great Walt Disney are told by his brother Roy Disney

Roy Disney My brother Walt is no more, yet his influence lingers like a living presence over the studio where he turned out the cartoons, nature films and feature movies that made him known and loved around the world. Even now, as I walk around the studio crew, I half expect to encounter that tall, country - boy figure, head bowed in thought about some new project. Walt was so much the driving force behind all we did, from making movies to building Disneyland, that people constantly mention his name as if he were still alive. Every time we show a new picture, or open a new feature at Disneyland, someone is bound to say, “I wonder how Walt would like it? "And when this happens, I personally realize that it was something he himself had planned. For my imaginative, industrious brother left enough projects in progress to keep the rest of us busy for many, many years.Walt was a complex man. 

To the writers, producers and animators who worked with him, he was a genius who had an extraordinary ability to add an extra stroke of imagination to any story or idea. To the millions of people who watched his TV show, he was a warm, kindly personality, bringing fun and pleasure into their homes. To the bankers who financed us, I'm sure he seemed like a wild man, hell-bent for bankruptcy. To me, he was my amazing kid brother, full of impractical dreams that he made come true. The apple orchard and weeping willows stand green and beautiful at our old farm, where Walt sketched his first animals. I recall how Walt and I would snuggle together in bed and hear the haunting whistle of a locomotive passing in the night. Our Uncle Mike was an engineer, and he'd blow his whistle - one long and two shorts just for us. Walt never lost his love for trains. Years later, an old-fashioned train was one of the first attractions at Disneyland.Mickey was only the first successful product of Walt's matchless imagination and ability to make his dreams become reality. It was an ability he could turn on for any occasion, large or small. 

Once, when my son Roy Edward had the measles, Walt came and told him the story of Pinocchio, which he was making at the time. When Walt told a story, it was a virtuoso performance. His eyes riveted his listener, his moustache twitched expressively, his eyebrows rose and fell, and his hands moved with the grace of a musical conductor. Young Roy was so wide-eyed at Walt's graphic telling of the fairy tale that he forgot all about his measles. Later, when he saw the finished picture, he was strangely disappointed. "It didn't seem as exciting as when Uncle Walt told it," he said. Like many people who work to create humour, Walt took it very seriously. He would often sit gloomily through the funniest cartoon, concentrating on some way to improve it. Walt valued the opinions of those working with him, but the final judgement was always 

unquestionably his. Once, after viewing a new cartoon with evident displeasure, Walt called for comments from a group of our people. One after another they spoke up, all echoing Walt's criticism. "I can get rubber stamps that say "Yes, Walt," he snapped. Then he wheeled and asked the projectionist what he thought. The man sensed that dissent was in order. "I think you're all wrong," he declared. Walt just grinned. "You stick to your projector," he suggested.Walt involved himself in everything. During one story conference on the Mickey Mouse Club TV Show, the story man, pointer in hand, was outlining a sequence called 'How to Ride a Bicycle.' "Now when you get on your bicycle " he began. Walt stopped him. 'Change your bicycle to a bicycle,' he said. "Remember, every kid isn't fortunate enough to have a bicycle of his own." The story of Disneyland, perhaps better than anything else, illustrates Walt's vision and his stubborn determination to realize an idea he believed in. For years, Walt had quietly nursed the dream of a new kind of amusement park. It would be a potpourri of all the ideas conjured up by his fertile imagination. But the idea of sinking millions of dollars into an amusement park, even Walt's kind of amusement park seemed so preposterous that he wouldn't mention it to anyone. He just quietly began planning. As usual, though, he infused all of us with his own enthusiasm when he finally told us about the project. Someone asked, "Walt, how should the Disneyland look ?" Quick, came the reply, "It should look like nothing else on this earth." 

Predictably, we had trouble raising money, but Disneyland did open, in July 1955. Since that first day, millions of people have flocked to see the unique creation of Walt's imagination. Like a kid with a new toy -the biggest, shiniest toy in the world - Walt used to wander through the park, staring as happily as any tourist. The overwhelming success of Walt's "crazy idea" triggered a dramatic about-face in the Disney fortunes. Yet success neverchanged Walt. He remained the simplest of men. He hated parties, and his idea of a night out was a burger and chilli at some little restaurant. His only extravagance was a miniature railroad that ran around the grounds of his home. "What do you do with all your money ?" a friend once asked him. Pointing at the studio, Walt said, "I fertilize that field with it." And it's true that Walt ploughed money back into the company almost as fast as it came in. 

Being solvent for the first time since he started in business gave Walt a chance to develop other ideas. These included the development of Mineral Kind (an alpine-like valley high in the Sierra Mountains); a California Institute of Art, for which he donated the land and several million dollars; and, most ambitious of all, 100-million- dollar Disney World and City of Tomorrow in Florida. Tragically, in the midst of all this activity, Walt was stricken with this fatal illness. I heard him refer to this cruel blow only once. "Whatever it is l've got," he told me, "don't get it." I visited him in the hospital the night before he died. Although desperately ill, he was as full of plans for the future as he had been all his life. Walt used to say that Disneyland would never be finished, and it never will. I like to think, too, that Walt Disney's influence will never be finished; that through his creations, future generations will continue to celebrate what he once described as "that precious, ageless something in every human being which makes us play with children's toys and laugh at silly things and sing in the bathtub and dream."