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Walt Disney
- The Triumph of the American Imagination
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 33 hrs and 20 mins
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Publisher's summary
ONE OF THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S 100 GREATEST FILM BOOKS OF ALL TIME • The definitive portrait of one of the most important cultural figures in American history: Walt Disney.
Walt Disney was a true visionary whose desire for escape, iron determination, and obsessive perfectionism transformed animation from a novelty to an art form, first with Mickey Mouse and then with his feature films–most notably Snow White, Fantasia, and Bambi. In his superb biography, Neal Gabler shows us how, over the course of two decades, Disney revolutionized the entertainment industry. In a way that was unprecedented and later widely imitated, he built a synergistic empire that combined film, television, theme parks, music, book publishing, and merchandise. Walt Disney is a revelation of both the work and the man–of both the remarkable accomplishment and the hidden life.
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography and USA Today Biography of the Year
Critic reviews
2007, L.A. Times Book Prize (Biography), Short-listed
"Thorough...[and] engrossing." (Publishers Weekly)
"A balanced treatment of the man and his achievements, realistically assessing Disney's considerable impact and offering insight into the hidden, restless soul who constantly challenged himself." (Booklist)
"We've all been waiting for the perfect book on Walt Disney; it has finally arrived and Neal Gabler's done it. Wonderful!" (Ray Bradbury)
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One of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and '70s with now-classics such as The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Thomas Crown Affair, and Bullit, Steve McQueen is renowned as one of the most exciting actors ever to come out of Hollywood. Now, in Steve McQueen: A Biography, best-selling author Marc Eliot gives unique insight into McQueen's life, from his films to his three marriages, many affairs, and struggles with addictions.
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Snooze
- By Cill on 10-27-11
By: Marc Eliot
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Three Years in Wonderland
- The Disney Brothers, C. V. Wood, and the Making of the Great American Theme Park
- By: Todd James Pierce
- Narrated by: Al Kessel
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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While the success of Disneyland is largely credited to Walt and Roy Disney, there was a third, mostly forgotten dynamo instrumental to the development of the park: fast-talking Texan C. V. Wood. Three Years in Wonderland presents the never-before-told, full story of "the happiest place on earth".
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A really great and interesting story.
- By Mike on 02-20-20
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Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted
- And All the Brilliant Minds Who Made the Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic
- By: Jennifer Armstrong
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Mary Tyler Moore made her name as Dick Van Dyke's wife on the eponymous show; she was a cute, unassuming housewife that audiences loved. But when screenwriters James Brooks and Allan Burnes dreamed up an edgy show about a divorced woman with a career, network executives replied: "Americans won't watch television about New York City, divorcées, men with mustaches, or Jews." But Moore and her team were committed, and when the show finally aired, in spite of tepid reviews, fans loved it.
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An Interesting Story That Never Quite Gets Told
- By S. Blythe on 07-26-13
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The Speed of Sound
- Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926 - 1930
- By: Scott Eyman
- Narrated by: Adams Morgan
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In this mixture of cultural and social history that is both scholarly and vastly entertaining, Eyman dispels the myths and gives us the missing chapter in the history of Hollywood, the ribbon of dreams by which America conquered the world.
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Better than nothing!
- By Colin Barton on 08-31-11
By: Scott Eyman
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Razzle Dazzle
- The Battle for Broadway
- By: Michael Riedel
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 16 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Razzle Dazzle is a provocative, no-holds-barred narrative account of the people, money, and power that reinvented an iconic quarter of New York City, turning its gritty back alleys and sex shops into the glitzy, dazzling Great White Way - and bringing a crippled New York from the brink of bankruptcy to its glittering glory.
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Too long and boring in spite of a vibrant subject
- By harry rohme on 03-04-18
By: Michael Riedel
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The Mirage Factory
- Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles
- By: Gary Krist
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Little more than a century ago, the southern coast of California - bone-dry, harbor-less, isolated by deserts and mountain ranges - seemed destined to remain scrappy farmland. Then, as if overnight, one of the world’s iconic cities emerged. At the heart of Los Angeles’ meteoric rise were three flawed visionaries: William Mulholland, an immigrant ditch-digger turned self-taught engineer; D.W. Griffith, who transformed the motion picture from a vaudeville-house novelty into a cornerstone of American culture; and Aimee Semple McPherson, a charismatic evangelist.
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Great start, weak completion
- By steve on 05-11-21
By: Gary Krist
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Seinfeldia
- How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything
- By: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Comedians Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld never thought anyone would watch their silly little sitcom about a New York comedian sitting around talking to his friends. NBC executives didn't think anyone would watch either, but they bought it anyway, hiding it away in the TV dead zone of summer. But against all odds, viewers began to watch, first a few and then many, until nine years later nearly 40 million Americans were tuning in weekly.
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This bad narration is making me thirsty...
- By Audio Gra Gra on 10-06-16
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And So It Goes
- Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
- By: Charles J. Shields
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author and biographer Charles J. Shields crafts this fascinating portrait of literary icon Kurt Vonnegut. The first authorized biography of the influential American writer, And So It Goes examines Vonnegut’s life, from his childhood to his death in 2007, and explores how the author changed the conversation of American literature.
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Probably only for die hard Vonnegut fans
- By Watery M on 12-22-12
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A Mouse Divided
- How Ub Iwerks Became Forgotten, and Walt Disney Became Uncle Walt
- By: Jeff Ryan
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Almost everything you know about Mickey Mouse is wrong: He wasn’t Disney’s first star; Steamboat Willie wasn’t his first movie; Mickey wasn’t a nice guy - and Walt Disney didn’t invent him. In 1928, two very different best friends invented Mickey Mouse. And the success tore them apart. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks’ friendship is a story of betrayal, love, war, money, power, tragedy, intrigue, humor, despair, and hope. You’ll love them both - when you don’t want to drop anvils on their heads.
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Wasted money and wasted time
- By E. Johnson on 12-27-18
By: Jeff Ryan
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The variation in narration was off-putting though the Walt Disney Story is amazing!
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this is just a timelilne of disney
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This is a spectacular story of error and innovation, a wild ride from a vision to the realization of an iconic cultural landscape. It reflects the park’s uniqueness, but just as strongly that of the man who built it with a watchmaker’s precision, an artist’s conviction, and the desperate, high-hearted recklessness of a riverboat gambler.
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Okay, but better books on the subject
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How to Be Like is a "character biography" series: biographies that also draw out important lessons from the life of their subjects. In this new book - by far the most exhaustive in the series - Pat Williams tackles one of the most influential people in recent history. While many recent biographies of Walt Disney have reveled in the negative, this audiobook takes an honest but positive look at the man behind the myth. For the first time, the book pulls together all the various strands of Disney's life into one straightforward, easy-to-listen-to tale.
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Great stories, good biography, too preachy.
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It's basically a direct read from Wikipedia
- By Kris Siegel on 07-08-19
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this is just a timelilne of disney
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Okay, but better books on the subject
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Unnecessary and Nothing New
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Needs an audio companion
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Walt Disney
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Seven years in the making and meticulously researched - Gabler is the first writer to be given complete access to the Disney archives - this is the full story of a man whose work left an ineradicable brand on our culture but whose life has largely been enshrouded in myth.
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How Disney became an Icon
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By: Neal Gabler
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DisneyWar
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Really interesting story... No ending.
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One Little Spark!
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We've all read about the experts: the artists, the scientists, the engineers - that special group of people known as Imagineers for The Walt Disney Company. But who are they? How did they join the team? What is it like to spend a day in their shoes?
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More like a collection of emails.
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The Disney Revolt
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Soon after the birth of Mickey Mouse, one animator raised the Disney Studio far beyond Walt's expectations. That animator also led a union war that almost destroyed it. Art Babbitt animated for the Disney studio throughout the 1930s and through 1941, years in which he and Walt were jointly driven to elevate animation as an art form, up through Snow White, Pinocchio, and Fantasia.
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Disney had greater potential
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Three Years in Wonderland
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While the success of Disneyland is largely credited to Walt and Roy Disney, there was a third, mostly forgotten dynamo instrumental to the development of the park: fast-talking Texan C. V. Wood. Three Years in Wonderland presents the never-before-told, full story of "the happiest place on earth".
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A really great and interesting story.
- By Mike on 02-20-20
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George Lucas
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On May 25, 1977, a problem-plagued, budget-straining, independent science-fiction film opened in a mere 32 American movie theatres. Conceived, written, and directed by a little-known filmmaker named George Lucas, Star Wars reinvented the cinematic landscape, ushering in a new way for movies to be made, marketed, and merchandised. Simply put, George Lucas is one of the most influential filmmakers of the past 50 years.
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The General in his Labyrinth
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A Mouse Divided
- How Ub Iwerks Became Forgotten, and Walt Disney Became Uncle Walt
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Almost everything you know about Mickey Mouse is wrong: He wasn’t Disney’s first star; Steamboat Willie wasn’t his first movie; Mickey wasn’t a nice guy - and Walt Disney didn’t invent him. In 1928, two very different best friends invented Mickey Mouse. And the success tore them apart. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks’ friendship is a story of betrayal, love, war, money, power, tragedy, intrigue, humor, despair, and hope. You’ll love them both - when you don’t want to drop anvils on their heads.
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Wasted money and wasted time
- By E. Johnson on 12-27-18
By: Jeff Ryan
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Jim Henson
- The Biography
- By: Brian Jay Jones
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- Unabridged
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He was a gentle dreamer whose genial bearded visage was recognized around the world, but most people got to know him only through the iconic characters born of his fertile imagination: Kermit the Frog, Bert and Ernie, Miss Piggy, Big Bird. The Muppets made Jim Henson a household name, but they were just part of his remarkable story.
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Dramatically complete
- By T on 10-01-13
By: Brian Jay Jones
What listeners say about Walt Disney
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amanda
- 02-15-13
Diane Disney
"A monstrous piece of libelous junk. My parents were not the people he creates in this book, and I cannot understand why all of you who aided and abetted Gabler in writing this book, and who praise it and promote it, can do so without suffering serious qualms." - Diane Disney Miller, Walt's oldest daughter.
It's unfortunate that Neal Gabler made so many errors in this book. A partial list of errors can be found online.
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148 people found this helpful
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- M. S. Cohen
- 11-12-13
Best biography I've listened to in a long time
From the first sentence, this book hooked me in.
Disney's life and struggle to succeed is fascinating.
What I really appreciated was reading how he ran his company. He pushed his employees, artists and animators, to do more than they thought they could do.
He also started the company with pool tables, fun events, and other diversions.
I was surprised at this. In so many descriptions of how he ran the company, it sounded like the genius and drive of Steve Jobs combined with the fun of Google's offices.
It made me realize that today's pioneers sometimes ride down the same road already paved in the past.
Get the book. Listen to it. You'll never look at "the mouse" the same way again.
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21 people found this helpful
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- Tad
- 10-25-11
Dry in places, but overall fascinating
Like a lot of people my age, I grew up on Walt Disney; in my case, it went way past childhood. I got a lot of ribbing in high school because I continued to insist that he was a genius. I still think that, even though there is, undeniably, a saccharine quality to a lot of his work. Disney always considered himself more a "story man" than a master animator, and the grace and strength of the story structure in his best features is one of his most enduring monuments.
Gabler's biography is a fascinating look at Disney's life and work - especially his work. The emphasis here in on the professional, and Gabler provides totally absorbing accounts of the studio's process in creating some of the great features of the 30s and 40s. Disney did go wrong at certain points in his career, some of it financial and some of it political, and the fact that he was able to oversee the creation of so many masterpieces in spite of these wrong turns is astonishing. In the 50s, with the advent of Disneyland and the weekly TV show, Disney began once again to hit his stride.
When Disney is totally committed to what he's doing, Gabler is wonderful. When Disney is bored, Gabler becomes much less interesting. The biggest weakness in the book is the overly-detailed account of the financial dealings. It's an essential part of the story, but (as Gabler himself makes clear) it's not really what Disney was about.
The book is a useful corrective to the only other biography of Disney I've read - "The Disney Version" by Richard Schickel. That was clearly hostile; Gabler takes a much more balanced and nuanced approach. While I understand from browsing the web that not everyone agrees with me, I get the sense from the book that Gabler actually likes Disney. The book isn't the celebration some would prefer, but neither is it an indictment. It's a portrait of a man who smoked too much and drank too much and never lost a yearning for the turn-of-the-century small town perfection he'd known as a child: a man with a brilliant vision of what animation could do and the ability to motivate others to join him in the pursuit of the insanely great.
I enjoyed Arthur Morey's narration (as I always do). He maintains a steady, straightforward tone that matches the material.
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16 people found this helpful
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- Fern
- 08-01-13
If you're considering this one, GO FOR IT!
Any additional comments?
I was unsure about listening to a biography but Walt's life was plenty interesting to keep me riveted. I listened all day and also into the night until I finished. It is that good. Of course, the story is most interesting once it gets into his animating and creation of Disneyland. I was completely shocked by the reported reception of his classic animated feature films by the public. My one complaint is that I want more detail in his creating Disneyland. Perhaps, I will need to read another bio or some writings specifically geared toward Disneyland history.
I recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in Walt as a man, leader, business owner, or creative genius. You will also love this if you love his films and Disneyland.
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Overall
- LB in Dallas
- 01-03-07
A Geat Hstory Lesson!
I really enjoyed this book. I have been a Disney Fan all my life and found the story fascinating. This is for hard core Disney or Hollywood history buffs who enjoy the details and the extensive research put into this book. The footnotes were actually interesting to me as they charted the source of each bit of info in the archives. The level of detail documented well befor e-mail and the computer era was impressive. This book had History, Finance, Politics, Art, psycology and endless human drama which came together to create a huge segment of entertainment as we know it today. When you listen to this view it as a college semester of content on the history of American entertainment.
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- Toyz etc
- 04-03-11
Wonderful book for Disney fans and critics alike.
Neal Gabler has one of those voices you could listen to for hours. The story was well written and goes into amazing depth, This is no white wash of Walt's life. This is Walt Disney with all the warts, You will still end up sheding a tear when he dies if you have a heart. This is my favorite audio book and I have listened to it 5 or 6 times. Well worth a listen.
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Overall
- Rene
- 04-06-07
Walt's long life
Mostly I found this book pleasurable and informative, but the author does love his psycho-babble and long, drawn-out narrations about the bickering of Walt's employees. And the narrator really plods along as well -- I listened to all 3 parts at the ipod's fast reading setting and I still thought he was talking slowly.
If I had it to do over again, I think I would try the abridged version.
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Overall
- R. H. Krauch
- 01-17-07
History Buff - Born: 1959
I felt like a fly on the wall as Walt and his artists created the likes of Mickey Mouse, and the first full length animated movie, "Snow White." He evolved w/the medium, pioneering in Television and continually reinventing his special vision of entertainment. My father took us to Disneyland at least once a year when he was a reporter for the L.A. Hearld Examiner. We were there and saw Walt at the opening of "It's a Small World." And I watched the Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday night. The extensive insight from this bio gives me a whole new appreciation for Walt Disney. It's been too long. I'm going to Disneyland! PS The first hour or three is a bit tedious because it traces the Disney Family back to Europe and also elaborates on Walt's childhood influences and why he gravitated to the field of animation, movies and entertainment. If you stick with it, just like Walt did, you won't be sorry!
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Overall
- Paul
- 10-26-08
Unbelievably good
I was totally amazed at how influential Walt Disney was in our society. Of course, I realized his brand name but the scope of his influence was overwhelming. I couldn't stop reading this book as the reader took us through his accomplishments. The background of the sadness of his childhood creates an amazing contrast to his unbelievable prescience about what the future of entertainment will be. I was truly sorry when this book was done.
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Overall
- Its the Point
- 12-16-06
terrible
I've enjoyed every audible book I've purchased but this. Between footnotes noting numerical passages, tedious unnecessary details, monotone narratives, and more, this was a huge waste of money. I'm not sure I can continue the first download never mind the others remaining for this book.
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