A young man’s body was discovered by two kids in a vacant apartment building in March 1968, resting on a cot. Thrown bottles and religious leaflets littered the area, but there were no traces of violence or identification. Authorities ascribed this unnamed man’s death to a chronic addiction; no family members were known to him. His remains were inexplicably interred in a pauper’s cemetery on New York’s Hart Island. If they had known that he was a former Oscar winner and the voice of one of Disney’s most adored characters, he could have been given a dignified funeral with a gravestone commemorating his legacy as the renowned child star Bobby Driscoll.
At the age of five, Driscoll’s adventure started when a barber suggested he pursue acting. His debut job was in 1943’s ‘Lost Angel’, and he soon had an agent. After appearing in nine movies over the ensuing years, he finally caught Walt Disney’s eye and signed a contract that made him, along with Luana Patten, one of Disney’s first child actresses.
Image Courtesy: IMDb
Known as Disney’s “sweetheart team,” they made appearances in ‘So Dear to My Heart’ and ‘Song of the South’. Driscoll’s talents earned him a Juvenile Academy Award by 1950. He voiced ‘Peter Pan’ in the 1953 animated feature and played Jim Hawkins in the live-action ‘Treasure Island’.
But when he reached adolescence, Driscoll found it difficult to adjust to the changes in his voice and looks, which eventually hurt his career. Following Howard Hughes’ sudden dismissal from Disney, Driscoll experienced bullying at school and descended into a life of addiction and criminality.
Image Courtesy: IMDb
The public found out about his passing with ‘Song of the South’s’ 1972 re-release, and his mother didn’t find out until two years later. In a horrible turn of events, Disney recently came under fire for trivializing Driscoll’s tragic story by making Peter Pan a villain in ‘Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers’. Driscoll had reflected on his past and said he felt a great deal of regret since he felt he had been praised and then cast aside.
–Farheen Ali