12 Comfort Foods That Shaped Walt Disney During His Toughest Times

Story of a BROKE MILLIONAIRE: Walt Disney built Mickey Mouse, Disneyland and one of the biggest entertainment empires on earth. But he grew up delivering newspapers at 3:30 in the morning for a father who kept every cent, went bankrupt at twenty-one, and for the rest of his life he ate like a man who might not get paid. This is a countdown of the twelve meals that tell that story, from the cold beans he ate from the can on the floor of his bankrupt Kansas City studio and the half-eaten candy he found on a stranger's porch as a paper boy, to the macaroni loaf he gave Better Homes and Gardens, the hash browns at Biff's, the V8 he made every guest drink, the Spam and eggs on a handwritten list for his housekeeper, and the Scotch Mist he sipped every evening while a nurse treated his polo-wrecked neck. Along the way: what each one cost, the 1931 breakdown, the cigarettes nobody could make him give up, and the lung cancer that ended it. Number 1 goes back to that empty studio in Kansas City where it starts. He was 65. On sourcing: family quotes come from his daughter Diane Disney Miller and his wife Lillian, as collected by Disney historian Jim Korkis, and from the Walt Disney Archives and the Walt Disney Family Museum (the handwritten food list). The 1931 breakdown, the polo injury and the nurse Hazel George come from Disney histories and Bob Thomas's biography. The details of his final illness come from Dr. Howard Markel's PBS NewsHour column and the hospital record as reported by Korkis. The "three packs a day" figure is Tom Hanks's, not a medical record. Most prices are period estimates and are marked in the script notes. Nothing in this video claims his diet caused his death; the cancer is linked to his smoking. Which one stayed with you? The half-eaten candy on a stranger's porch, the Scotch Mist in the Laughing Place, or the raw weenie at the kitchen door. Comments are open.