After three years of taking on minor acting roles, Driscoll got the chance of a lifetime when he caught the eye of the one and only Walt Disney. As the years passed, Hughess disdain for Driscoll seemingly turned into downright hatred. Discovered by chance at the age of five-and-a-half in a barber shop in Altadena, CA. A lot of pressure was on Driscoll to perform. A severe case of acne accompanying the onset of puberty,[27] explaining why it was necessary for Driscoll to use heavy makeup for his performances on dozens of TV shows, was officially provided as the final reason for the termination of his connection with the Disney Studios. Other studios quickly saw Driscolls potential too, and the boy soon had more roles than he knew what to do with. Bobby Driscoll is American by birth. When The Window hit theaters, itand more importantly, Driscolls performancewas a hit with audiences. When a doctor . and then convincing in anything he ever undertook on the movie screen and on television throughout his career spanning 17 years (1943-1960). During the middle of production, authorities discovered that Driscoll did not have a valid British work permit. He tried to seek serious acting roles. In connection with the re-release of Song of the South in 1971, reporters researching the whereabouts of the film's star first reported his death. He appeared in a variety of anthology and drama series, such as Dragnet (a crime drama) and Medic (the OG medical drama). Spring inspires lessons in love and life for a French family in 1920s Ottawa, especially for teenage Robert, who's blind to the attentions of an American neighbor girl, because he's infatuated with the beautiful new maid, fleeing life as a magician's assistant. Disney placed young Driscoll and an even younger Luana Patten under contract, making Driscoll one of the first actors to ever be placed under a contract to the House of Mouse. Includes such notable movie screen appearances as The Fighting Sullivans (1944), Song of the South (1946), So Dear to My Heart (1948), and The Window (1949), which was not only the sleeper of 1949 but even earned him his Academy Award in March 1950 as the outstanding juvenile actor of 1949. Bobby Driscoll was an American child actor known for a large body of cinema and TV performances from 1943 to 1960. He received an Academy Juvenile Award for outstanding performances in So Dear to My Heart and The Window. Driscoll appeared in The Scarlet Coat in 1955, and then The Party Crashers (1958). late) 1967", "Semina Culture Wallace Berman & His Circle", "A Return Trip to a Faraway Place Called Underground", "Santa Monica Museum Of Art Official Homepage", "DIRT- Review and a downloadable clip of the so-called "Bath-sequence", "Hart Island (Potter's Field) Official Homepage (controlled by the "Department Of Correction" and inaccessible to visitors)", "With Re-Release Of Disney Film Child Star's Tragic Death Described", "Bobby Driscoll Won't Be Around For Reissue Of Song of the South", "Benjy Ferree Come Back To The Five and Dime", "Benjy Ferree Announces New Album, Channels Former Child Star Bobby Driscoll", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bobby_Driscoll&oldid=1140629992, University High School (Los Angeles) alumni, Articles with dead external links from September 2018, Articles with permanently dead external links, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Episode: "S01, E15, The Ordeal of the S-38", Episode: "Incident of Fear in the Streets", Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten, hosted by Johnny Mercer, Bobby Driscoll, Luana Patten, Walt Disney and James Baskett, hosted by Johnny Mercer, Capitol Records (CDF 3000) narrated by John Beal, RCA Victor (Y-416) narrated by Bobby Driscoll, Byron Haskin interviewed by Joe Adamson, The Directors Guild Of America and The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Metuchen, N.Y. and London, 1984, This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 00:36. 1957 - m. 1957 - div. What Driscoll did was simple, but revealed a curiosity for the world around him which deeply impressed the director for Lost Angels. His grades dropped and he began taking drugs. An acquaintance helped the 5 year-old Driscoll with an audition at MGM for a minor role in 1943s Lost Angel. He overcame 40 aspirants to bag the role. After a final appearance in Piero Heliczer's Underground short Dirt (1965) in 1965 and a short art-period at Andy Warhol's so-called Factory, he disappeared into the underground, thoroughly dispirited, funds depleted. Bobby Driscoll. While those roles got Driscolls acting career rolling, it was his next role that took the little boys career to the next level. Still perceived as "Disney's kid actor",[28] he was unable to get movie roles as a serious character actor. Driscoll was convicted for drug addiction and was sent to Narcotic Rehabilitation Center, at Chino, California. The feature was filmed in the United Kingdom, and during production, Driscoll was found to not have a valid British work permit, so his family and Disney were fined and ordered to leave the country. Critics praised Driscolls work, with some of his art even being temporarily displayed in Los Angeles in the Santa Monica Museum of Art. They separated, then divorced in 1960. [29], In 1947, he recorded a special version of "So Dear to My Heart" at Capitol Records. After making his screen debut, he got a role in a 20th Century Fox war film, The Fighting Sullivans (1944), wherein he essayed the youngest of 5 brothers, Al Sullivan. In Sunday Dinner for a Soldier (1944), he played the boy who could blow his whistle while standing on head, and in the same year he played young brother of Richard Arlen in The Big Bonanza., In 1946, Driscoll portrayed Percy Maxim in So Goes My Love. The other movies in which he played small parts, included Identify Unknown, From This Day Forward, O.S.S., and Miss Susie Slagles., Driscoll was one of the first two actors to sign contract with Walt Disney. The first live-action/animated film of Disney, Song of the South (1946), had Driscoll as its lead actor. After his premature dismissal, he was enrolled in a public high school where his peers teased him. Driscoll even had the honor of voicing Goofy Jr. in two Disney cartoon shorts, Fathers are People and Fathers Lion. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. Their barber's son, an actor, got Bobby an audition at MGM for a role in the family drama Lost Angel (1943), which starred Margaret O'Brien. This is a business registration address for Paul Wink. Although Driscoll had a troubled life, he attempted to push forward. Disney wanted to film Robin Hood in the United Kingdom, but Driscolls run-in with British immigration made it impossible for the young actor to work in the UK. [50] He became part of Andy Warhol's Greenwich Village art community known as the Factory,[51] where he began focusing on his artistic talents. When they rejected me, I fought back, became belligerent and cockyand was afraid all the time. Later, he worked mainly in TV series and radio shows. The body remained unidentified and unclaimed, so it was buried in an unmarked grave in New York Citys Potters Field, on Hart Island. In 1956, Driscoll eloped with his long-time girlfriend, Marilyn Jeanne Rush, to Mexico, in the hopes of avoiding their parents' objection, but this marriage was later annulled. In 1950, Driscollat just 13 years oldreceived a very special Academy Award that recognized his work in So Dear to My Heart and The Window. In 1950, Disney cast Driscoll as Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island, the studios first all live-action film. The teaser of the Pecos Bill section of Disneys 1948 cartoon collection Melody Time featured Driscoll and Patten. In the mid-1950s, Driscoll's acting career began to decline, and he turned primarily to guest appearances on anthology TV series. His last known appearances on TV were small roles in two single-season series: The Best of the Post, a syndicated anthology series adapted from stories published in The Saturday Evening Post magazine, and The Brothers Brannagan, an unsuccessful crime series starring Stephen Dunne and Mark Roberts. Instead, they sent Driscoll to West Los Angeles University High School. Around that time, Howard Hughes bought RKO, effectively making him the owner of the Disney studio. They re-wed in March 1957, in Los Angeles, and divorced in 1960. He had no identification, so the body was marked as unknown and went unclaimed until it was buried in an unmarked grave on Hart Island, where he remains. [23][24] Scenes were played on an almost empty sound stage, with only the most essential props, and filmed for use by the animators. Our credibility is the turbo-charged engine of our success. We know that Angie D Parrish, Paul Wing, and three other persons also lived at this address, perhaps within a different time frame. Believed to be an unclaimed and homeless person, he was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave on Hart Island, where he remains. Both were originally aired on November 5, 1960. The former Disney child star who rose to fame at age 9 as "the first human being signed for Disney Productions,". [64], In February 2009, singer-songwriter Benjy Ferree released Come Back to the Five and Dime Bobby Dee Bobby Dee, a concept album based in part on Driscoll's life. My mom never told me how her best friend died. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in the United States between 1926 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice. Bobby Driscoll was born Robert Cletus Driscoll on March 3, 1937. He was awarded Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street, in 1960. Driscolls time with Disney was running out. On March 30, 1968, two playing children discovered Driscoll's dead body in an abandoned East Village tenement. March 1, 2021 - 7:01AM Former Disney child star Bobby Driscoll rose to fame at age 9 as "the first human being signed for Disney Productions." He won a Juvenile Oscar at age 12 and went on to voice the title role in 1953's animated film Peter Pan at age 16, but met a tragic end. Actor Bobby Driscoll at age12 in a studio portrait taken in 1950 | Source: Wikimedia Commons/ NBC Television Network, Bobby Driscoll 1950, marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons, It turned out the barber's son was in showbiz, which made it easy to get an appointment with his agent, who helped Driscoll land a small role opposite Margaret O'Brien in the 1943 film "Lost Angel.". The Fighting Sullivans (1944), 20th Century Fox. At one point, Bobby became part of The Factory, Andy Warhol's art collective in Greenwich Village, New York. Thanks to the money he saved up while working for Disney, Driscoll had the cash to experiment with a wide variety of drugs, and his experiments led him down a dark path with no return. From 1944 to 1946, Driscoll found work in films that needed a cute, gifted little boy. Disney slated Driscoll for two more films: Tom Sawyer and Robin Hood. 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