I was born on the 5th December 1901 in Chicago's Hermosa area, one of four children to Elias who was an Irish Canadian gold digger, and Flora of English German descent . When I was four we moved to my brothers farm in Marceline, Missouri.


Aged eight I started school for the first time at the new Park school in Marceline, but in 1910 we had to move as the farm was bankrupt. The family moved to Kansas City. I returned to school at Benton Grammer and took a paper round. Then on to McKinley High, but sadly my grades were very poor.


After attending Chicago's Academy of Fine Arts, I signed up with the Red Cross and became an ambulance driver in France. On my return to Kansas, I opened my first company, Iwerks Commercial Artists, I teamed up with theatre owner Frank Newman and began screening 'Laugh-o-Grams' Iwerks grew but once again I was hit with bankrupcy.


That's when I decided it was make or break time, and moved to Hollywood with my older brother Roy.. In 1925 I married one of my employees Lillian Bounds, a cell animator. Soon after we released an animated series called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit through Universal. Later came Flip the Frog, and Fiddlesticks. Then came Mortimer


It was Lillian who persuaded me to change Mortimer's name and to voice the character myself. The first short to feature Mickey was named Plane Crazy then Gallpin Gaucho, but it was the first cartoon with sound that put my feet firmly in the game with Steamboat Willie. The rest is history, with
Mickey Mouse becoming an iconic character around the world. Who was I ?