Bobby Driscoll

***Robert Cletus Driscoll*** (March 3, 1937, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA – March 30, 1968, East Village, Manhattan, New York, USA) was an American child actor and artist, known for his film and TV performances from 1943 to 1960. He starred in some of the Walt Disney Studios' best known live-action pictures of that period, such as Song of the South (1946), So Dear to My Heart (1949), and Treasure Island (1950). He served as animation model and provided the voice for the title role in Peter Pan (1953). He received an Academy Juvenile Award for outstanding performance in two feature films released in 1949, for his roles in So Dear to My Heart and The Window.

In the mid-1950s, Driscoll's acting career began to decline, and he turned primarily to guest appearances on anthology TV series. He became addicted to narcotics and was sentenced to prison for illicit drug use.

After his release, he focused his attention on the avant-garde art scene. In ill health due to his substance abuse, and with his funds depleted, his body was discovered on March 30, 1968 in an abandoned building in the East Village of Manhattan.

He was born Robert Cletus Driscoll in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the only child of Cletus (1901–1969), an insulation salesman, and Isabelle (née Kratz; 1904–1981), a former schoolteacher. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Des Moines, where they stayed until early 1943. The family moved to Los Angeles when a doctor advised the father to relocate to California because he was suffering from work-related handling of asbestos.

Driscoll's parents were encouraged to help their son become a child performer in films. 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. While on a tour across the studio lot, five-year-old Driscoll noticed a mock-up ship and asked where the water was. The director was impressed by the boy's curiosity and intelligence and chose him over 40 applicants.

Driscoll's brief, two-minute debut helped him win the role of young Al Sullivan, the youngest of the five Sullivan brothers, in the 20th Century Fox's World War II drama The Fighting Sullivans (1944) with Thomas Mitchell and Anne Baxter. Additional screen portrayals included the boy who could blow his whistle while standing on his head in Sunday Dinner for a Soldier , the "child brother" of Richard Arlen in The Big Bonanza (both 1944), and young Percy Maxim in So Goes My Love (1946), with Don Ameche and Myrna Loy. He also had smaller roles in movies such as Identity Unknown (1945) and Miss Susie Slagle's, From This Day Forward, and O.S.S. with Alan Ladd (all 1946).

Driscoll and Luana Patten were the first two actors Walt Disney placed under contract. Driscoll then played the lead character in Song of the South (1946), which introduced live action into the producer's films in conjunction with extensive animated footage. The film turned Driscoll and his co-star Luana Patten into child stars, and they were discussed for a special Academy Award as the best child actors of the year but, for the year of its release, it was decided not to present any juvenile awards at all.

Driscoll played Eddie Cantor's screen son in the RKO Studios musical comedy If You Knew Susie (also 1948), in which he teamed with former Our Gang member Margaret Kerry. He and Patten appeared with Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers in the live-action teaser for the Pecos Bill segment of Disney's cartoon compilation Melody Time (also 1948).

Driscoll was cast to play Jim Hawkins in Walt Disney's version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1950), with British actor Robert Newton as Long John Silver, the studio's first all-live-action picture. The feature was filmed in the United Kingdom, and during production it was discovered that Driscoll did not have a valid British work permit, so his family and Disney were fined and ordered to leave the country. They were allowed to remain for six weeks to prepare an appeal, and director Byron Haskin hastily shot all of Driscoll's close-ups, using his British stand-in to film missing location scenes after he and his parents had returned to California.

In addition to his brief guest appearance in Walt Disney's first television Christmas show in 1950, One Hour in Wonderland, Driscoll lent his voice to Goofy, Jr. in the Disney cartoon shorts Fathers are People and Father's Lion, which were released in 1951 and 1952, respectively.

Driscoll's last major success, Peter Pan (1953), was produced largely between May 1949 and mid 1951. Driscoll was cast with Disney's "Little British Lady" Kathryn Beaumont, who was in the role of Wendy Darling; he was used as the reference model for the close-ups and provided Peter Pan's voice, and dancer and choreographer Roland Dupree was the model for the character's motion. Scenes were played on an almost empty sound stage with only the most essential props, and filmed for use by the animators.

In his biography on Disney, Marc Elliot described Driscoll as the producer's favorite "live action" child star: "Walt often referred to Driscoll with great affection as the living embodiment of his own youth". However, during a project meeting following the completion of Peter Pan, Disney stated that he now saw Driscoll as best suited for roles as a young bully rather than a likeable protagonist. Driscoll's salary at Disney had been raised to $1,750 per week and compared to his salary, Driscoll had little work from 1952 on. In March 1953, the additional two-year option Driscoll had been extended (which would have kept him at Disney into 1956) was canceled, just weeks after Peter Pan was released theatrically. A severe case of acne accompanying the onset of puberty, 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.