Before Disney was a brand – one that Billboard saluted with this list of The 100 Greatest Disneyverse Songs of All Time – Walt Disney was a man, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in entertainment history. Nearly 60 years after his death, he continues to hold five key records in the Oscar record book.
In addition, Disney is one of the few individuals to receive top honorary awards at three of the four EGOT award shows. At the Oscars in February 1942, he received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which is presented to “creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production.” He was just the fourth producer to receive the award, following Darryl F. Zanuck, Hal B. Wallis and David O. Selznick.
In 1986, 30 years after winning a Primetime Emmy for best producer—film series for the ABC series Walt Disney’s Disneyland, Disney was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. He was in the third induction class, along with TV legends Steve Allen, Jackie Gleason and Mary Tyler Moore, producer/director Fred Coe, network executive Frank Stanton and puppeteer and Kukla, Fran and Ollie creator Burr Tillstrom.
In February 1989, Disney received a trustees award from the Recording Academy. The award is “given to individuals who have made non-performing contributions of such broad scope to the field of recording that they do not fall within the framework of the Grammy Awards categories.” He was honored alongside composers Richard Rodgers and Cole Porter and producer Quincy Jones.
An unsigned essay in that year’s Grammy program book shed light on Disney’s musical contributions. It began: “Walt Disney remains a giant in the art of film animation. But he also made large and significant contributions to music on film. Music and advanced recording techniques were vital, non-visual components of Disney’s studio during his 40-year career. Only one year after Al Jolson appeared with sound and music in The Jazz Singer, Disney presented Steamboat Willie, the first synchronized sound cartoon.”
Here are the five Oscar records that Disney holds to this day. All years refer to the year of the Oscar ceremony:
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Individual with the most competitive Oscars
Disney received 22 Academy Awards from 1932, when he won short subject (cartoon) for Flowers and Trees, to 1969, when, more than two years after his death, he won a posthumous Oscar for Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.
Art director Cedric Gibbons is second among individuals with the most Oscars (11). He is followed by composer Alfred Newman (nine).
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Individual with the most total Oscars (competitive and non-competitive awards combined)
Disney received 26 Oscars, combining competitive and non-competitive awards. Iain Neil, who received 13 scientific and technical awards, is runner-up, followed by art director Cedric Gibbons (11).
Disney’s non-competitive awards are, in addition to the aforementioned Irving G. Thalberg Award, special awards for the creation of Mickey Mouse (1932); for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, (1939, “a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field for the motion picture cartoon”); and for Fantasia (1942, “for their outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures.” ) Disney shared the latter award with William Garity, John N. A. Hawkins and the RCA Manufacturing Company.
The special award to Disney for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a year late. The film had been nominated for best score the previous year. But the trophy itself showed creativity – Disney was presented with one statuette and seven miniature statuettes on a stepped base.
Disney received the Thalberg the same night that he received a special award for Fantasia. He was apparently not aware he was going to get the Thalberg Award. “I find myself speechless,” he said on receiving the award from the previous recipient, David O. Selznick. “I knew that there was something here tonight; this is way beyond my expectation … I’m well aware of the high ideals that this award symbolizes, and I sort of feel like I should rededicate myself to those ideals. I’ve been through a very trying year, the toughest year. I hope there’s never another one like it. And coming after that year, I sort of feel, I’d like to feel that it’s more than an award for past conscientious efforts, honest mistakes. I like to feel that it’s sort of a vote of a confidence for the future. And I want to thank the members of the Academy, my friends, everybody. Thank you.”
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Individual with the most Oscar nominations
Disney received 59 nominations from 1932 to 1969. Composer John Williams is second with 53 nods, followed by composer Alfred Newman (43), art director Cedric Gibbons (38) and costume designer Edith Head (35).
Disney received just one nomination for best picture, for co-producing Mary Poppins with Bill Walsh. The musical lost in 1965 to the film adaptation of My Fair Lady, produced by Jack L. Warner (who had made the controversial decision to not cast Julie Andrews, who had originated the role of Eliza Dolittle on Broadway, in the film).
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Individual with Oscar nominations in the most consecutive years
Disney was nominated in 22 consecutive years, from 1942 through 1963. Costume designer Edith Head and composer Alfred Newman share second place with nominations in 19 consecutive years. They are followed by composer Max Steiner (13) and art director Hal Pereira (12).
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Individual with the most Oscar wins in competitive categories in a single year
At the Oscars in February 1954 (see photo accompanying this list), Disney won four Oscars – best documentary feature (The Living Desert), best documentary short subject (The Alaskan Eskimo), best cartoon short subject (Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom) and best two-reel short subject (Bear Country). No one else had ever won more than two awards in one night.
On accepting his fourth award of the night, for Bear Country, Disney joked, “I’ve just gotta say one more word. It’s wonderful — but I think this is my year to retire.”
Happily, he did not retire. In the remaining 12+ years of his life, he opened Disneyland, launched an Emmy-winning TV series (initially called Walt Disney’s Disneyland) and co-produced the beloved film musical Mary Poppins.
Runners-up, with three Oscars in one night, are (listed chronologically): Billy Wilder (The Apartment, 1961), Marvin Hamlisch (The Way We Were, The Sting, 1974), Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Part II, 1975), James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment, 1984), James Cameron (Titanic, 1998), Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2004), Ethan Cohen and Joel Coen (No Country for Old Men, 2008), Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) 2015), Bong Joon-Ho (Parasite, 2020) and Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once (2023).