The story of Walt Disney, for all its wholesome charm, would never earn a G rating. Like many of the brilliant cartoonist’s creations, it is a tale inextricably tied to death and, in Disney’s case, one that starts with a stunning act of animal cruelty — and we don’t mean the slaughter of Bambi’s mother.
It was a lazy, hot Sunday afternoon, and 7-year-old Walter Elias Disney was bored. Spying a big brown owl in an orchard near his family’s Missouri farm, the boy crept up behind the animal and grabbed it. When the frightened creature started to fight and claw, Disney panicked, throwing it to the ground and stomping the life out of it. It was an act that haunted his dreams for years, and that episode and other close encounters with death would mark Disney’s life and his work — and thus the collective imagination of Disney fans across the globe.
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