Walt Disney

In 1933, this animated trio had a lot to laugh about. In the midst of the Depression, Disney drew over half a million a year in profits, while Mickey, with Walt's features and dubbed voice, was a superstar who left distributors screaming, "More mice!" And Disney became the Academy Awards king: with an unsurpassed twenty-two statuettes, he was the first to refer to "Oscar" in an acceptance speech and the first to present himself an award, and for his first cartoon feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Shirley Temple handed him an Oscar with seven little Oscars in tow. But the world of Disney wasn't always so wonderful. A workaholic, he pushed himself to nervous collapse, suffered failure {Fantasia, Pinocchio, and Bambi were bombs initially), and screened his driven staff for licentiousness and Communism (Uncle Walt was a bit of a Big Brother). He needn't have worried. Walt Disney Studios, led by its newest trio—Michael Eisner, Frank Wells, and Jeffrey Katzenberg—grossed $1.5 billion last year, and had a smash with The Little Mermaid, its first fairy-tale cartoon in thirty years.