Special Exhibit Articles Multimedia Story: Walt and Money "You don't like to do those things unless you have fun doing 'em. You don't do 'em for money. You reach a point where you don't work for money, you know?"  -- Walt Disney (Hear Walt's Voice) Introduction The Early Years Walt's Lifestyle Spending Money on Production WED - Financing Walt's Dreams Introduction In 1933, Walt sent a letter to his mother, Flora. "You and Dad just go ahead and enjoy life," he wrote, "because you want to remember we only live once. And all that we save can't be taken with us, so we might as well enjoy it while we are able." Years later, he told long-time employee Ward Kimball, "The only fun you're going to have, despite what these preachers tell you, is the fun you have in this life, on this earth. The fun I get out of life is making pictures. I get accused of spending too much money on them, but that's the way I want to do it. My part is making them good. I don't care about skimping on things just to make a little extra money. I take the money and put it in the next picture. Because that's the real fun." That, in a nutshell, was Walt's philosophy about money. Unlike some other successful men - and many in Hollywood -- he never showed any indication that he wanted to accumulate the green stuff in order to prove his worth. His worth was proven, instead, by the work he created and the team he built. "As far as Walt was concerned, if the company makes money, let's put it back in the business," said Bill Cottrell, Walt's brother-in-law and long-time employee. "Without that feeling you would not have had a lot of things. You would not have had Audio-Animatronics." Sometimes people who didn't know Walt well claimed that he had no regard for money. As far as Walt was concerned that was a gross oversimplification of the facts. "That's not true," he once rejoindered. "I have had regard for money. You see? But it depends on who's saying that, you see? There's some people who worship money as something you've got to have piled up in a big pile somewhere. I've only thought of money in one way. And that is to do something with it." (Hear Walt's Voice) The Early Years As a young boy, of course, Walt's relationship with money was pretty simple: he never had much. He worked back-breaking hours helping his father with a newspaper delivery route in Kansas City, but wasn't paid for his labors. "He said I was part of the family," recalled Walt. "He said, 'I clothe and feed you.' So he wouldn't pay me.'" The teenager's craving for movies, small toys, and candies drove him to add on still more hours to his week in an effort to earn some pocket money. "There was a drugstore on my route," he said, "and when I'd come in there they'd have a little medicine to deliver. I'd leave the paper bag there and deliver the medicine and get ten cents, see? He also hit upon the idea of selling newspapers in the streetcar at 6:30 a.m, after he had finished his newspaper route. Elias agreed to order an additional 50 papers so that he could put his plan into operation. But Elias also insisted that the extra money Walt made had to go into a bank account. That may have been a practical decision, but it didn't get Walt any closer to the lemon phosphates and sundaes for which he yearned. "My dad didn't know how many I ordered," he recalled. So, without telling his father, he increased the order by yet another 50 papers. The profit from those went the way Walt wanted. Then there was the drink stand he started with boyhood chum Meyer Minda. As his friend told the story, "It was on 31st Street. We sold cherry strawberry, lemon, whatever. We used to pay two cents a bottle and sell it for five cents. Wagons would come along the street and stop. We'd keep the drinks ice cold. In those days, ice trucks would come along and they'd sell us 25 pounds of ice. But we ran out of pop. I said, 'Where's the pop, Walt?" He said. 'There isn't any. We drank it all up.' That was, fortunately, the end of the season and we just decided to close up shop." When Walt still came up short on cash, there was always one source of last resort: His eight-year-older brother Roy. And Roy was usually there for him. Then, when Walt was 15, after the days of delivering the Kansas City papers were over, Roy decided that his brother would benefit from a good summer job. He arranged for the "very educational" task of selling newspapers, candy, fruit, and soda on the Santa Fe Railroad. The rail line required a $15 deposit to get the job, and Roy ponied up the cash. It didn't feel like work to Walt, though. He loved seeing new places and riding the rails through the Midwest. He met interesting people. He even liked his fancy blue uniform with brass buttons. Unfortunately, he occasionally lost the idea that at least one element of a job is the part where you make money. Suppliers took advantage of him, and he barely noticed. More than once he neglected to lock up his supplies, and discovered that his candy was stolen. On one occasion, he left his soda bottles on a portion of the train that was detached, only to discover them forever gone. At summer's end, Walt forfeited his brother's $15 deposit. Walt's Lifestyle Through his entire life he avoided the trappings of wealth - even when he certainly could have afforded them. His taste in food was simple. He didn't buy a Hollywood-style mansion. He avoided fancy parties. Of course, he enjoyed a life that most would envy. He traveled extensively and was generous to people who mattered to him. But nothing was done to excess. And, in addition to his work, his greatest pleasures in life came from people - his family, first of all - not from things. As a young man, when his first efforts as a businessman failed - through a company he started called Laugh-O-grams - he wasn't prone to self pity, though times were certainly plenty hard. "I was filming one night and I went to stand by one of these restaurants," he recalled years alter. "And I was tempted to go in and eat; order my meal and then tell them I couldn't pay. But I didn't have the nerve ... I was so damn hungry and everything and the temptation was to go in, sit down, be a big shot, order a meal, and then get up and tell the guy I didn't have any money. But I didn't have the nerve." At around this time, he was unable to pay his rent, and so he moved into the Laugh-O-gram offices. Every once in a while, he'd go to the railroad station, where he could rent a warm tub, a towel, and a bar of soap for a dime. As for meals, "A couple of Greeks down there [were] running the restaurant right below that gave me credit. So I finally got up to where I had a $60 restaurant bill. But I could always go down and if I gave them $10, could whittle it to $50 and they'd let me ride. Well, it got tougher and tougher." (Hear Walt's Voice) Typically of Walt, he responded to his hard times through a series of efforts to squeak together money any way he could. His biggest success was in making a dental hygiene film called "Tommy Tucker's Tooth." That bought him a little time. And Roy came through on occasion. Walt remembered, "I'd hear from Roy. He'd say, 'Kid, I haven't heard from you, but I just have a suspicion you could use a little money. I am enclosing a check, fill it out in any amount up to $30. So, I'd always put $30." (Hear Walt's Voice) Spending Money on Production As the years passed, and Walt moved to Hollywood in partnership with his brother Roy, the two of them would frequently squabble over the money that Walt wanted to spend on his projects. Roy was careful to make sure there was enough money to pay the bills. In later years, Roy had to defend the company's decisions to the bankers who loaned it money. Walt hated meeting with bankers. Roy also had to deal with shareholders after the company sold stock to the public. But while it's true that the partnership between Walt and Roy was essential to the studio's smooth functioning, it would be a serious mistake to believe that Walt wasn't a good businessman - in fact, a great businessman - himself. The key to his business acumen couldn't be found on any balance sheet. He believed in two essential things: First, that if you created the most wonderful entertainment possible, the money would inevitably follow. Second, the best investment, he thought, was his own work. And without question, Walt was right. The examples abound. When Walt was making the first full-color cartoon, a Silly Symphony called "Flowers and Trees," the cost of adding color to the animation made it appear as though the company was losing money. After all, the cartoon had already been sold based on the costs for a black-and-white film. But, as Walt explained, "My contention was this. That [color] would lift the whole series. And the answer to the fact that it was already sold was yes, but we may get extra bookings. We may get additional bookings. We may get longer ... play dates. Instead of it playing three days, we might play a week, who knows? And I just had a feeling that color was the thing. That's all. Actually, I couldn't put any sensible argument but to me when I could have this free color in the cartoon I just felt stupid to go ahead and make them in black and white." (Hear Walt's Voice) The creation of "Snow White" may have been one of the best examples of Walt's wisdom in investing in his work. By 1934, he was financially stable, based on the success of Mickey Mouse and other animated shorts. In fact, he was beginning to enjoy some of the fruits of all his labors; including his pleasure in playing polo with a stable that included seven ponies. And so, in a theme that was to be repeated through his life, Walt decided to risk everything by making a feature-length cartoon at a cost that could bankrupt the entire studio and himself. Roy and Lilly were both nervous about the venture. But Walt appeared totally unfazed. He was looking to possibilities for the future, not the successes of the past. "I knew if we wanted to get anywhere, we'd have to go beyond the short subjects," he said. In part this was due to the changing of the film market. In the mid-1930s, theaters began to show double features, which left less time to show cartoons. In addition, Walt's edges in short cartoons - sound and color - were short-lived advantages. All his competitors were using sound, as he was. And the day was coming when good color would be the standard for all cartoons - not just his. What's more, other studios were coming up with strong characters, like Popeye, who could draw audiences. But the naysayers were everywhere. They said that nobody would sit still for a long cartoon ... it would hurt people's eyes ... nobody could come up with 90 minutes of gags. ... nobody would believe in cartoon people falling in love with one another. Walt paid no attention, and proceeded to expand the studio staff at a wild pace. "Walt had only one rule," said one animator. "Whatever we did had to be better than anybody else could do it." The bills added up quickly. Walt had originally estimated the cost of the film at around a half a million dollars, but it eventually grew to three times that amount. "We have considered changing the name of the picture from 'Snow White' to 'Frankenstein,'" joked Walt. On December 21, 1937, "Snow White" premiered to incredible acclaim. "And," Walt later boasted, "the darn thing went out and grossed eight million dollars around the world." The wild success of "Snow White" was followed by the relatively lean war years and a period of great uncertainty immediately following the war. But by the early 1950s, cash was pouring in from such features as the animated "Cinderella," the live-action "Treasure Island," and the ground-breaking series of True-Life Nature films. But once again, Walt proved himself true to the idea that the only use of money was to do something new and creative. And this time around, it was Disneyland. When he first suggested the idea, it was difficult for the company to put money into plans. After all, this was supposed to be a company that made its money in film theaters. What sense did it make to start opening an amusement park? As Roy said, "We're in the motion-picture business. We're in the animated film business. We don't know anything about this entertainment business. I don't look at that as a very good omen." WED - Financing Walt's Dreams Later, Walt would be able to use the money from television programming -- the Disneyland TV show - in order to help finance his newest dream. But at its earliest stage he had to count on his own resources. "This thing I was willing to put my own money in," he said. "And before I got that park going I spent over $100,000 that I borrowed on the insurance that I'd been paying on for 30 years. I even had to sell my home in Palm Springs to use that money to get this thing to a point where I could show people what it would be." (Hear Walt's Voice) This allowed Walt to start Walt Disney Incorporated, which later became WED Enterprises (for Walter Elias Disney). He loved WED. Once again, he had a small company that didn't have to deal with accountants, bankers, or investors. People called it his "laughing place," as in the tune from "Song of the South." The work WED did finally convinced Roy that it was safe for the company to put its money into Disneyland in 1954. Of course, Walt never hesitated to spend more to make Disneyland as good as he wanted it. "I planted a Brazilian pepper tree near the walk just past Adventureland," recalled Disneyland landscaper Bill Evans. "It had a big trunk and its spread was about 30 feet. As we were parading through the park one Saturday morning, Walt stopped and looked back at the tree and said he thought it was too close to the walk. The next morning, we put in another crew, boxed up the six-ton root system, and moved the tree about six feet. The next Saturday morning, Walt walked right past it. No comment. That was characteristic of him." Quality counted in Walt's mind. The profits would follow. If they didn't come right away, then perhaps in months or even years. It didn't matter. He trusted that the American public would appreciate his efforts and provide him with enough money to go on to the next big idea. When the Disneyland television show got rolling, most Americans had never even heard of color television. TV was in black and white, it was simple as that. But not to Walt. He "was smart enough to recognize that filming in color was a good investment," says film critic and author Leonard Maltin. So, although viewers of the show in millions of American homes didn't know it, they were filmed using all the shades of the rainbow. That didn't help when it came to the bottom line, of course. Ron Miller, Walt's son-in-law, worked with him on a number of projects at that time. "I think," he says, "that Walt probably said, 'Sure we're losing money now, but let's think of it for the long term. We're building a library for this company that's going to be very important some day.' And it certainly has been. Those films are run over and over." In fact, when the three television episodes of "Davy Crockett" were huge hits, he was able to splice them together into a full-length feature film. Had they been done originally in black and white, that film might have just looked like a patchwork of little television shows. But because the theatrical release was done in color, it only served to make the Davy Crockett phenomenon all the bigger. People who knew Walt well would be upset with any essay about his feelings about money that didn't mention one more thing: his desire to use money to help others - whether in the form of gifts to people or to charities. Of course, the most notable contribution he made was to leave roughly half his estate to help create a new kind of institution for teaching the arts - the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Other charities, like the John Tracy Clinic - a facility for deaf children and their families - benefited from Walt's willingness to give both time and money. And the stories from people who worked with him are seemingly endless. Songwriter Robert Sherman recalled, "My back was giving me a lot of trouble. One Monday morning, Walt said, 'Bob come here.' We went to his office, where there was a rocker like the one President Kennedy used. He said, 'Don't tell Lil, but I took it from the house in Palm Springs and we flew it in for you.'" Imagineer Rolly Crump tells a typical story: "One day, back in the '50s, Walt was sitting on the steps of City Hall in Disneyland having a sandwich. All of a sudden, Walt looks up and here comes a nun with a rope attached to her wrist attached to a kid, attached to a kid, attached to a kid, and then attached to another nun. Here were 15 kids roped together with a nun on each end. Walt got up, put down his sandwich and introduced himself, asking, 'What is this?' And the nun said, 'These are underprivileged children. We wanted to bring them to Disneyland.' And he asked, 'How much did you pay to come in?' And she told him. He went to the main gate got the money, came back and gave her the money back and said. 'You don't pay to bring those children here.' That's the kind of thing you don't hear about Walt."   Click to play audio