Walt Disney

Co-founder of the Walt Disney Company, 1923; built the studio, the theme parks and the brand.

8 biographies about them

Biographies about them 8

One authorised family biography and two independent modern lives; the argument is over how much of the work was his.

Neal Gabler · 2006 · First biographer given unrestricted access to the company archives.

Bob Thomas · 1976 · Authorised by the family; affectionate and incomplete.

Steven Watts · 1997 · Academic cultural history; Disney as the century's most effective ideologist.

Michael Barrier · 2007 · Animation historian's corrective, strongest on the studio craft.

Marc Eliot · 1993 · The FBI-informant thesis; contested on sourcing but the case for the prosecution.

Timothy S. Susanin · 2011 · The Kansas City failures, 1919-1928; how the first company went bust.

Richard Snow · 2019 · The building of Disneyland as a bet-the-company project.

Bob Thomas · 1998 · The brother who did the financing; useful counterpart.