Oscars

Here is our Bobby at the 1953 Oscar Reunion <3  I’m so glad he got this opportunity to come back.

It’s interesting how big of a gap there on stage between him and the woman in front of him!  I’m pretty sure there’s no significance to it, I’m just bound to notice these little things.

It’s adorable how, when we first see him, he’s giving a sort of “token” smile, but while the camera is panning past, his face slightly alters into a more genuine, flattered beam, probably because of the applause he garnered.  

The experience of watching this was a haunting one for me.  The picture quality is pretty darn bad, given the fact that television effects were anyway during the 50′s, but seeing Bobby in his own element – not as playing anyone, but just being himself – for even a few seconds felt so wonderful.  We have so little of him left, just being who he was.  No filmed interviews, no preserved personal appearances (aside from the handful-of-seconds Disneyland stint of 1955).

In this sequence, I can feel the force of his personality pressing to reach out of the old, worn-out film that captures him.  

Tired of Being Good - Benjy Ferree

Occasionally on here I’m going to commentate on various songs Benjy Ferree wrote in his Bobby Driscoll concept album called Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee.

I was absolutely delighted to find out that someone had created their own art based on Bobby’s life, so I gave this album a listen.  I’ll be honest, it’s not the type of stuff I usually like, and some songs I couldn’t get into at all.  But it was a worthy effort, and I think Bobby would be proud of it!  So I’m going to elaborate some about it here….

The first song on the album is called “Tired of Being Good.”

The truth comes out when living the straight and narrow

Gossip queens better keep those eyes down low

Take them right off me and put them back on the preacher

As good as it ever will be a freeloader floating at sea

It doesn’t matter if they need me

A house divided

My conscience is a cricket every time I curse you know he writes me a ticket

No one can be free when tied and bound and moved by strings

I cut them down the preacher screams heavy weighs the burden of Brother Dee

I swear at him, the cricket sings

Heavy weighs the shoulders of Brother Dee

Oh brother come back home

Oh brother come back home

I’m tired of being good you know I want to be bad

But I cry when Jiminy won’t call my name

In the name of Lost Boys everywhere and Marilyn Jean

I don’t care if they don’t like me

But they’re still the very best

I don’t care if they don’t like me

But they’re still the very best

My conscience has experience every time I cut myself he stops the bleeding

And what good is freedom when rebellion becomes legal

I cut it down the eagle screams falling to its tomb in the bloody sea

Wendy Darling praying on her knees heavy weighs the burden of Brother Dee

Oh brother come back home

This song seems pretty self-explanatory – those of us who know Bobby’s history know he warred with being good vs. being bad as he got older.  Personally, I feel it’s never as black and white as a “good vs. bad” person, and I don’t feel Bobby was a bad person, ever.  He might have made some bad life choices, but there was still a light that seemed to emanate from Bobby’s spirit that apparently caused him not to want to stay “bad” indefinitely (he had been off drugs at least six months when he died, and coming off of opiates – particularly alone – is not for the faint of heart).  

Anyway, I digress.  To a young person such as he was at the time he made his decision to go “bad,” it probably was pretty black and white to him.  He had been a “good boy” for so long, and I think Ferree reminds us through the lines about Jiminy that Bobby’s conscience probably didn’t leave him alone the entire time he was behaving rebelliously.  

I also love the references Ferree gives to Bobby’s movie career (Wendy Darling and the Lost Boys) and also his personal life (Marilyn Jean).  I do wonder if the lyrics "It doesn't matter if they need me / A house divided" is meant to allude to his divorce...

This song perfectly sums up, I feel, the emotions that may have been present in Bobby’s mind and heart when he was a very young man.

The Ordeal of the S-38

Here is a television show Bobby appeared on in 1957!  It has to do with submarines in WWII.

I really enjoyed watching Bobby in this show.  Of his adult roles so far that I’ve seen, he presented himself here as lighthearted and expressive, which mirrors what I believe Bobby was probably like in person.

He plays a “Bob Fletcher” here, one of the navigators for a submarine that’s come to peril in enemy waters.  He does so with conviction.

In regards to Bobby’s personal life when he made this film, he is wearing a wedding band so we can deduce he was married at the time of filming (he married in March of 1957, so it makes sense).  Marilyn would also have been pregnant (they had Dan in August of 1957) or had already had the baby, so I imagine this might have been a relatively happy time for Bobby.  He certainly had few enough of those periods as an adult, so it’s nice to think about those times when he probably was content.

Favorite Moment:  When Bobby and the captain are playing cards, and he looks up and winks, the corners of his mouth lifting in that adorably impish smile.

Songs

It sounds as though Bobby really loved music.  He was able to sing on an amateur level and, according to an interview in 1954, was interested in playing progressive jazz – the musical direction of the time.

There are two songs Bobby alluded to liking in a letter to his teenage girlfriend in 1951:  “Them There Eyes” and “I’m in Love Again”.  It’s hard to know which version of “Them There Eyes” he was referring to, as – with so many of the songs back then – it was covered by tons of different people.  He might have meant the most famous version by Billie Holiday, but that seems unlikely as that one came out in the 30′s.  However, we do have to remember that a younger person’s stigma about listening to older music in the 50′s probably wasn’t what ours is today.  The other thought is that Doris Drew did cover it in 1951, which was the year the letter to Pat was written.  So who knows!

I’m really not sure about “I’m in Love Again.”  I can’t find much other than to say that Fats Domino popularized it in 1956 which would have obviously not been the version Bobby was talking about here.  It does seem like he listened to alot of records, so many of the songs he liked COULD have been lesser known songs like this as opposed to any “Top Hits” he might have heard on the radio.

It's said that his favorite song was "Earth Angel" by the Platters, according to Brian Keith O'Hara, who stated The Platters was his favorite band.  He made a point of saying that Bobby liked the version The Platters did as opposed to The Penguins' version (the actual hit song), but after doing some research, I don't think The Platters ever did Earth Angel.  I can not only find the actual song on youtube (the one that had once described itself as being The Platters was discovered to have been the Back to the Future version), but I can't seem to find a record that the band recorded the song at all.  So I don't really know what this means, if Bobby's favorite song was still Earth Angel, and it was cited to have been by the Platters since that was his favorite band...?

Anyway, I have come up with my own list of songs that remind me of him.

“Second Chance” - Shinedown

I have to be honest, I kind of hate that most of the songs I’m listing here do have to do with the more tragic part of Bobby’s story.  I guess it’s because those are the moments of his life that tug on our heart strings the most.  This song specifically reminds me of what Bobby might have wanted to say to his parents when he left home for New York in the mid-60′s – that it wasn’t their fault, that he was his own person who had to take his own chances.  I admit, I cried when I heard it anew after learning Bobby’s story.

“Dock of the Bay” - Otis Redding

By all accounts, Bobby did alot of drifting around New York in his final years, and this song reminds me of that very thing – him sitting still in a park, walking down an alley, or hey, maybe sitting on a dock, watching life go on around him and wondering how to move forward.  The terrible irony is, this song was Number 1 in the U.S. the week he was found in the abandoned tenement.  

“All the Right Moves” - One Republic

There is a specific line that definitely reminds me of Bobby in this song, and how he must have struggled for recognition during those career fadeout years of his teens:  Do you think I’m special… do you think I’m nice?  Am I bright enough to shine in your spaces?  In reading about his early career, it does seem that Bobby DID make all the right moves in all the right spaces, and have all the right friends and all the right faces – only for him to be taken down later.