Walt Disney Still Holds These 5 Oscar Records, Nearly 60 Years After His Death

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: