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!