Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination

Neal Gabler

Nov 2006 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Leonardo Leoncavallo

About this audiobook

Seven years in the making and meticulously researched, here is the definitive portrait of one of the most important figures in American entertainment and cultural history.
From the young Walt Disney breaking free of a heartland childhood to the visionary whose desire for escape honed an innate sense of what people wanted to see on the screen, witness Disney reinvent animation, first with Mickey Mouse and then with his feature films, from a novelty based on movement to an art form that presented an illusion of life.
Gabler reveals a wounded, lonely and often disappointed man who at times retreated into pitiable seclusion in his model train workshop, yet still reshaped the entertainment industry by building a synergistic empire in a way that was unprecedented and later widely imitated.
This is a masterly biography, a revelation of both the work and the man–of both the remarkable accomplishments and the hidden life.

About the author

Neal Gabler is the author of five books: An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood; Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity; Life: the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality;  Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination; and, most recently, Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power for the Yale Jewish Lives series. His essays and articles have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, including The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Playboy, Newsweek, and Vogue, and he has been the recipient of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, Time magazine's nonfiction book of the year, USA Today's biography of the year, a National Book Critics Circle nomination, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Public Policy Scholarship at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Shorenstein Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a Patrick Henry Fellowship at Washington College's CV Starr Center. He has also served as the chief nonfiction judge of the National Book Awards. Gabler is currently a professor for the MFA program at Stonybrook Southampton.

Leonardo Leoncavallo is an accomplished narrator of audiobooks. His audiobook credits include Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler, The Crazyladies of Pearl Street by Trevanian, and Prayer in America (One Nation Under God) by James P. Moore.