The Walt Disney Company was founded with a four-page contract
On this day · 16 October 1923
Two brothers signing a modest distribution deal in a Hollywood living room quietly launched what became an entertainment empire.
On 16 October 1923, Walt Disney signed a simple contract in his uncle Robert’s Hollywood home, founding the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio with his brother Roy. The roughly four-page agreement, struck with distributor Margaret Winkler, committed Walt to producing a series of Alice Comedies — live-action shorts mixing a real girl with cartoon characters.
Walt had arrived in Los Angeles only months earlier, broke, after his earlier Laugh-O-Gram studio in Kansas City went bankrupt. The new venture began as little more than two brothers and a borrowed camera.
The studio later operated as Walt Disney Productions before taking its current name, The Walt Disney Company, in 1986. Its course changed in 1928 with Steamboat Willie, the short that introduced Mickey Mouse and helped build one of the largest media companies in the world from that modest signed page.
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