Walt Disney

Walt Disney was one of the most creative and innovative people in entertainment history. His optimism and unique vision transformed artistic development into modern American art. Perhaps one of the most significant inventions he is known for is the character of Mickey Mouse, but his accomplishments amount to much more.

As said before, Walt Disney created the animated character Mickey Mouse. Soon after Mickey Mouse's birth he (Mickey Mouse) starred in the world's first synchronized sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie. In 1932, Walt Disney's studio won an Academy Award for the production Flower and Trees. Disney also produced the first short subject to employ the multi-plane camera technique titled The Old Mill. In 1937 Walt Disney's studio released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated musical feature. Pinnochio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi, other full-length animated classics, came soon after (Just Disney.com).

In addition to Walt Disney's exploits in the film industry, he had a great interest in the future, the world of tomorrow so to speak. He wanted to build an amusement park with a clean and organized environment. In 1955, Disneyland Park opened and served more than 200 million people. He eventually expanded the park and made a Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida. In addition to the park, he built the EPCOT center, his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, along with a motel-hotel resort vacation center. Disney continued to delve into film entertainment. He was among the first to present full-color programming with his Wonderful World of Color and The Mickey Mouse Club (JustDisney.com).

After exploring the achievements of this imaginative artist, it is necessary to examine his personality traits in relation to creative potential. For analysis purposes, Walt Disney will be considered an artist. Walt Disney possessed both social and nonsocial traits of an artist.

His nonsocial traits include openness to experience, fantasy, and imagination and drive and ambition (Sternberg). Openness to experience, fantasy and imagination can clearly be seen in all of his life's work. It takes imagination and fantasy to dream the fictional characters of his works. Imagination is obvious in this quote by Walt Disney in regards to his amusement park, "I saw the site of Disneyland back in 1953, in those days it was all flat land- no rivers, no mountains, no castles or rocket ships-just orange groves, and a few acres of walnut trees." Drive and ambition