Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois to Elias and Flora Disney. Disney began selling his drawings and paintings in Marceline, Missouri where he lived for most of his childhood. Disney attended high school in Chicago at McKinley High School where he began to take classes for drawing and photography; he also contributed to the school paper by drawing cartoons. Disney did not only attend high school; at night he would take courses at the Chicago Art Institute. When he turned sixteen he dropped out of school and attempted to join the army, but was rejected because he was underage. Disney then joined Red Cross and went to France to drive an ambulance.
Disney came back to Kansas City after a year in France where he got a job at Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio and then moved on to the Kansas City Film Ad Company. At the Kansas City Film Ad Company he experimented with hand-drawn cel animation when he decided to recruit Fred Harman and open his own animation business. Disney and Harman made lots of Laugh-O-Grams for a local Kansas City theater; later they became popular enough for Disney to afford his own studio, Laugh-O-Gram, where he hired more employees. In 1923, Disney had to declare bankruptcy because his studio had caused lots of debt.
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A New York distributor, Margaret Winkler then made their first deal of making Alice cartoons and then invented the Lucky Rabbit. In 1925, Disney hired and married Lillian Bounds. Disney and Iwerks in 1928 created Mickey Mouse where he was guest starred in Steamboat Willie. Mickey Mouse did not become a hit the first two films he appeared in. Mickey Mouse did not become a big hit until 1929, when Disney created Silly Symphonies, and was showed with Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and