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In a recent LA Times article, Charles Solomon reviews the latest of many Walt Disney biographies, Walt before Mickey by Timothy S. Susanin. Solomon has little to say about Susanin's animation expertise but also makes it clear that Susanin is an attorney, which undoubtedly affects the narrative.
I initially wondered where such a biography could find a receptive audience after Walt's early endeavors were already so thoroughly documented in Neal Gabler's Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination and Bob Thomas's Walt Disney: An American Original; however, Solomon quickly notes the different narrative Susanin offers, which may be very much of interest for entrepreneurial minds.
Due to the subject matter, this account of Walt's successes and failures should expectedly stop shortly after Walt's famous Santa Fe Railroad trip from New York after the last of a string of managerial frustrations with Charles Mintz. Still, closing the story at this point likely fails to acknowledge the full extent of the incessant entrepreneurial betrayals that Walt encounters again and again with the likes of RCA's Pat Powers and the hardships that define most of his early life. At 384 pages, this surely is not an abridged account of Walt's early creative efforts but presents a facet of an otherwise lengthy subject.
With a foreword by Diane Miller Disney, readers can at least be assured of a somewhat authorized/approved portrayal of Walt that other attempts like Gabler's did not win. I'll likely pick up a copy at some point but probably be in no hurry to do so. Walt's life is already so very well documented in so many ways.
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