Raymond Arnold Disney was the older brother of Roy and Walt Disney, founders of Disney Bros. Studios, which would later be renamed The Walt Disney Company.
Born in Chicago, Illinois to Elias Disney and Flora Call, Raymond was the second child of their five children. Like older brother Herbert, he had to quit school to support the family’s income. First with his father’s carpentry business and then later a farmhand when the family moved to Marceline, Missouri. Not wanting to live under his father's rules and any longer, he and Herbert moved out to Kansas City where both found jobs as bank clerks at the Southwest National Bank of Commerce and the First National Bank. He also served in World War I along with his brother Roy. After the war he returned to work and later married Meredith Boyington.
Moving to Los Angeles, he owned a successful insurance business on North Vermont Avenue for the next 45 years. His knowledge would help Walt, Roy, and the rest of the family, beginning with the opening of Disney Bros. Studio in 1923, later renamed Walt Disney Productions. His contract with the company lasted until at least until 1945 when Walt could no longer afford him and entrusted the company's insurance to the Automobile Mutual Insurance Company. Though he was offered a position at the company with a good salary, Raymond refused, but he kept close ties with family and business matters. A great admirer of Abraham Lincoln, he had a hand in the creation of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln for the 1964 New York World's Fair.
Raymond was highly active in the Los Angeles community. He was a member of the Royal Order of Jesters, the American Veterans' organization, and the Al Malaikah Shrine Temple, a division of the North American Masonic Society for which he volunteered his time and participated in several fundraisers for hospitalized children such as the Shriner's Hospital for Crippled Children and the Shriner's Children's Burn Hospital in Galveston, Texas. He also made donations to local animal shelters and provided funds for the meditation garden for St. Augustine by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Santa Monica.
He passed in 1989 at his home in Santa Monica, survived by his wife, sons, sister and numerous nephews and nieces.
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- His wife, Meredith, worked with Edna Disney at the Kansas City Times newspaper in their youth. Edna would later introduce Raymond to Meredith at a church social. The couple married in 1935 but divorced for a time after their children were born. They remarried in 1968 and remained so until his death.[2] [3]
- His son, Charles, was a co-founder of LodeStar Pictures which is a private feature film financing enterprise, and he established MovieView Magazine that was long associated with Boxoffice Magazine. He was also a partner in the Central Cinema Company and a longtime advisor to his cousin Roy E. Disney.[4]
- Always having a soft spot for Kansas City, he would visit there numerous times across his lifetime.
- A fine negotiator, this skills and his personality where the inspiration for Honest John in Pinocchio.
