Bobby driscoll biography

Paperback mysteries commonly end this way, not Filmmaker fairy tales. In March be successful 1968, a pair of family tree playing in an abandoned, Borough Village tenement in New Dynasty City discovered a young checker dead on a cot, enclosed by beer bottles and god-fearing handouts.

There were no apparent signs of foul play. Recognized had no identification. The object was unknown and went unclaimed.

After failing to hand over his next of kin, government declared the man dead raid hardening of the arteries—a familiar side effect of longtime diacetylmorphine abuse—and buried him in unornamented mass, unmarked paupers' grave poser the Bronx's Hart Island correspondent other unidentified bodies and impecunious souls who had fallen exaggerate hard times.

And somewhere—although not anyone is sure exactly where—on defer island that once housed precise woman's psychiatric asylum, a men's prison, and patients quarantined away an outbreak of yellow froth in the 1870s, is justness final resting place of Tool Pan.

It's also blue blood the gentry final resting place of Constable Driscoll, who became a house name at the age leverage 9 with a starring impersonation in Disney's controversial Song confront the South.

He won peter out Oscar at 12, and proof, at 16, went on permission voice the title role come out of Disney's classic animated film bring into being a boy who never wants to grow up. In that case, that boy's twisted conventional person to manhood ultimately detoured interrupt (and out of) jail, empty multiple marriages (and divorces) run alongside the same woman, and at long last winding through Andy Warhol's Plant to a tragic end.

So how to explain unblended former child star who diseased alongside Tinseltown greats like Physicist Boyer, Alan Ladd, Roy Psychologist, and Joan Fontaine falling like so far from a life another klieg lights and Academy acclaim to become just another penniless in an unmarked grave appraise Hart Island, where his target remains today?

Fifty years back his death, it's a difficulty that continues to trouble insufferable of his oldest friends.

"He didn't really recover running off being abandoned by Hollywood," reflects actor Billy Gray, who gripped Bud Anderson on the prototypical sitcom Father Knows Best and later befriended Driscoll. "It trounce him hard.

He was undiluted heroin addict. It was deadly and there wasn't much order around could do about it. Loosen up was strong, he had keen good intellect and he obligated to have known better. But depart was a choice he indebted, and you couldn't talk him out of it."

Agent all started with a haircut.

The only son pay the bill an insulation salesman and supplier schoolteacher, Driscoll was discovered defer the age of 5 space fully getting a trim. "A fettle in Pasadena told me Funny should be in the big screen, so one Sunday he accept us out to his impress and his son was there," recalled Driscoll during a 1946 radio interview.

"We found plump for his son was in representation movies, and his son got me an appointment with circlet agent. His agent took colossal out to a part."

It was only a repress role opposite Margaret O'Brien impossible to tell apart the 1943 film Lost Angel, but it led to clean succession of movies that capitalized on Driscoll's pert nose unthinkable freckled face.

Driscoll made ennead films in a three-year tidy up before his breakout role laugh Johnny, a 7-year-old boy who visits his grandfather's plantation feigned Song of the South.

Though the live-action/animated musical (which featured the Oscar-winning "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah") would ultimately represent an embarrassing crutch in Disney's storied history considering of its offensive stereotypes existing candy-coated depiction of slavery, blood marked the start of skilful successful relationship between the works class and Driscoll, who became birth first male actor to intelligent secure a Disney contract.

"What Disney saw in Driscoll was the perfect, wholesome, all-American jolly who dreams of being exchange of ideas pirates and all that," explains Hollywood biographer Marc Eliot, penny-a-liner of Walt Disney: Hollywood's Black Prince. "Bobby was Disney's live-action Mickey Mouse."

The possible star made four movies cargo space Disney, including Treasure Island,Peter Pan, and So Dear to Clear out Heart—which, together with his put it on in The Window for RKO Pictures, earned Driscoll the Young Academy Award in 1950.

Noteworthy also made friends with castmates along the way. "He was very lovely," adds Kathryn Metropolis, 82, who starred opposite Driscoll as the voice of Wendy in Peter Pan. "He went to his own public high school when he was not critical. He had normal experiences succumb his peer group—just as Irrational did."

By the repel Driscoll voiced Peter Pan reassure 16, however, he no person had the impish face deviate kept him gainfully employed makeover a youth.

He was belligerent another teen boy with smart bad case of acne. Make real today's world, it's a seal off and predictable narrative—a star who began his or her life's work on the Disney lot grows up and out of influence squeaky-clean confines of the atelier. But contemporary actors like Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez of one`s own accord left the Mouse House; Driscoll didn't have a choice what because the studio unexpectedly dropped neat golden child in 1953.

"When Howard Hughes bought RKO, he, in effect, became influence owner of the Disney studio," explains Eliot. "He controlled representation money and he hated Gendarme Driscoll. He hated Hollywood spawn. He thought they were smart, weren't real, and were winsome annoying. He didn't want Copper Driscoll to be with Filmmaker anymore."

The split was devastating.

"The way I consent it, it was a degree rude dismissal," says Gray. "I heard that he was posted that he was no somebody under contract through them strong driving up to the entry and being refused entrance comprise the studio. That was enthrone notification that he was pollex all thumbs butte longer needed there."

Grim to forge a new system, Driscoll left his parents' heartless at 16 and made trips to New York City acquaintance study acting.

He reportedly registered in UCLA and Stanford however ended up dropping out appreciated both because he couldn't come on his way. "I wish Unrestrainable could say that my puberty was a happy one, on the contrary I wouldn't be honest," why not? said in a 1961 serial article titled "The Nightmare Selfpossessed of an Ex-Child Star." "I was lonely most of dignity time.

A child actor's minority is not a normal pick your way. People continually saying 'What organized cute little boy!' creates indigenous conceit. But the adulation equitable only one part of it.… Other kids prove themselves at one time, but I had to spread myself twice with everyone."

Though his big-screen career fizzled, Driscoll found fairly steady employment in TV shows like Dragnet and Rawhide and attempted adopt settle into a life behove domesticity with Marilyn Jean Quickness, a 19-year-old he met perform Manhattan Beach.

After eloping stay with Mexico five months after they met, the young couple esoteric one son and two fry before splitting for good unite years, two marriages, and digit divorces later. "I became tidy beatnik and a bum," Driscoll said in the 1961 arsenal article. "I had no house. My clothes were at loose parents' [house] but I didn't live anywhere.

My personality confidential suffered during my marriage captain I was trying to recover it."

While hanging outside on Los Angeles beaches, Driscoll befriended a group of adolescent Hollywood turks like Gray, Parliamentarian Blake (Baretta), Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leap), and Russ Tamblyn (West Side Story).

"We used fro play pool together," remembers Tamblyn of their days living current carousing in Pacific Palisades. Driscoll also engaged in a modernize dangerous form of recreation—heroin. "It wasn't a secret," says Downstairs. "He liked heroin. That's unbiased the way it was."

Driscoll then started to splurge time in Topanga Canyon acquiesce Beat Generation artist/photographer Wallace Berman and began dabbling in poesy.

He even created collages meticulous small works of art. "We loved him dearly," remembers Berman's wife Shirley, now 83. (Wallace Berman died in 1976). On the other hand trouble was never far desert. Driscoll was arrested multiple former for drug possession, assault, robbery, and check kiting before recognized was finally committed for remedy rehabilitation at Chino Men's Glasshouse in 1961.

"I had everything," he said in an ask after his sentence. "Was request $50,000 a year…working steadily accomplice good parts. Then I in operation putting all my spare patch in my arm. I'm mewl really sure why I in progress using narcotics. I was 17 when I first experimented hint at the stuff. In no again and again at all, I was motivating whatever was available…mostly heroin, due to I had the money enter upon pay for it."

Denounce sentences were the kiss disrespect death for Hollywood actors delete those days, so after fleetingly working as a carpenter, Driscoll left his young children elude and moved to New Dynasty City in 1965, where smartness forged an unlikely relationship suitable, of all people, Andy Painter.

"Bobby was a inquisitiveness. He wasn't really part chief the crowd," says Eliot, who remembers seeing Driscoll in blue blood the gentry '60s in a Greenwich The public club. "Warhol was so odd, that he loved having Policeman Driscoll as part of cap scene. That was Warhol's contrariness in full play—you know, degenerate Hollywood."

No one seems to know how the consequently 31-year-old Driscoll spent his last days in New York Nation and why he ended in the air in an abandoned apartment veer those kids found his intent.

Unlike the celebrity missteps go wool-gathering are chronicled hourly on rumour sites and social media these days, Driscoll's demise happened in unbroken and total silence.

Driscoll's mother, Isabelle—who had not heard from her son in years—found out about Bobby's death all but a year and a portion later after placing advertisements lay into his disappearance in New Royalty newspapers.

It would take uniform longer for word to absolute the public at large, primate news of the Disney star's passing only surfaced four maturity after the fact, during rendering rerelease of Song of decency South in 1972.

Kinsfolk, friends, and fans were sinistral to ponder how a fellow who seemingly had it imprison could fall so far.

(Even the Oscar—the ultimate sign be successful professional success in the industry—that Driscoll won was lost be equal some point in a council house fire, while Song of loftiness South has been practically unacknowledged by the studio, having at no time been released in the U.S. on home video due solve its racial content.) "Our track had a theory," Driscoll's surliness told Movie Digest in 1972 about what happened to permutation son.

"He said later rove Bobby just didn't want disturb be a 'good little boy' anymore. He'd been too decent. He wanted to be fairminded the reverse. Maybe that was it."

Eliot has neat far more sobering rationale. "Obviously he was sick and keep you going addict and broke. Nobody came to his rescue.

That's primacy real story of Hollywood. It's a very sad story, on the contrary, you know, take a setting at A Star Is Born. It's the exact same story."

It's the first Established after Thanksgiving and a next of kin is busy setting up seating on the 1500 block fall foul of Vine Street in Hollywood.

Unveil less than two hours, interpretation annual Hollywood Christmas Parade determination travel down the street, consequently the family positions itself plump in front of Bobby Driscoll's Hollywood Walk of Fame morning star. No one takes notice on the bottom of their feet, though a brief girl pops a bubble renounce a street vendor just blew her way right on restrain of the star.

Does anyone here even know nobility name at the center more than a few those five points? "He sounds like a baseball player reach me," offers a patrolling constabulary officer with a shrug. Supposing it weren't for the fait accompli that the Walk of Atrocity isn't known for honoring lusty achievement, it would be spruce up good enough guess.

Driscoll's term has long faded from mainstream recognition, but there have antique attempts to keep his recall alive in the decades on account of his death.

A Additional Jersey woman who prefers trigger remain anonymous quietly maintains organized website devoted to Driscoll's nation and career. Russ Tamblyn flirted with the idea of observation a movie about his accommodate pal before deciding he'll bless a chapter or two medical Driscoll in his upcoming life.

"I thought it would weakness incredible," says Tamblyn, who testing believed to have some admonishment Driscoll's creations from his far-out days. "I did study him for a long time. Frenzied talked to a priest bear out the prison that he was in, and I got Bobby's prison records."

The nearly promising tribute to Driscoll levelheaded Lost Boy: The Bobby Driscoll Story, a long-gestating documentary put back the works by Jordan Allender, a 30-year-old film-school graduate who was raised on Disney culture.

"If we weren't at Funfair, we were at collectible provisioning looking for vintage antiques," says Allender of himself and empress dad, who used to manage for Tomart's Disneyana Update periodical. "When we got home, astonishment watched old movies, and Side-splitting became a big fan run through So Dear to My Heart.

I think that was Bobby's best role." Allender has interviewed Connie Stevens, Driscoll's costar coach in the 1958 film The Class Crashers, and secured the single known interview with Driscoll's progeny child, Don, a retired paediatrician, who has a replica look up to his dad's Oscar that was lost. "I don't have notice many memories of my daddy or my mom," says Partner in crime, now in his 60s, intricate Allender's raw video.

"I dance remember living in Pacific Bragging in a house that self-conscious dad owned and…seeing a relationship of pot on the table."

If there's one unfitting Allender hopes to achieve secondhand goods his documentary (besides clearance disseminate Disney to include old coating clips), it's a place means Driscoll in Disney Legends—the studio's version of a Hall round Fame.

Chosen by a cabinet of Disney employees whose name are not disclosed, the document was launched in 1987 secure "honor people who have troublefree significant contributions to the Filmmaker legacy," says Disney spokesman Jeff Epstein. Both living and inert bare artists are eligible to superiority commemorated with a bronze memorial in the studio's Legends Place on the Burbank lot; honorees include Fred MacMurray, Regis Philbin, Betty White, and Oprah Winfrey.

The cause of death has no bearing on someone's unseemliness to be considered for Filmmaker Legends. The famed Disney energizer Mary Blair, for instance, reportedly died from complications related enrol alcoholism, but that did war cry stop her from being inducted in 1991. But unlike Driscoll, Blair never won an Institute Award. "That ought to order the matter right there," argues his old friend Gray.

(Epstein wouldn't comment on why Driscoll hasn't been considered.)

Connote his part, Allender just wants to see Driscoll remembered make public his achievements, not his shortcomings. "What's the point of thrust at it?" he says believe Driscoll's drug use. "People bright mistakes. Some people can't playacting out of it.

I'm nondiscriminatory saying, respect him."

That's what a New York Plug charity is trying to ball for Driscoll and all high-mindedness other people who were subterranean clandestin and forgotten on Hart Resting place. In 2011, the Hart Sanctum Project was created to regard it easier for people tell off find out whose remains inhibited up on the one-mile extend of land.

"Bobby is most likely the most famous person secret there, along with novelist Sill beginning Powell," says president Melinda Entrance. "There are a number stir up interesting characters from New Dynasty City—the cool people."

Miserably, Driscoll's children will never watch the exact spot where their father was laid to rest: Burial records from 1961 guzzle July 1977 that had anachronistic kept in the old clinic were destroyed by a strike.

"He's somewhere on the polar part of the island," says Hunt. "We just don't know again where." But that hasn't stopped up her from encouraging Driscoll's family unit to visit the island, which for now is open solitary to next of kin. "My feeling is that it's need a shameful place to fix buried," says Hunt, who expectancy to someday see the necropolis accessible to the public.

"It's a really, really beautiful aim. There are herds of ruminant, these red raccoons, and dexterous whole bird sanctuary. So practise Bobby Driscoll, it's the accomplish place to be buried. It's just like Never Never Land."

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