New Years Post

.... I know, super creative title.

In 2019, Bobby would be eighty-two years old, hopefully enjoying family and his twilight years.  He didn't have the chance to do any of that, though, as the last New Year he ever saw -- on earth, at least -- was the dawn of 1968.  The world was a tumultuous place, burdened under the weight of heavy issues such as civil rights and the Vietnam War.  His body was breaking down, and he probably knew it.  By all accounts, DiDi had left him by then, and he was alone.  

So I'm not sure how much hope Bobby felt fifty-one years ago today about himself and life around him.  Safe to say, New Years Eve may have been a blue holiday for him if he was cognizant of it at all (in other words, not high).  But I like to think that now, he sees and feels the love that has continued to bloom for him years after his body blended back into the earth.  And that here, on the edge of 2019, he is still thought of and that he still matters to both people who knew him, and those of us who never had the chance.  

By the way, I was reading something the other day that mentioned how Bobby was "not a strong person."  It compared him to some of his contemporaries, namely Tommy Kirk, who also faced obstacles as a young actor and who fell into marijuana addiction, yet managed to pull himself back up.  But I disagree.  Bobby may not have been able to completely beat his demon of addiction, but he pressed on to the end.  He could very well have succumbed to suicide, which may have crossed his mind after having borne so much heartache and shame.  And it says something to me that he survived New York City as a gentle, peace-loving person with a small build and probably not alot of street smarts -- at least not initially -- during a particularly violent few years full of riots and unrest.  Given that much of the time he was high, and probably kept the company of people who were also addicted and/or mentally unstable, it's remarkable that he kept himself alive.  We may never know how he managed to do that.  But it tells us that he was very brave, and probably very clever.  

Anyway... I was just feeling reflective this evening, and knew it had been awhile since my last post.  I hope everyone has a Happy New Year, painted with the rose gold of the goals and dreams you hope to achieve in 2019.  And I bet Bobby would wish you the same.

Trackdown - Blind Alley

Did I finally find this show, which was among the last of Bobby's career? 

NO!

And that is very unfortunate, but I keep trying, and trying has yielded me THESE, at least:

It's sort of strange seeing Bobby this way, with messed up hair and "blood" all over his forehead, but this is an episode in which he is rendered blind by an outlaw.  And he does look TOTALLY disoriented here.  The man could act.

I also added this one, which we can't see very well, but it is Bob climbing up on a horse, a blindfold over his eyes.  For this Western show, we get treated to something a little different from Rawhide:  a different cowboy hat finally, and a vest!  I wish I could see the full effect, and maybe we yet will if someone will ever find this video and share it.  But for now, it's enough to keep us excited for what may come one day.

Sweet Stuff

As promised way back when, here is the scanned, original size picture of Bobby and Connie that I got a few months back!  It's a little inordinately big for this page, but I want you to have every detail.

Bobby's hands are one of my favorite physical things about him anyway, but what I love here is the POLISHED NAILS.  They have to be.  See how rounded off they are, and how they kind of shine?  So it hit me then that male actors must have had this done before taking a role, particularly a romantic lead.  I swear I've learned more about the past by being a Bobby Driscoll aficionado than I did being a History major.  

Save it -- keep it -- enjoy.

Prompt #1 -- From Sarah!

So since I've had so few new things to say lately, yet still want to keep an active blog, I had asked my readers to give me feedback about anything they'd like me to address in a post -- either questions they have about Bobby that I can answer from my research, or just things they'd like me to talk about -- and I got a couple of great questions from a reader named Sarah.

(And I put a picture up that's unrelated, but it just feels odd to blog without a picture....)

From Sarah:

"If Bobby was alive in 2018, how would he see Disney as in comparison to his acting days?  Which movie/TV show character would he be?"

I really liked this question because it addresses things I have thought about before.  Let's take the first question first!

Everything I've ever heard about Bobby tells me he was a pretty forgiving and loyal person.  That being said... he also had definite propensity to be salty when he wanted to be.  Who can forget that after he was arrested for rock throwing and pistol whipping those two surfer dudes and getting his charges dropped, he was ready to turn around and slap a charge on THEM for disturbing the peace.  He also admitted himself in his one adult interview that he'd gone through a season of feeling pretty bitter about how forgotten he was in Hollywood.... so it's hard to know to what extent he later forgave Walt Disney for what he'd done, or how that would have changed over time.

However.... he showed up for that Disneyland pirate ship interview, didn't he?  I still can't believe he had the grace to do such a thing only two years after he was unceremoniously dumped from the payroll.  This could have been due to pressure from his mom, as has been suggested, or he could have been offered a pretty penny to do it.  I still don't think either of things would have been enough for me to have shown my face to Disney again that soon, but he did.  He also never publicly slammed the company in any way.  So we cannot exactly know how Bobby would have handled his Disney past if he'd made it to the other side of adulthood.

But I know he liked children.  I know he took all of his roles seriously... and if there's one thing I can see him doing as an adult, and even an older man, it's doing some appearances or speaking for some Peter Pan DVD special editions with Kathryn Beaumont to discuss their old roles of Peter and Wendy.  I feel he would have done this with politeness toward the company, and the right amount of humor and gusto to represent his old role of Peter Pan.  If for nothing else, as a legacy thing, and to get the chance to address all the kids who grew up loving the film.  Now, what would his personal feelings be about what happened to him as a teenager is something he may keep quiet.  I also figure they might largely depend on whether or not Bob would have ever been able to pull himself back up by his bootstraps, if he'd lived longer.  He could look at his firing from Disney as being the best thing that ever happened to him for having made him stronger in the end, and having the chance to be courageous and fight back against his demons..... or he could have carried a lifelong bitterness for having been set on a course that stole the prime of his life away from him once he turned to addiction and carried a string of broken relationships under his belt.

Now!  Onto the second question:

Bobby would be eighty-one years old by now, and even though most "normal" people you and I know who are that age have been retired for a good while, it's not necessarily that way for celebrities.  Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson and Jane Fonda are all Bobby's age, and they're still pretty active in Hollywood.  So, had Bobby been able to make a comeback due to the other factors he was up against, his age certainly might not be keeping him from acting now.

For some reason -- and remember this is all just my opinion and conjecture -- I imagine that Bobby might do some acting, but not take on a full-time role.  I can see him doing television more than movies, which has become a more prestigious medium in the last decade than what it used to be, and more character acting than playing a leading man.  Bobby grew into a devastatingly handsome guy to me and alot of his lady fans, but he didn't exactly have that conventional Hollywood romantic lead face casting directors love... and yes, he was short.

By the way, I have to comment on his height:  back then, that might not have been a good thing to advance an actor's career, but it's much less of an obstacle now.  Tom Cruise is pretty short, and Mark Wahlberg is around the height Bobby was.  You're not necessarily out of work nowadays just for that.

But his overall appearance would give Bobby to a great candidacy for more unusual, quirky roles.  I don't really know that I can think of what steady type of role he might take on as an older actor, but I often see random TV episodes, movies, etc., and think, "Bobby could have done that!"  A good example is a CSI episode I saw that featured a storyline where an old, good-humored dentist on the verge of retiring was actually a serial killer.  He was the person least suspected, and even when he was caught he had an innocent, nonchalant way of talking about the whole thing.... obviously telling us how crazy he was.  Not that I relish the idea of Bobby in a psycho role like that, but something about how the guy executed the whole thing made me think, "Bobby could have totally pulled this off." 

Anyway, I like the part-time acting notion, because that would leave him time for his artistic pursuits, and.... the thing I visualize most of all.... him spending time loving on and playing with all those sweet little great-granddaughters (and two great-grandsons -- that I know of!). 

So that's what I like to imagine acting and living would have looked like in Bobby's golden years.  Of course, he could have given up acting altogether to sit by a pool all day in Bermuda shorts with his fifth wife in Florida.  But not my favorite scenario!

Thanks for the prompt, Sarah!  If anyone has another topic they'd like me to explore, please send it on!

Connie and Bobby

Good evening, all, and Happy Thanksgiving!

My Bobby passion has not waned in the least, by the way.  However, I am having the absolute worst time these days finding "new" information to dish out to y'all or write about.  I guarantee there are other things out there I haven't seen, but for now, they're still in hiding and I haven't had the time to dig extra, super hard.

So just to let you know I'm still here and still looking, I'm going to share this image I found on WorthPoint not long ago.  It was actually sold on eBay back in March, and I could throat punch myself for having not seen it then.  Someone did buy it -- AND the accompanying pictures that were much too far away to get a good look at.  I can only hope it was the person who owns the website, because that means she might show them off at some point, and we'll have way better copies to look at than this one!

This is from Party Crashers.  I think it's supposed to be a romantic interchange between Connie Stevens' character and Bobby's, even though there are a couple of things that strike me about it.  Firstly, Bobby doesn't exactly wear a dazzled expression, and actually appears to be looking a little above Connie's face.  Secondly, Connie looks way more like she's about to choke him than that she's giving a loving caress, and the expression on her face only enhances that notion.  I know that in this movie, her character was certainly written as one who wears the pants in the relationship, and maybe that's meant to translate into this image as well.

But still, Bobby.  His eyelashes look very sweet here, and I'm sure it's due to makeup.  I'm an eyelash aficionado, so I always notice these things.  For all of Bobby's adorable features, I have to say I don't usually regard him as having long, thick lashes.  They're certainly not short and thin, but they don't particularly pop, either.  However, there have been some great pictures that do showcase them better than others, and this is certainly one.

Don't you wonder if Bobby knew what a terrible movie Party Crashers was?  It's generally agreed upon that the script was lousy, and his character was a total bore.  I believe that that's the impression we were supposed to have of Josh Bickford, and not any lack of quality acting on Bobby's part.  After all, we've seen his perfect success at being saucy for his Billy Chance character in Rawhide.  He did deliver some smoldering stare-downs with Mark Damon, my personal favorite being when he not only loaned him a cigarette, but followed it up by lighting it for him, too.

If you haven't watched this yet, go to YouTube.  And heck, download it to your computer.  At the rate Bobby stuff remains so unavailable and is taken down quite often, I aim to save all this for myself.  The Rawhide videos have been taken down a number of times already, and last I checked, the only copies you can find of Incident of Fear in the Streets and Incident of the Captive have been altered quite a bit to save a copyright infringement.

Now here's what you can do!  Leave me a comment telling me if there's anything you'd like me to discuss next on this blog.  It can be a personal topic about Bobby (though nothing too intrusive), or a commentary of some of his work.  During these lean times, I'd love to have some feedback!

Just a little something.....

..... until I have a bigger something else!

I wanted to show off this picture which was featured on eBay, and which I actually bought!  The issue is, my scanner isn't currently working, so I'm unable to show you my awesome version, sans eBay sticker.  But this is the next best thing.  Apparently this is the original image that spawned the blurry headshot I featured on here not so long ago -- which was also part of the set taken for the "Nightmare of a Child Star" article.

And let me tell you, this is awesome.  It's the one close-up portrait-style photo we have of Bobby as a grown man, and it gives away several details about him.  Allow me to point them out....

First, I can't help but love the imperfections.  If you look closely at this picture (or you might not be able to see it here, but I can certainly see it on my print), he definitely has a unibrow.  You can also see how deeply set the acne scars are, which may have been made worse if, in his drug use, he was what they call a tweaker (picking at skin whilst high, feeling like things are crawling on your face, itching, etc.).  But what I guess I love about these details is, they give us an even more complete picture of him and what we would have seen if we could have stood face to face with him.  No movie makeup magic.

The other thing I noticed was how thick his wedding band was.  Now I'll be honest, it kind of blows my mind that he would have worn his wedding band from the Marilyn marriage to an interview he actually took Suzanne with him to, but I'm just going to guess he had his reasons and leave it at that.

Lastly, it's the intense gaze that draws me in the very most.  I've said this before, but in this shot, it's as though he's tilting his head to look right into a person's eyes, bidding them to really get to know him as a man -- not a child star.

I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I did!  I really don't have alot else to say currently.  BUT, it sounds like Jordan Allender of the documentary will have some exciting news for us soon!  He updated the Facebook page for Lost Boy by telling us to stay tuned for an announcement!  With any luck, we may finally get either a release date or another preview of some kind.  I truly believe in this project, because this is the only guy I've seen yet that's spent such a long period of time researching and interviewing people about Bobby (since 2011), and looks to definitely be over halfway finished.  That lends credence, because I don't think he would ditch his work after coming this far.  At any rate, this documentary is currently our only hope of having something publicized about Bobby's life with the input of those who are still alive to speak about it firsthand.

Happy October!  As I do, I'll be back soon with something else by and by!

Behind-the-scenes Song of the South footage

Good afternoon, All!  And Happy Almost-October.  I can't believe that it's been almost a year since I went to Hart Island.  That is a trip I will never, ever forget, for more than one reason:  Bobby, obviously; and that's when I got into the accident where I lost my absolute favorite car of all time.  Well... gotta take the salt with the sugar.

Anyway, these videos have been on Youtube for years, most recently combined into one, so alot of you may have seen them.  But I wanted to take some time today to remark on them, and what they mean to me.  If you haven't watched them, please do so!  They're little short clips that have alot of Bobby in them, and one can't help but smile at his little mannerisms and savor a time when perhaps life wasn't so complicated for him.  Just know, there isn't any sound.  Studios back then added the sound after the movie, so since these were just "extra footage," there was no need to.  What this guy has done, however, is add some of the Song of the South music after he remastered the clips (which were originally on the Disney website).  If it annoys you to hear the same stuff for ten minutes, as it does me, that's what mute is for.  :D

When watching this, I was delighted by a few things!

1) Didn't a movie set seem like so much fun back then?  Probably a much smaller film crew than they have now, and they all seemed to be having a good time with one another.

2) Bobby was just... adorable.  He's seen holding the squirming puppy, which he shares with Luana part of the time, and there is alot of footage of him and Luana holding hands, walking around.  At one point he even walks way ahead of her and practically tugs her, haha (NOTE: in looking back over alot of these scenes, it's obvious that they were actually in the midst of filming during the handholding).  There is a scene where he seems to maybe be trying to pull his hand back from her (with James Baskett looking on), so I imagine they probably did need a little break from one another every so often.  But they seem to have been friends the whole time.

3) All the children were seated together to eat -- including the African American children, which made me very happy.  I grew up in the South, and from hearing the testimonies of those who know firsthand, racial integration was NOT a thing in the 40's around here.  It gladdened my heart to see a glimmer of hope that maybe these kids were well-treated in California -- and that Bobby learned early to love everyone.

4) Isabelle!  Toward the beginning of the clips, she is seen with a cluster of other women, in the middle.  I'm guessing this was a small troupe of the moms (btw, I don't see the African-American MOMS here, so maybe there was still some racial tension among the adults).  It is VERY cool to see her in live-action.  She seemed to have a pretty good rapport with at least a few people on set, even if she has the reputation of having been a major Stage Mom.

Despite the pressure they probably put on their kids, here's the good thing about stage moms:  they hopefully keep track of their kids.  I just have to burst the happy bubble for one second to say, I have learned from Corey Feldman and Corey Haimm (testimonies they gave, not actual conversations with them) that there has often been a problem with indiscretion toward kids on movie sets.  People have even leveled suppositions at Walt Disney, though I have, to date, never found a stitch of actual evidence toward this.  My point is.... hopefully, if you had a mother who was active in their child's work on set, that type of thing would be far less likely to happen.  This is not to say that child actors were still not around other people alone at other times, but I have a feeling the presence of an overbearing momma might discourage bad behavior.  I pray so -- for I would not want to think Bobby had any more bad memories to have to deal with in his adult life than he already did.  Here's one thing for sure:  I'd like to think that if I had kids in show business, I'd be GLUED TO THEM in the presence of all these people, whether they called me a stage mom or not.

Pardon that side stepping for a moment, I just had to go there.  Anyway!  Watching these has warmed my heart thoroughly, and made me so grateful we have a little bit of a window into Bobby just being a kid.  I hope they do the same for you.

A Treat! (especially for you Peter Panfans)

Here's something I'd not seen before a few weeks ago!  I'd have posted it earlier, but I didn't want to interrupt my girlfriend series.

Some of you may have seen this, but I sure hadn't.  It's apparently from the new 65th anniversary edition that I do not own yet, much to my profound sorrow.  Isn't it so adorable how earnest Bobby's face is here?  It's truly a shame that Kathryn Beaumont really doesn't have more memories of Bobby, despite their photo shoots and shared screen work.

Oh well.  Enjoy!  Hopefully over time, more and more of the reference shots from the '53 Peter Pan will be leaked to the public.

(Btw, as implied above, obviously not mine.  I got this somewhere on Facebook.)

Bobby's Girls - Part 2 (Adulthood)

As promised, my second installation of "Bobby Girls" - a close look at the relationships we knew Bobby to have.

In my last post I chronicled a few of his teenage girlfriends, plus delved into his marriage to Marilyn Jean Rush in a limited way.  As I said there, anyone who wants to know more should read Bobby's own words from 1961, found in this article.

And, in that very same article, we are introduced to the great Suzanne Carrier Stansbury.  You know, Suzanne of the infamous animal clinic burglary.

Bobby mentions having been drawn in by Suzanne's looks.  I'm sure she was very beautiful (it's kind of hard to tell in the one picture we have of her), and drew him in with her sexy French accent and older woman experience (we read she was a decade older than Bobby).  And, as Loretta Lynn says in a line that would be considered super sexist by millennial standards, "after all, he's just a man." :):)

You'll notice there are next to no indicators painted in the article above that Suzanne was a particularly bad influence on Bob, and she even goes so far as to say he got himself in so much legal trouble by being around the wrong people.

... And that is positively cringeworthy when hindsight tells us she was one of those people herself.  In this passage from Flash of Eden by Paul Ferrara, which obviously gets a couple of details wrong about Bobby's crimes, we learn that Suzanne was out finding people to get high with while Bobby was in Chino.  Pair that with the burglary, and you've got a pretty good indicator that she was every bit as into drugs as he was at the time.  What makes this all the harder to stomach is the idea that Bobby was away in rehab, even though we do know that unfortunately alot of people go to rehab only because court mandates it, and it gets them out of a sentence.  Because we haven't yet gotten to hear from George Herms or any of his other friends who knew him from around that time, it's uncertain whether Bobby was truly serious about getting clean in Chino long-term or not.  But if he was, it had to be crazy discouraging to come back home to this.  And we've definitely reason to believe he did go back home to Suzanne, as he wrote one of his last letters in Chino before his release to Herms, still declaring his ardent love for his girlfriend. 

Oh my gosh, I have looked up as much as I possibly can to try to trace this woman both before and after her relationship with Bobby, and I can find nothing.  She seems to have ghosted.  She could have gone back to France, changed her name, gotten married, or all of the above, and we really don't have a trail to follow her down.  The only things we know about her we know from Bobby's interview -- and because he was neck-deep in his addiction and a fair amount of deception trying to hide it, it's hard to know if this is the FULL story -- but he said she was a war bride who married an airman in World War II, came back over to the U.S. with him and their son, and at some point he left her.  She then took jobs at department stores and as a cocktail waitress, trying to get by.

Now if this were truly the case, and it's very plausible, it does give us some sympathy for her.  Even in California, times were what they were back then, and I'm sure she was often judged for being a single mother and a divorcee.  She was also a foreigner.  Chances are, she took to drugs herself in order to numb some of her own pain and disillusionment after her husband took off.  She still had her son, Nicky, with her when she met Bobby and moved him in with her, and we can bet that was a serious adjustment for all of them.  Fourteen is a tough age for the kids who have everything going for them.  Nicky was being raised by a mom who was in a relationship with a man only ten years older than him (and who knows how often this kind of thing had happened before), plus they were both addicts.  See more about my thoughts on this from my post here.

I guess the thing I'd like most to know is what happened between Bobby and Suzanne.  I can't personally dig enough up to tell me.  All I know is, he was with her when he was released from Chino in early 1962, and by the end of the next year, he wasn't.  I'm not sure if he broke up with her... she broke up with him... they just drifted apart.... or if she moved away.  I'd really love it if someone would shed light on this who might know.  He married Didi in the fall of 1963 after a VERY brief courtship, so there's always a chance he could have left Suzanne for this other woman, but something tells me he and Suzanne didn't make it quite that long.

So... from what I can gather... after 1962, Suzanne just disappeared.  It's unlikely she's alive today, as she would be over ninety years old now.  Not impossible, but as many people as Bobby knew who died as young as their sixties and seventies, chance seems to be stacked against us.  I guess what I hope is, she got help of her own at some point during her life, and that her son ended up with a peaceful adulthood.  Everyone deserves peace and safety.  I pray they found it eventually.

Our next -- and last -- relationship to discuss is that that Bobby had with Sharon "Didi" Morrill.

If we ever thought we knew next to nothing about Suzanne, we know even less about Didi.  Or rather, there is more information about her individually (though still precious little), but this is one relationship we never heard Bob talk about himself.  This could be because, post-Chino, Bobby all but disappeared from the public eye.  I figure some of this was his desire, as he'd become more enveloped in the art scene, but it could also be because by 1963, Bobby was considered a hundred percent washed up.  His television appearances had ceased, and the sad thing is, even if Bobby hadn't meant for it to go down that way, his very public sentence to Chino probably took care of any of the remaining do-gooders who had wanted to help him get a new start back in the late 50's.  Even the most empathetic of people during this era still understood very little about drug addiction.

So, Didi!  First, let's talk about who she was.  According to her brother Terry in the book Semina Culture by Michael Duncan (which I'd love to own, by the way), Didi was a big-hearted, thrill-seeking, drug-addicted woman who grew up in a middle-class family and became an airline stewardess after she left school.  However, the regimented lifestyle didn't appeal to her for long, and she soon left the job.  From then on, it seems she lived a largely transient lifestyle, had alot of different relationships with different men, and contributed in small ways to Wallace Berman's art and poetry scene.  She can be seen for a couple of minutes dancing in Berman's Aleph.

I've not yet read anything chronicling Bobby and Didi's falling in love period, but I would imagine it went something like this:  Bobby was as mesmerized as the next guy was by this free-spirited young woman.  An article I once read on Kirby Doyle (but, of course, can't find now) states that in the summer of '63, she left Doyle, whom she had been with for years (even taking on his last name periodically as she'd done later with Bobby), with a gentleman who had been exclusively homosexual to that point, but fell into a fury of infatuation after having watched her dance one night.  This, in and of itself, tells us Didi was probably a charmer. 

There's also more than a good chance that Bobby had known her for awhile prior to their relationship.  They were both friends of Wallace Berman's, Didi actually appearing in a few of his avant-garde photographs, and we don't know but that maybe he had admired her from a distance before she finally became available for him.  I'm sure also that drugs brought them even closer together.  One has to wonder, was Bobby likewise close with Kirby Doyle?  What did Doyle think when, after returning from her excursion with another man, she immediately took up with Bobby?  Was Bobby concerned about that, or was he too smitten to care?  There are more questions than answers about this period of Bobby's life, so I don't know if we'll ever know their "meet story."

All we do know is that they were married in November of 1963 in a ceremony officiated by Bob Alexander.  The whole thing was unofficial, as we know, and my conjecture is that maybe the ceremony was Bobby's idea.  My only reason for thinking so is knowing that Didi had been with more than a handful of men by this point and had never bothered to "marry" them previously.  Bobby, however, had religious sentiments and seemed to favorably regard marriage, despite how it went the first time for him.  Even though it never ended up happening, he had wanted to marry Suzanne Stansbury as soon as they could manage to do so.  This tells me that marriage was still a very important thing to Bob.

Bobbydriscoll.net shows us a thank you note Bobby had written to Alexander, thanking him for the marriage and sending him a candid shot of Didi.  So, a new chapter of Bobby's love life was written!  And then....

And then what?

Inconsistent stories and, eventually, nothing at all.  It's pretty much agreed upon by everyone that Didi and Bobby went together to New York around 1964.  That's when we read in Semina Culture that Bobby, Didi, and her brother tried to sell drugs there and ended up on the police's radar, which caused them to flee to Canada.  Then, supposedly, Bobby went back down to NYC and Didi went home to California.

Only, that couldn't have been the end of the story.  In 1965, we know they appeared in Heliczer's Dirt together, her under the last name "Driscoll."  Things had to have been good enough for them then.  Then we know that in the winter of 1966 (which I always assume to mean January/February of that year, not the end), Bobby posted his "Sunday Bonnet Smile" poem in The Floating Bear, and Didi drew a picture to go with it -- though, once again, using the surname Doyle.

So what exactly happened?  When did Didi go back to California, and did she and Bobby continue to correspond as friends?  Were they on-again, off-again for awhile?  At Thanksgiving in 1966, Diane DiPrima speaks of Didi spending some time with her and her partner because "her old man had gone a little too berserk, even for her."  This was mentioned just after a reference to the drugs Didi did, so I assume whomever she was with was experiencing a really scary high.  I wondered if this was Bobby.

Though, yet again, DiPrima calls her by Doyle.  Had she gone back to Kirby Doyle by this point?

I really have no idea what happened to Didi, and to her and Bobby's relationship.  What I do know is that the next thing I was able to find was that she died of something related to heavy drug-use in the 80's or 90's, and Bobby....

Well, we know what happened to Bobby.  He died completely alone.

We can't judge Didi for leaving him to die, really, because we just don't know what happened.  He could have driven her away.  He could have wanted to be alone more than he wanted her with him.  And, I mean, sure, she could have ran off -- as seemed to be her habit -- to greener pastures.  But until someone knows for sure, I don't want to cast any blame on her.

Were there other girls for Bobby?  The one-after-the-other nature of all three of his significant adult relationships really leaves no time in between for anything else serious, though we'd have to know how/when he separated from Suzanne to know if there was a sizeable enough gap before Didi for him to have fallen for someone else.  As far as after Didi, we can either guess that Bobby was unable to find anyone else that intellectually and romantically stimulated him enough for a relationship, or that he wasn't able to attract girls as easily anymore.  We know he was missing teeth by then, his hair was graying, and heroin causes the skin to appear yellow and leathery.  It could be that any would-be partner that happened post-1966 considered him to look far too old for her tastes.  He may also have been so heartbroken that he never found true happiness in any of his relationships to date that he decided never to try again.

He could also have known he was dying, and didn't want to issue promises he couldn't keep, or saddle a woman with caring for him through a pretty rough physical demise.

So there they are -- the woman we know of that Bobby loved.  I hope you guys have enjoyed reading these posts as much as I've enjoyed writing them!  And, as I always say, we'd love to hear from you if your own knowledge can fill in any blanks.

NOTE:  The above image came from ebay.  It's a Party Crashers still of Bobby and Connie Stevens.  And even though the quality I was able to secure here kind of sucks, stay tuned, because I bought it! :)  When I get it, I'll scan it in at full size so you all can see it.  It's said to be pretty rare, and it must be because I'd never seen it before.

Bobby's Girls (Part 1 - The Early Years)

Bobby, from what we can deduce from letters, songs he loved, things he said in his handful of interviews, etc., was quite the romantic.  He never went long, from the time he was an adolescent onward, without being in a serious relationship.  I've never heard of or read any evidence claiming that he was a "lady's man," however, or a philanderer.  He was known to be flirty at times, but it doesn't seem he really used it as a means for an end, grabbing up all the girls who would have him.  Rather, it seems to me he was most interested in finding that one person who would be his forever.

This, as we know, didn't work out very well for him.  I don't want to call him a serial monogamist, as having gone through three relationships by the time he was thirty-one seems pretty standard for alot of guys.  But he did continue to try to find that person, despite the ending each of his relationships had.

So!  I'm going to talk a little about this in my post today.  Mind you, my blog is for me, as an admirer of Bobby's, to simply discuss parts of his life as I see them and feel them, not to shed any disrespectful light on either him or anyone involved with him.  Therefore, I don't intend in the least to tear any of these women down.  Bobby had his own faults and baggage he brought into each relationship that, I'm sure, helped to bring about the demise of each.  I adore the man, but he was not perfect.  I also want to say that the reason I feel comfortable doing this is because Bobby himself, while always being tasteful and discreet about his relationships, never seemed bothered by making them known to the public.  If he'd been ultra-private in this regard, I'd feel more trepidation touching on this topic myself.  But since I feel he'd be okay with the way I'm going about this, I'm going to dive right in here.

Okay, so we know that in his teens he was involved with (at least) Patricia Nolan, Susan Strasberg, and Louise Kane.  I won't go into the adolescent relationships so much, as we don't know much about them, and what kid with Bobby's looks and charm didn't do some playing the field?  I'm not really sure how serious any of these relationships were.  We've all run across his letters to Pat Nolan when he was in the first half of his teens (if you want a refresher, you can find them at bobbydriscoll.net as well as tons of other places).

We know about Louise Kane only because Bobby mentioned her in an interview he did just after he began his stage run of "The Boy with the Cart" (Tucson Daily Citizen, 2/5/54).  And that's all we know about her.  Maybe this one didn't last long.

According to a would-be biographer, he met and dated Susan Strasberg, daughter of Lee Strasberg, when he visited New York a couple times as an older teen.  The biographer states that Susan confirmed the relationship, as well as the fact that she had great difficulty talking about Bobby because the subject broke her heart.  I have wondered if this is the girl from "the movie colony" that Bobby's mom mentions in the interview she did after revealing his death back in 1972.

These are only a few of the relationships Bobby had before his marriage to Marilyn, and there were quite possibly a few more.  He mentioned in his 1961 interview that he'd dated Connie Stevens briefly, and we may know more about that here shortly when the documentary is released, as Stevens is one of the people interviewed.

So now we get to Marilyn.  We get the best glimpse we ever get into this relationship in Bobby's 1961 interview, which you can also find on bobbydriscoll.net.  It seems they were both young, lonely, and vulnerable in their own way.  I tread very lightly here, because Marilyn is the mother of Bobby's children, and I know the topic of their parents is a very personal one to them.  So all I really want to say about Marilyn is that my heart truly does break for her.  She was young, probably very much in love with Bobby and hopeful about a white picket-fence future with him, raising a family.  Who isn't at nineteen?  So when you take the "nervous disorder" talked about in his interview (and I'd rather not pursue the topic any farther than that in this post), and the mayhem he brought into the marriage with his drug and legal problems... plus three young children... you have the broken-dreams situation we read about later.  I'm sure this was a very hurtful thing for everyone involved, and I'd imagine Bobby probably had some regrets about the way alot of it was handled.  I simply pray that in the aftermath, Marilyn found some peace.

Almost immediately after he and Marilyn divorced -- actually, during their separation but before the divorce was finalized -- Bobby met Suzanne Stansbury.  And that's where I will pause for today.  More on Suzanne... and Sharon Morrill... next post!

Bobby and Luana! Too much cuteness...

I did find a pic this month I hadn't seen before!  Actually I found it last month, or maybe longer ago even, but who cares about these details? :D  I was hanging on to it to post on here at some point.

Who else thinks this is beyond adorable?  They both have such serious little faces!

Notice how perfectly coiffed Bobby's hair was, always.  That was a product of his era, but also, can't you just imagine how, as a little boy, he probably stood stone-cold still in front of his momma for her to gunk his head up with product so she could sculpt it so well?  At least, I always assume he went for his publicity appearances with his hair fixed already.  I'm not sure they spent quite the money and time back then on trussing up child stars for their pictures as they do now.

I know this may feel a little like an extension of the post I did on Isabelle to bring this up, but who else thinks she was absolutely FIERCE when it came to teaching Bobby manners?  I just have a feeling -- especially based on how strict she was said to be with him.  I also know from my own grandparents and stories from people older than me that those mid-century mommas could be a force to be reckoned with.  I'm betting his rules went something like this:

Don't bite your nails.  And by the way, go clean under them. (His nails were always nicely trimmed too... and I recall Clet questioning their cleanliness before one of his teen interviews).
Don't ask the adults to stop filming for you to go to the bathroom.  Hold it! (Ugh...)
No sass-mouthing.  Ever.  (I wonder if he felt a certain amount of excitement when he was neck-deep in that altercation with the surfer guy he ended up hitting with a pistol?)
Treat ladies better than you treat yourself.  (He was quite the charmer, and he always had long-term relationships to show for them).

And probably a ton more.  It polished him up quite well, at least... until he grew tired of perfection, as we know, and turned to a helper.  Anyway... hope you enjoy this one! 

I really wanted to do a post at some point discussing Bobby's artwork and more of his poems, but I have trouble sorting through his symbolism.  Anyone else who thinks they have a corner on this, please speak up!  We'd probably all love to hear from you.

A Break in the Silence!

Happy summer Sunday afternoon, Readers!  Where the heck have I been?!

Well... working alot of hours.  And truthfully, being thoroughly unable to find new material to blog about.  I typically have to tunnel down into the depths of the internet to find "new" Bobby info, and often I luck up and do come across something.  Or sometimes I'll commentate on stuff that's already general knowledge.  But lately I've just had some serious writer's block.  I had wanted to do a Father's Day post talking about Clet as I had done for Isabelle, but let me tell y'all a secret you probably already know:  there is precious little I can find on Cletus Driscoll.  He seems to have been a quiet figure that went about his daily work as a salesman and business owner and let Isabelle do most of the Bobby-ing in terms of his career.  Therefore.... guh, I just don't know what to say about him.  Then I'd wanted to do a segment on Bobby as a father, but I would need to interview one or two of the kids for this, and that's not really a viable option right now, so I let that go too.

So I'm sorry to say I don't have too much for us this week.  I will continue to try harder for my next post, which I'd like to have up sometime later in the month, but for now?  I will share with you all a background I made on PicsArt a couple weeks ago!  It is an amalgamation of some of Bobby's grown-up pictures, along with two quotes that express my personal feelings about Bobby -- and that I imagine might express some of yours!  So feel free to take it and use it, if you like it.  I had to crunch it down to fit on this page, but hopefully if you click on it you can get the full size...?

Anyway... that's all I've got for now!  By the way I'm open to take any suggestions if anyone ever wants me to feature a specific Bobby topic. 

Oh!  Good news is, www.bobbydriscoll.net is back up and running!  This makes me happy.  Finally we can access those sound files again from Bobby's radio work. 

Hope everyone has a good month.  Please stay cool!

Beautiful New Tribute Art by Morgan

I was going to wait a little longer to post this, but I got excited and couldn't.

We all know how much I love works of art/writing/music based on Bobby, because I believe that, as he himself was an artist, he would be very touched by them.  And of course I enjoy art myself, so there's that.

Anyone remember Morgan of the super amazing screenshots on Pinterest?  I featured them several months ago, or at least posted a link so you all could check them out.  Anyway, she has presented us with two cartoon drawings of Bobby that are quite excellent!  Here they are:

The first is entitled Spa Day, and is a drawing of herself and Bobby as a young man, having fun.

She has also rendered a likeness of Bobby at nineteen, which she pointed out, is her current age:

I think she has done a beautiful job cartooning Bobby's features and capturing his quirky handsomeness.  The eyebrows are GREAT!  I also like how she rendered his slender build very accurately in the first one.

Loose Guidelines for me posting your stuff... or a link to your stuff:

If anyone else ever has some tribute art or writing you'd like me to share on my blog, please contact me!  I can't absolutely promise I will post everything anyone wants me to, as I do reserve the right to decline if I feel something doesn't match the tone of this blog or is disrespectful in any way.  I'm never going to post nude pictures, pictures that don't actually resemble Bobby whatsoever (not dissing anyone's work!  I'm sure Bobby would have appreciated the effort, just I have to draw the line somewhere), or are controversial in some way.

With writing, I'll probably just post a link to your story instead of paste it in here.  It can be a little dicey to get people to read fictional stories based around Bobby's life, as some people don't think that should be done.  I myself have written one, however, and personally feel that respectful fiction in which you give plenty of disclaimers reminding people it IS just a story is an acceptable and moving way to honor him.  But again, no pornographic literature, and I don't expect writing to be perfect but I do ask that it at least be moderately correct with grammar and spelling -- not typos all over the place -- and sentence structure.  LORD!  SENTENCE STRUCTURE!  That's truly my one big bug when it comes to amateur writing.  And it needs to feature Bobby prominently and be largely about him, not be about something else and Bobby makes a supporting appearance.

One other thing:  let's not do anything featuring Bobby's children.  They are still alive and just trying to live quiet lives I think, and they may feel objectified by their names being mentioned in any Bobby-related artwork or writing.  I actually need to go myself and take their names out of my story, speaking of, because I have since felt that that shouldn't be done.

So let's give Morgan a hand for what she did here, and encourage her to continue pursuing her amazing talent!

Isabelle (intended for Mother's Day, but, well...)

So today I am going to talk about Isabelle Louise Kratz Driscoll Parker -- otherwise known as Bobby's mother.  I would have done this earlier in the month, but my life has been a three ring circus since April, just recently coming to a head, and I couldn't seem to sit in peace long enough to form a single thought to blog about.

I've definitely noticed you don't have to be a Bobby fan for long to realize most people aren't very happy with Isabelle and how she mothered Bobby.  In most people's minds, she ranks alongside Walt Disney on the list of "Who did Bobby the dirtiest." There are alot of people who say they heard from this person who talked to that person, and therefore came to the conclusion she was a horrible stage mom, an emotionally abusive mother,  a money grabber who took advantage of Bobby's fame, a naive woman for having not identified Bobby's addiction earlier, and, oh!  How dare she not bring his body home from Hart Island in short order?  And to get remarried and not be buried next to Clet and her son's cenotaph?!

It's kind of endless.  And by the way, there might be something to alot of the accusations.  But I tend to be one of those people who says, if we don't know for sure (and we have few remaining primary sources that quote her or even knew her well), let's have grace and assume there was another side to her story.  Here's what's important:  Bobby loved her.  Even if, suppose, he spent alot of time frustrated with her and felt as an adult that there were ways in which she let him down, she was his mother -- and I've read enough about Bobby to know he was a loyal, loving friend.  I've every reason to believe he was the same way with his family.  That's about all I need to know in order to give Isabelle's memory a fair chance.

Here is a picture I found of her recently!  She was a young woman here.  I've always felt that Bobby favored her a good deal more than he favored his dad, except for the nose.  They certainly share the same bold eyes and full lips.  On either side are pictures of Bobby I feel resemble her the most here:

Isabelle died back in 1981, and aside from granting the interview in 1972 to Florence Epstein revealing what had happened to her son, we've never heard alot from her or about her.  I do hate that she was estranged from her grandchildren for whatever the reason.  I'm sure there was a story with a couple of sides behind this too, but out of respect for Bobby's children first and foremost, I think we should leave this topic alone.

Here are the pearls of first-hand knowledge we DO have.  Let's string them together and see what kind of necklace we end up with:

• We know she was a schoolteacher, and later worked for UCLA as a librarian part-time.
• By her own admission, she was a woman who liked to stay busy.
• Florence Epstein described her as jovial.
• She was born in 1904, and didn't have Bobby until 1937, so she was an older mom.  Not really by today's standards, but back then, thirty-three wasn't considered a spring chicken, especially in regards to having babies.  Knowing me and how I like to ask questions about everything, of course I've wondered, did she mean to wait so long?  Was it a struggle for her to get/stay pregnant, and that's why not only was Bobby born later, he was her only child?  This we are never told.
• According to her and assuming she was truthful in her interview, which we've no reason to doubt, Bobby gifted her during his adult years with a pair of gold earrings and a beautiful bedroom chair, "just because."
• She had lost a sister on the mission field to natives who killed her and the party she was with.  Another brother was a Baptist minister.
• Her father, Lemuel Kratz, had been a lawyer, and he died when she was only around eighteen.  Her mother, Susan Grace, remarried a man named Mahlon Hollingsworth -- all this courtesy of ancestry.com.  I know how to do my research when I need to!
• Speaking of her mother, the poor woman died in a car crash on her way to visit Bobby and Isabelle just before the release of Song of the South.  Can you imagine how hard it must have been for Bobby to continue to smile for the cameras during all that promotional work he and Luana did?
• She, herself, remarried a man named Nate Parker around three years after Cletus died.
• She is buried in her second husband's family plot, in the same cemetery as Cletus and Bobby's cenotaph (and not sure why she isn't close to them, but as you can guess, this is another reason she's given a good amount of heck).  Here is an image of that:

Something to keep in mind, though, is that some people are not big death planners, and if Isabelle hadn't taken care of her arrangements before she died, it might not have been her choice to be buried in the Parker lot, away from Bobby's cenotaph.  Her second husband, if still living, might have decided that for her.  Another obstacle may have been that by that time, there were no more plots available next to Clet.  I know my dad would have loved to have been buried close to his parents in the cemetery where our family rests, but the section they were buried in had been filled up by the time my dad passed.

Anyway, back to the facts listed above.  First of all, her claims about her sister are sadly true.  Mildred Kratz was killed on the mission field in the 20's, according to a local Cedar Rapids paper I found on newspapers.com. Isabelle had at least one more sister -- Gladys -- and a brother, Ronald, who was a Baptist pastor and died pretty young.  This, again, courtesy of ancestry.com and local papers.  

Time Out Moment:  I always try to give disclaimers about where I find things, but I can almost promise you that in every instance, I just do web searches using the right terms and pull stuff up.  Anyone can do it, so if you ever doubt information I give on here, please know that's how I found it and feel free to check behind me.  Some stuff is bound to be incorrect some of the time, but I try hard to be factual!  I unfortunately don't own much exclusive Bobby content from primary sources, so not able to verify that everything I find online is always 100% correct, but I do my best!  I try to verify things I learn in at least two places.

Anyway... in the interview Bobby did for Fred D. Brown, he said his mother worked to put herself through college to teach school, so she seems like she might have been a strong, resilient lady.  She was her own working woman for quite a few years before she met and married Clet.  But the fact that she remarried at an older age MIGHT tell us she was also a romantic who loved married life.

She was strict enough to set limits for Bobby, as we've read in many accounts.  She still gave him chores and had him save his money, and she gave him curfews on school nights and the weekends, according to Barbara Berch Jamison's article "The Dangerous Years."

Bobby was mentioned a couple times as having kept alot of pets, however; and in some of girlfriend Patricia Nolan's letters, she asks him if she can read any of the passages to his mom -- which indicates that maybe she was fond of the older woman and didn't mind sharing her affection for Bobby with her.  So a soft side of Isabelle must have existed.  

Now I'm going to mention what we have all probably thought about, and that is... if Isabelle found out Bobby had died just a year prior, wouldn't it have been simple enough for her to arrange for him to be brought up and reburied in the place where she memorialized him next to his father?  It should have been far easier to locate him then than it would have been later, and what mother wouldn't walk through hell barefoot to bring her baby home from a place like Hart Island?  Well... here's what I got to thinking about the other day when I asked myself the same question:

I want to tread lightly here, because I want us to think of Bobby as the person he was... not what became of him in death and after.  But we also can't ignore that there could have been logistical problems in transporting a body that had been underground a year.  I don't think I have to be specific here, I'm sure everyone understands.  And if we don't even want to imagine the complications that could have gone into that, then what must it have been like for Isabelle to have been faced with them?  What details might she have had to learn in order to discuss his identification?  How haunting might it have been for her to have to realize she would not, could not see him to tell him goodbye because of what death and the passing of time had rendered?  Maybe she felt she could hang onto her sanity much better -- be able to put one foot in front of the other without shattering to pieces -- if she let him lay where he was and be remembered who he used to be.  We can never begin to "armchair critic" our way into a situation like this.

So I hope you've enjoyed seeing these pictures, learning a little about Isabelle if you didn't already know this stuff, and maybe thinking of things in a different light.  Mrs. Driscoll was just as imperfect as the next mother -- and who knows, maybe the worst of the awful rumors about her were true.  But she was still Bobby's mother, and if nothing else, we can be grateful that she gave him to the world, even if just for a little while.

Peter Pan, and thoughts about a GREAT role...

Hello All!  I haven't posted in several weeks, which is odd for me, so I wanted to check in.  I could have definitely worked harder to find something to talk about this month, just I've been lazy... so I'm going to take an easy route and just post a picture!  This one is courtesy of eBay, and I might just bid on it because it's so awesome.

I think I've already said I have a special fondness for Bobby's Peter Pan stuff.  The way his hair is obviously "fixed", with the hat pinned on, makes me think this was for the Christmas Special of '51, plus the presence of a Christmas book.  Was this a script?  Just a random book he'd found lying around somewhere?  A promo picture featuring Peter Pan Learning About Christmas or some such...?

It's definitely visible in this picture that the infamous acne problem was already present.  Acne has been a puberty issue the world over for probably hundreds of years... but I can't help but think Bobby's problem was more than likely exacerbated by having worn makeup for years prior while making movies.  And you know kids -- especially boys.  He might not have been very diligent about washing it off at night. 

Anyway, he had such a sweet and mischievous little smile.  I'm always on the lookout for movie parts I could post in my Modern Roles for Bobby feature, and I hadn't come across any in a long time... until last week, it occurred to me that he might have been a fantastic Loki for the Marvel comics movies.  His "elf-like" eyes and eyebrows, quirky smile, and slight build would have translated wonderfully into a Norse god of mischief!  I read someone once liken him to a leprechaun -- a comparison I hated, by the way, because it felt so disrespectful to him (though can't put my finger on why) --  but there's just no denying he could have owned any roles that called for him to look a little otherworldly in the fantasy sense. 

So that's it for now!  As always, I'm still on the lookout for stuff.  It is my goal this month to finally sit down and watch him in So Goes My Love, and I'm sure when I do, I'll commentate on it here.

Bobby and Anti-War Protests (A theory only!)

Update:  Someone very knowledgeable posted in my comments pointing out alot of things I either didn't know or had forgotten regarding the NYC jail, Allen Ginsberg, and some other stuff in the following letter that explains it a little better!  For instance, on the envelope (which I don't currently have an image of), the postmark is 2/27/68 which indicates an arrest for reasons other than what I had theorized.  Bobby may still have been a peaceful protester of Vietnam on his own time, but I no longer believe that had any connection to the February arrest.  

********************************

This week I decided to really try to dig into Bobby's February 1968 arrest.  The one that caused him to write the letter to Allen Ginsberg asking for money to get out of jail?  Here's an image of it that I was able to still find, by the way:

(Please note, I do not own this!  Found it in an image search about Allen Ginsberg and Bobby Driscoll)

I've already elaborated on this letter before and said how I wondered if Bobby was having some hallucinations from illness or was high when he wrote it, due to some of the people he mentions -- his dad, Billy Sunday, Arch Obler, the latter two names belonging to famous people who I doubt he was with at the time (if he meant the Billy Sunday I'm thinking of, he was already dead).  It is always possible this was written in code to Ginsberg, and if that was the case, we'll probably never know what it means.

But!  Then I got to looking at the poem Bobby wrote once, called "For America."  In it, he says the following:

Hold your hailing voices high

steady the trembling lamb

our sacrifice must seem sublime

do not reveal your sweat yet

bite your lips for the time

soon the light will be off of us

and the pallor of this will be shown

do not curse in the microphone

or spit toward the camera

or lay open the fly of our love

(Published in The Great Society by A Heddaoua Publication in 1967; Bobby went by Robert O'Driscoll here)

This is my favorite of his, because honestly, it's the only one that makes sense to me.  You can maybe get a smidge of reason out of certain lines of "Sunday Bonnet Smile", but his other poems - "The Crystal Poem" and "Red Star" -- completely escape me.

... And even though I'm not sure about this at all, I think it has to do with protests.  The two hot social issues that were going on around Bobby's poetry era were Civil Rights and the Vietnam War.  Something's always told me this was a poem about the Vietnam War, cautioning Americans not to become violent in their protests, lest they not be taken seriously... and I believe that now more than ever, because I did find out that Allen Ginsberg was an advocate of Vietnam non-violent protest from researching a little about his life.  Given the fact that, as this letter indicates, Ginsberg and Bobby were friends, it casts an entirely new light on the poem.  Had Bobby adopted Ginsberg's stance of peaceful protest?

Bobby was said to be a gentle soul.  If ever he chose to protest something, I can imagine he would be peaceful.

So that lead me to want to find out more about this arrest.  We know times were tough for Bobby during those last few months of his life, and it's debatable whether or not he was clean or had switched to different substances that last little while.  His needlemarks had healed, but some sources say his autopsy reported methadrine in his system.  If he was clean, he was probably doing what we in the recovery field call "white-knuckling," trying to go off of it on his own without treatment, maybe because he knew he was dying and wanted his last few months to matter.  Did that, to him, mean taking an active role in government?  Of course all this is conjecture.

BUT... I was able to find one headline regarding arrests in the Bronx in February of 1968, and that was in the New York Times.  It read "200 Protest Bronx Arrests."  Could protesting have been what Bobby was doing in the Bronx that month?  Might he have felt he'd have an extra pull with Allen Ginsberg to send him money because he was doing what he felt was a good thing?

What's more, could Arch Obler and Billy Sunday have been nicknames for people they both knew who were also actively involved in the cause?  That still doesn't explain the "in jail with my father" part, but maybe it casts some understanding on the relationship Bobby and Allen might have had back then.

Now, if I was a really good blogger, I'd have read that article and actually found out if the protest was even about the Vietnam War and what its nature was -- peaceful or violent.  That still wouldn't have told us whether or not Bobby was actually there, but it does offer a theory.  However... I don't have a subscription to the NY Times, and as much as I love Bobby and discussing his life with you all, I'm not paying for one just to read that one article.

So that's where my readers come in!  Anyone have access to the NY Times website and can provide us with a picture of what this protest was about?  It might be interesting to discuss whether or not we think this was something Bobby was a part of.  It would be most helpful if we could establish what date in February this letter was sent, and compare it to the date of the protest (which was February 9, 1968).  In the end, we might still only have theories, but theories are still great material for discussion and understanding.

Bold Stare

I've seen this picture just a small handful of times online, and it drives me crazy I have yet to locate an original. But once I do, you better believe it's mine.  Well, provided I could pay for it.  I edited it a bit to reflect the feel of the image, and kind of mask the poor quality...

What I love so much about it is how Bobby tilts his head and gazes intently into the camera as though trying to convey his true, authentic spirit to the viewer.  I do know this picture seems to have been one of the set that came with the article "Nightmare Life of a Child Star."  He's not smiling in any of them, so I figure the photographer was going for a more somber mood.

But this.

It's one of those times when you can practically feel another person's energy jump out and grab you.  That's put a bit weirdly, but do you know what I mean?  There are alot of facets to Bobby's personality from what we have read and can tell.  His eyes can convey warmth, humor, bravado/mischief (as I see twinkling forth in the shot below from "Day is Done"), and in this one, sensitivity and depth.  

It occurred to me also that during this interview, Suzanne was said to be with him.  I wonder if the photographer was keen to get a picture of them together, but Bobby declined?  It might have not happened that way, but it could have.  He definitely seemed to know how to keep his boundaries, as back when he was soon to marry Marilyn, he wouldn't give the location or time of his ceremony to the reporters.  I love how he could be pretty transparent about himself, yet still keen to protect his family and friends from public scrutiny.  For his faults and unwise decisions, Bobby was many shades of a gentleman at heart.  We don't know, but his keeping Suzanne off-camera could have been a reflection of that.  We never got to see a public shot of him and Didi together, either, but that could have just as likely been because no one really cared about him as a celebrity by the time they got together.

Anyway, I'm glad we have those stills -- particularly this one -- to represent his adulthood.  There was never much else.  If you hadn't seen it before, I hope you enjoyed seeing it!  Happy Sunday!

In Honor of Easter...

I showed you guys this a few posts ago, but I did it as almost an afterthought so I deleted that post to re-share it here.

I found a super bad-quality version of this online in a 2001 copy of the Catholic newsletter The Anchor.  The original post listing all the celebrities in this picture with Bobby is still available if you scroll down a bit.  But I ordered the hard copy of this article, and even though it's still not horribly clear, it's better than the copy I found online. I love how, in the sea of polite, subdued smiles, Bobby is the only one big-smiling. I hope you can see it!  Such a great show-off of his warm and friendly personality.

So I came to discover that almost all the celebrities in this picture were a part of a Triumphant Hour broadcast in 1952 (which is accurate to the age I thought Bobby was in this pic).  This was a Family Theater Easter broadcast that actually ran for several years.  Bobby apparently took part in it in 1948 and 1954 in addition to this year.  It grieves me that no copies of this -- not even a transcript -- can be found now.

This picture may have been taken after the celebrities recorded for the show. 

Bobby was definitely a person of faith, as is evidenced by the "religious" nature which was ascribed to him by many who knew him (Brian Keith O'Hara told us about some of this in the Yahoo Group dedicated to Bobby about ten years ago).  He was said to have been mostly nondenominational, but "leaned Catholic."  His mother told us about the bust he sculpted of Jesus, and went on to tell about his uncle being a Baptist minister and his aunt having been killed by South American natives on the mission field.  These things may have attributed to his desire to learn more about God.  I talked about the likelihood of his growing up Presbyterian here.  If his dad was Catholic, as he appeared to be, and his mother was Baptist, Presbyterian was probably a good blend of the two.  As he got more involved in the Beatnik culture, he seems to have dabbled in some mysticism and likely took some theological side roads for awhile, but the literature found at his death indicates a revisiting of his Christian roots.

I'd love to hear more about his faith, in his own words...  but I digress!  As this was a picture taken on or around Easter, it felt fitting to repost today, and to talk a little more about.

Happy Spring to my lovely, faithful readers!

Last Breath

Sitting here in bed after a crazy busy day, drinking my tea and checking email -- and switching my cards to a gorgeous new wallet I acquired during a spontaneous shopping hour I managed to throw in between two commitments...

It hit me.  It was fifty years ago tonight, y'all.

I know I take liberties here, because he was found and declared dead on 3/30.  But I tend to believe... 1) as there has never been any word of mouth that his body was in bad condition from the coroner's report, which select people have read... 2) as he was thought to only be asleep at first by the two boys who found him... and 3) as his picture was taken and shown around the neighborhood for identification... that he obviously hadn't been there but maybe a few hours.  If that was the case, he would have died sometime in the night of 3/29. 

So I decided to blog now, in what maybe were his final hours.  Bobby, I pray you weren't afraid.  I hope you had some time of being numb to the heartache, maybe even the physical pain, and the loneliness, before your body just stopped.  No one will ever know what those last hours, or even that last day, was like for you.

At that point, you probably felt forgotten and like it wouldn't matter to anyone what happened to you.  You might not have even cared.  But I hope, where you are now, that you can see how many people have gathered over the years to pay tribute to the person you were.

Have a beautiful eternity on that Island in the Sun.

Speaking of that big smile....

Now I have this. 

You.

Are.

Welcome.

^_~

Rare Bobby Pics (and comments!) Dump

Guys I discovered www.worthpoint.com.  Some of you may have already known about this place, but I didn't.  It shows pictures it's sold through eBay for the last several YEARS, and there were TONS of images of Bobby on there I'd never seen!!

The bad news is, the quality isn't that great so you can't really enlarge them to see them any better.  But hey:  Bobby stuff is Bobby stuff, so let's be grateful some of this still exists somewhere. :P

So here we go, down the list of my personal favorites:

I have a total soft spot for Bobby's The Happy Time pictures.  He looks so cute and polished like a little gentleman in his school uniform, with his hair shaped into that perfect 50's quiff.  It's really awesome.  And lest you be someone who thinks I mean this in the "weird" way, I totally don't.  You can think a man is dashing when he's grown, but still look back at pictures of his childhood and find him adorable in a very different way.  That's totally how I feel about Bobby's looks, by the way:  a precious, cute child and a handsome, polished-looking adult.  Usually.  Anyway, sorry for that rabbit trail.  I think it's also sweet how much Bobby seemed to enjoy interacting with other children on the sets of his movies.  It could be because, as he said in his interview with Fred D. Brown, he didn't get to spend as much time with them as he liked.  I wonder if this little girl here was keen on him, or on the other boy -- maybe both.  It's adorable how she's sitting in this elegant little pose like a lady while they talk to her.  Gosh, even the kids back then seemed to have so much class...

Okay, so as I have always been partial to Bobby's Peter Pan stuff, this is an absolute favorite.  I've always wanted to see more of him in the costume, and even though I'd prefer that to be from the reference footage used to shoot the movie, this works too.  It's most likely to plug the 1951 Disney Christmas Show.  He and Kathryn are delightful here with their happy smiles!

Rabbit trail alert:  I know I've said this before, but it's kind of funny how big of a deal the character of Peter Pan is to most young girls.  I've definitely noticed that the brunt of Bobby's fanbase, when not comprised of older people who were more contemporary to him and his work, are girls maybe 14-18 who came to be starstruck because of his Peter Pan work.  As a first-wave millennial (much as I hate to associate myself with the generation), Peter Pan was how I first encountered Bobby, too.  And it's kind of funny, because we all have to admit that the character was kind of written to be an arrogant jerk, more akin to the snot-nosed kid who pummeled you in the face with a dodge ball in eighth grade and laughed about it than the culmination of your prepubescent fantasies.  He was perfectly happy being a child and using Wendy for her storytelling abilities, having obviously no clue how to fulfill her romantic expectations, no matter what tumblr fanfic tries to make us believe.  So why is it so many girls ended up with a gosh darn crush on him?!  Including myself, I mean hey -- I loved Peter Pan years and years before I knew anything about Bobby.  Are we suckers for punishment?  And I swear it's not just me.  This is a thing.  A girl on another blog once wrote, "You know you had a crush on Peter Pan when you were a kid.  If you say you didn't, you're either lying, or a dude."  I have to agree, and I wonder if Bobby came to know anything about this adulation after he voiced and modeled for this film?  I bet, like probably every other guy that age, he'd find it pretty useless.  But hey, do schoolgirl crushes ever really make sense?

Oh, and I won't go into this much detail for every pic, I promise...

Another The Happy Time pic I hadn't seen.  Anyone wonder if Bobby was nervous to kiss a girl onscreen the first time?  Even if it was a chaste puppy love kiss.  As we've heard, Bobby was a bit of a flirt who LOVED the girls as a teen, and always showed himself to be outgoing and fun-loving, so something tells me he was good to just go for it!

This, by the way, was one of my absolute favorite Little Bobby Era movies.  I've seen a pic of him and the dog before, but not this one with both of the other young children. 

Bobby and Luana, taking their "show clothes," probably, off hangers decorated in Disney characters.  What a cute touch!  By the way, according to a newspaper article in the 4/3/49 edition of The Sydney Morning Herald, Luana absolutely hero-worshiped Bobby, following him around the set like a faithful kitten (almost a direct quote!).  What I wouldn't give to have heard her talk about him back when she was alive -- if she remembered much from so long ago.  I know Kathryn Beaumont doesn't....

OKAY. 

I could barely handle how awesome this was when I found it:  Bobby and Rory Calhoun following (or before) their Screen Director's Playhouse episode.  It is a rare, and I mean rare, thing to see Bobby flash such a glowing beam as an almost-adult -- an actual authentic one, and you can tell this one is.  The only other time I saw him grin this huge as anything other than an enthusiastic little freckle-faced boy was when he was on the 25th Academy Awards.  So this is a treat.  He might have been awfully proud to be working with Rory Calhoun -- another really nice looking and talented guy, I may add!

Another Bobby and Luana shot.  I can't see exactly what they're looking at, but I think they're some kind of toy figures...

Lastly, this!  Once again from The Happy Time, in which I think he's supposed to appear to be daydreaming about his older lady crush.  Bobby does such a great job staying in character for all his stills, though this one actually seems a bit awkward to me.  Anyone else think so?  It's very charming and sweet, but he almost looks a little like he might be thinking, "Hurry up and take this, please..."

There are a few more I saved that I really like, but this is a good enough sampling for now.  I can't believe I just now found this place.  I might would have been even happier if I'd found it in time to actually buy some of these prints, provided the prices hadn't too jacked up on them.  But finding them second-hand was still enough to give me a good day!