The Walt Disney Company started as a business venture between Walt Disney and his financier brother Roy, which they named The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923.
Disney had worked as a cartoonist for some time before, and he had his own company Laugh-O-Gram Studio. After Laugh-O-Gram studio went bankrupt in 1923, Disney moved to Los Angeles. In LA, Disney was successful in selling his first short film, book-based film titled "Alice's Wonderland". He also managed to get a deal for six more films and in order to make the films, Disney needed a company to produce them: and so began the story of the The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio.
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The company kept working on Alice comedies and a series of cartoons that were based on a character named Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. However, the company ended up losing the rights to Osward the Lucky Rabbit. With that lost, the company created another character that will be one of their most beloved and memorable character across the globe---Mickey Mouse.
The first feature-length Disney film was the book-based film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", which became a huge success when it was released 1937. From there, Disney produced more films for their fans that include Fantasia, book-based films Bambi and Cinderella. Cinderella was the most successful financially for the studio after Snow White and was widely considered a return to form for the studio in 1950.
Disney also produced live action films like the book-based film "Mary Poppins" in 1964. The company was officially renamed The Walt Disney Company in 1986, twenty years after Disney's death at the age of 65 from lung cancer.
Source: Yahoo