Entertainment

Walt Disney

Went bankrupt at 21 and left for Hollywood with $40; mortgaged his house for a feature-length cartoon.

Born: 1901 · Chicago, Illinois, US
Roots: Irish-Canadian descent father, German-English mother
Family: Working class; A strict father whose ventures kept failing; Walt delivered his father's newspapers from 4:30 a.m., unpaid.
Education: Left high school at 16; Red Cross ambulance service in France at 17
Started with: $40; What he carried to Hollywood at 21 after his Kansas City studio went bankrupt.
Affiliations & societies: Order of DeMolayDocumented; Joined the Masonic youth order as a teenager in Kansas City; the order later gave him its Legion of Honor.; Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1922 · age 20
Laugh-O-Gram Studio
His Kansas City cartoon studio; it is bankrupt within a year — he reportedly lived on beans in the office.
1923 · age 21
Hollywood$40
Founds Disney Brothers with Roy on family loans.
1928 · age 26
Loses Oswald, draws Mickey
His distributor takes his character and most of his staff; Mickey Mouse is created in response, and Steamboat Willie adds sound.
1937 · age 36
Snow White$1.5M cost
Mocked as "Disney's Folly"; he mortgages his house to finish it, and it becomes the highest-grossing film to date.
1955 · age 53
Disneyland
Borrows against his life insurance to develop the park.
1966 · age 65
Dies
Mid-construction of the Florida project.

Sources

Compiled from these references and contemporaneous press reporting. Figures are approximate; verify before relying on them.