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People Top 5
LAST UPDATE: Wednesday October 15, 2008 05:10PM EDT
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Walt Disney: Who's That Mouse Man?
The late, great animator was a familiar face to baby boomers, but today few who visit his Florida theme park even know that Uncle Walt was a real person.
Originally posted Monday October 29, 2001 04:48 PM EST
Orlando, Florida's Walt Disney World may be the No. 1 tourist destination on the map (followed, along the way, by California's Disneyland, Paris Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland), but that doesn't mean that everybody knows who Walt Disney was. In fact, notes the Wall Street Journal, as the Disney Company (which most people HAVE heard of) gears up to celebrate the centennial of its founder's birth, on Dec. 5, "many guests under age 15 do not know Walt was a real person," says a Disney World spokesman. Walt's own daughter, Diane Disney Miller, 67, even goes so far as to admit that many park visitors think that her late father -- still the world's most famous animator, despite his death from lung cancer in 1966 -- is a made-up corporate character, like Ronald McDonald. Or else he was some type of national martyr who was assassinated, though one child interviewed by the Journal thought that Disney might have died on a roller coaster. Some observers feel that the company that bears his name purposely lowered Uncle Walt's once-high profile as a ruse to become more commercial in the marketplace. "By modern standards, he's not telegenic. He's old," suggests Richard Foglesong, author of the book "Married to the Mouse." "He doesn't project the youthful image with which the company associates itself." Obviously, only Mickey Mouse is ageless.
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