows how Disney's personal interests often became the next area he entered and changed, such as the way he transformed his interest in model trains and miniature worlds into his theme parks - as such, his principal motive was not to make money, but to express something, according to Gabler, that would make people happy for a time in a controlled and painstakingly conceived environment. His was a unique and rare form of creative leadership.

Regarding the details of his innovations - and I cannot do justice to them here - he started in simple animation, when cartoons were little more than strings of crude gags, without personalities of any consistency or depth, without themes, or even plots. In his cartoon shorts, he was the first to incorporate sound and music, a level of realism (the "plausible impossible"), and color. At a deeper level, he did not see these techniques and features as simple add-ons to disjointed slap stick scenes, but as basic elements of the kind of stories he wanted to tell, as part of an integrated whole; every single detail had to fit, with purpose, into a seamless narrative. This was the age of Three Little Pigs (with its hit song, "Big, Bad Wolf") and Mickey Mouse. Interestingly, this was also where Disney began to branch into the toy market (and later on TV), making him a kind of pioneer of multi-media marketing. It was a self-reinforcing marketing strategy that established his name as one of the world's most recognizable brands. He then went on to full length cartoon features, also a first, with the largest grossing film of its time, Snow White. Towards the end of his career, he developed the theme park, replacing the dirty amusement ride parks with an experience that brought the customer into an entire environment that reflected consciously chosen frames from films. Even one of these innovations would have earned Disney a place in entertainment history, but this string is virtually unprecedented, in my view in the same league as Picasso.

While Gabler clearly likes Disney, he is well aware of his dark side: from the early family-style atmosphere of his early animation studio, he became imperious and autocratic in his later years, alienating many with his anti-union activities and his appearence as a friendly witness before the notorious Committee on Un-American Activites. He was a personally remote man and had few friends as his life was almost wholly devoted to work, though he was a deeply devoted father and husband. Gabler also addresses cultural questions regarding Disney's transmogrification of age-old mythology into a Disney mold, which many feel (myself not included) debases the original sources with syrupy sentimentality.

One thing that surprised me was how the company was often teetering on the edge of financial collapse, one flop away from bankrupcy. This is the source of a great deal of his search for new forms, such as his pioneering work in nature films and entry into live action film, for which Disney bet the whole company repeatedly. Indeed, many of his most famous films - Bambi, Pinocchio, and Fantasia - were box office failures, though they later paid for themselves in other applications (re-runs, video sales, action figures, etc.). Nonetheless, everything he did was a great risk.

Gabler also examines Walt Disney's business method. While producing content, his opus was self-reinforcing across all the media channels that played it, with the greatest attention paid to details, which he personally and compulsively checked. Thus, while the TV shows usually lost money in terms of advertising revenues, Disney knew that it was also a long commercial for his brand image, himself as the best entertainer for families, which established him and his work in the minds of the world's children. It also sold his toys, which was one of the most profitable of his businesses. For example, when seeking funding for his first park in Anaheim, he got an investment from ABC, which ensured the network would want to promote it upon opening; this led ABC to cover its opening live, one of the most watched events in American TV history, which attracted more people to the parks, reinforced the film images, and sold toys. It was all of a piece, a long-term profitability based on content and brand that might not have been a conscious strategy, but certainly worked as if it were. Then there is the long-suffering Roy, who was a worrier and the behind-the-scenes manager of his visionary and difficult brother, Walt. They were a balanced team. Finally, Gabler dissects his working method of total involvement to the point of obsession: there are wonderful descriptions of how Disney's presentation of his vision of Snow White was done by his own acting of the entire story with every single character and incident, over three hours with manic energy. It was the same with his theme parks, where he often lived, tuning (and attempting to control) every detail of the experience for guests.

This book is one of the best bios of a man and his ideas that I have ever read. Warmly recommended. It is an inspiration.