Christmas is/was Upon Us!

 Merry (late, sorry) Christmas to all my sweet followers! I hope everyone had a good holiday. 

We've probably all seen these pics by now, but I wanted to post them again in honor of Bobby. If he were here today, he'd be 84 and surrounded by grands and greats. I'm sure that's what he would have wanted. 

Dean Stockwell died a couple of months ago, in case anyone doesn't know, and the world is bereft of yet another person who knew Bobby. It saddens me to see his memory slip through out fingers like water, with no significant tribute having been made to him. I do have the goal of trying to contact of Connie Stevens and Russ Tamblyn for a brief interview, but I'm not sure yet exactly how to reach them or if they'd be willing to talk to me.

So keep an eye out just in case I can accomplish these things!

Happy New Year to you all 🤎🖤🤍🤎🖤🤍

Rawhide: Incident of the Captive

(Picture taken from a news article about Bobby being cleared from his dope case.  Courtesy of the owner of bobbydriscoll.com!)

Okay so:

Over the course of the last few months, I have run across a couple of YouTube videos chronicling why they believe, or in some cases know, that Bobby had suffered various types of abuse as a child.  I even mentioned one of them in the last post.  More than anything, of course I want to vindicate him by talking about what was said to have happened, how horrible people are, how he couldn't catch a break in his life, etc. etc. etc.

BUT.

Then I was reminded, there is no shortage of blog posts, essays, and articles telling Bobby's sad story.  We all know by now that he did not have either a good life or a good death.  However, when I published this blog five years ago, I had said it was my mission not to linger over these details, but to celebrate the person Bobby was and add to his legacy by discussing his work and the various facets of who he was.  So that's what I'm going to continue to focus on versus the things he struggled with and the things done to him.  Because I feel that's what he would want us to remember.

That brings us to today!

In talking to a longtime reader about what types of blog posts she'd like to see the most of on here, I've come to understand that at least some of you really enjoyed the commentaries I used to do on his shows and movies.  I haven't done one in a long time, largely because no new video content featuring him has been found recently.  But there are a couple of shows I would like to do a commentary on that have been around on YouTube for awhile, and which are two of my very favorite:

The RAWHIDES.

This was a popular cowboy show back in the late 50's and early 60's that my mom even remembers.  Bobby starred in two of their episodes, as this was back in the day when you didn't have a million bit players to pick from like you do today, and it wasn't uncommon to see stars appear twice or more in various episodes.  This appears to have been the case for Bobby during this time, and I'm just grateful that they gave him a chance to act.

By the way, television shows are in their heyday right now and actual films are getting sidelined.  There's a whole cultural thing behind this, but suffice it to say that back when Bobby was acting, TV was the redheaded stepchild.  You usually only did a TV episode if you were a "has-been" desperate for work or a B-list actor.  Bobby apparently shared the sentiment (according to a would-be biographer who studied Bobby's life and spoke to some primary sources about his opinions).  So we can only imagine how he felt about being cast in such projects after he'd won an Oscar the decade before for two films.  

However, what I love is that Bobby's acting didn't suffer one bit.  He was still incredibly on his game, and we don't see that more than in "The Incident of the Captive" which was released in 1960.  Annoyingly enough, the show is always taken down every so often when it's learned that to post it breaks some copyright law, so if you can't find it right now on YouTube, keep checking back.  It always gets put back up.

Lucky for us though, I've seen it a half a billion times and am forever grateful to Morgan Bridges for posting lots of Bobby's screenshots on Pinterest.  She does not disappoint when it comes to having captured Bobby's work on this Western.

So the first thing that stood out to me when I was watching this episode for the first time was, Bobby has given us a really great glimpse into the type of character he could play if he'd been given more of a chance.  It's our best chance to see him as an unsympathetic character, sarcastic and rude.  I love it, because mostly he played the polite, heroic type in his other films and TV shows, but in "Incident of the Captive," it's a whole new ballgame.  He's in a stagecoach riding along with another man and two women -- one of whom we learn is another character's mother, on her way to visit him and bring him home from his new gig herding cattle.  We aren't told any kind of backstory about the guy Bobby plays (imdB calls him Billy Chance), but we know immediately that he's an @$$hole.  

The simple version of the exchange goes something like this:  an older woman is conversing with a slightly younger woman as they're having a presumably pleasant trip (so far) out west, and the young buck keeps butting in with smart remarks about the older woman's age.  After this bullying goes on for a few minutes, the younger woman tells him to tone it down.  

Who can forget Bobby's menacing, "Or what?"  With just his tone, he quite literally became every bully you remember from high school, every friend's bratty kid brother.  And he is rewarded with a slap.

The mouth action there is so epic.  And it really shows us how witty Bobby could be.

The best part about the character is yet to come, though, because very quickly, he sobers up and tells the woman "I was just joking!" followed by talking about how tough he is, how many "knotches" he has on his gun.  Which nobody believes, including us when we see, a minute later, the stagecoach being hijacked by a few guys on horses with guns.  

Suddenly, Billy freezes up completely, only moving to the order to get out of the coach when one of the offenders grabs his arm and pulls him down onto the ground.  We're able to deduce by this that the guy isn't half as tough as he looks.

We go a little further, I won't bore you with the details about the bigger story, but when the stagecoach finally continues on and reaches its destination, the passengers are told not to leave because they will be questioned about the robbery.  This does not at all sit well with Billy, and he tries to sneak away, but the hijackers are waiting for him.  In one fell swoop they pull him behind a building, gag him and struggle to drag him away.  This shows yet more great acting ability from Bobby, who actually DOES struggle and doesn't appear to be doing the "play struggling" you often see from actors at this time.  They do get the best of him though, and we don't see him again for several more scenes.

Next and final part:  we find out that the men who captured Billy had purportedly brought him with them in order to steer some cattle.  But it was a trap, as we soon saw.

Their goal was to kill him off.  *GASP*

He pleaded with them when he realized they were holding guns on him, and they kept pushing him back as he made his case.  They kept pushing and pushing until he tripped over a rock behind him and plunged to his death into a pit in the ground.  

This was something I felt Bobby did an amazing job acting out.  The way he "tripped" looked very natural and not at all like he was, once again, "play tripping."  The most heart wrenching part, however, was his guttural scream at the end when he was descending into the pit.

I don't mean to make it all more than what it is, but this made me sad.  I guess because this is the last known (or at least accessible) appearance Bobby ever made on TV or film other than Dirt, and it all ended with him falling into a pit with a final, desperate cry.  It felt, in a way, like it was a foreshadowing of what was going to happen to him:  his descent into a vast abyss, never to be seen or heard from again.

BUT.  Let's not get hung up on that.  The point is, this, to me, is one of the finest of Bobby's TV performances because of the unique character he plays.  And, of course, one can't ignore how dashing he is in cowboy garb!

Next post will be a chronicling of the events of "Incident of Fear in the Street."  Stay tuned!

Russ Tamblyn Interview

Okay. 

So first of all, thanks to a sweet reader, I was made aware of Russ Tamblyn's interview with TCM in 1995, which was a pretty rare find but was posted on YouTube a couple days ago. Here it is. Around the ten-minute mark is where you'll find a couple minutes' worth of his commentary on Bobby's life.

Now. 

There's no other way to really address this but to come right out with it and comment about his remarks regarding Bobby's physical abuse by his parents. 

First of all, when I heard the things that were done to him, I was absolutely devastated. I had always heard that this had possibly happened, but in light of the limited sources I have had available to me thus far, I couldn't ever find any real evidence until now. And to think I wrote out a whole post a couple years ago defending Isabelle and the judgments made against her.

This explains so much. Bobby's loneliness... his people-pleasing... his later drug use and destructive behavior... his inability to live without being in a serious relationship... his presumed yearning to start his own family very young, which was ill-fated, but...

How he must have gone through life with a shattered heart. What breaks mine the most is that Bobby seemed to genuinely love his parents. He spoke about them when he won his Oscar, he bought his mother gifts, he was said to have been close to his father...

What on EARTH happened? Did he just think he deserved it? Did he think that if he was good enough, they would love him better? Did they apologize profusely and he just forgave them every time? Or worse... and the most likely... did it condition him to think this was all normal?

Obviously, Bobby's parents were either abused themselves or just sick. I try to always be gracious on this blog with the things I say about people who aren't around to defend themselves, but there are no excuses for this. Bobby's life was crushed to bits before it could really even begin.

I mean, there's a chance Tamblyn was embellishing, but why would he? There would be no good reason. And given that he knew and was close to Bobby at one point, I feel what he would have to say would be pretty accurate. 

I just can't with this. Children endure this every day all over the world, and it's sickening. On what planet is it ever okay to lock your little boy in a closet all night?

And with that, I don't know what else to say. I welcome your thoughts 

Today's Significance

Roderick Richards from the Facebook group Bobby Driscoll Remembered did this awesome edit, and I love it.  I feel like he nailed Bobby's coloring here better than most photoshop jobs I've seen.  It almost made me wonder for a minute if it was actual color footage.

So it was today sixty-three years ago that Bobby was found by kids playing in an abandoned apartment.  We say it's his death anniversary because we know no other date to attribute it to, but who knows how long he'd lain there before his drug-destroyed body was discovered.

Bobby, I'm glad you're not suffering now, and didn't have to struggle onward as long as so many drug abusers do.  As badly as we hate the fact that you didn't live longer, a life lived on what was left of you wouldn't have been life at all.  

Enjoy the sunlight and the breeze, far removed from the dirty, merciless streets of the East Village of the 60's.

Reneging Some Earlier Statements

Good morning, All!

Last night at some point I received a message from the widow of Lester Ferguson stating that he was not, in fact, a force that lead Bobby astray with drug use.  She said he was a kind, intelligent man who was a good husband to her and passed away in the 80's

She did not leave me an email address with which to contact her, so I'll do it here:

I am so, so sorry for any misinformation I received and then repeated about Lester.  It was not my intention to insult anyone in his family, and I sincerely apologize.  I can only imagine how hurtful that must have been to you as his wife.  This blog is intended to honor Bobby and those in his life, but I can definitely get facts wrong, and I appreciate you calling me out on them.  I'm going to remove all comments about Lester from the post "Bobby's 1956 Drug Arrest."

Also, I invite you to submit a letter or article depicting the "real Lester" and his connection to Bobby, only if you want to, and I am happy to publish it in order to restore his legacy.

Again, I sincerely apologize for the pain and frustration this caused you.

84th Birthday

 So it's that day again. 💚💚💚

Would Bobby still be alive today if drugs hadn't interfered? It's hard to know. I'd love to think so. As a caregiver of the elderly, I've wondered alot about what kind of old man Bobby would have been. Would he be hard of hearing? Would he walk around with the unconscious habit of re-tucking his shirt in? Would he insist on calling businesses and talking to a real person instead of following automatic prompts, or worse yet, doing something ONLINE? Oh and here's another good one: making sure the radio and the air conditioner are off in his car before turning it off. Something tells me he would have been really persnickety about that car. He was, after all, a car aficionado. 

We'll never know about any of those things, but we can still be grateful the world had him for awhile, and that he left a big enough impression for us to trace remnants of even now.

So on this day, I say Happy Birthday to our sweetest Bobby. Bob, I hope wherever you are, there are lots of hot rods for you to tinker with, dogs for you to play with, and good coffee shops for you to listen to jazz in. But no matter what you're doing, I'm so glad you're at peace. 🌹 Thank you for everything you left us with.

Rising out of the Mist!

 Hi All.  Just wanted you to know I'm still here, after six months of silence.  I became very, very unwell from about August to December of last year, and am just now getting better.  Needless to say, the setback caused me to be unable to really focus on anything else.  But don't think for a minute my blogging days are over, because you know, #bobbyforever.

That being said, I don't as yet have any "new" material to blog about, so I'm just going to show these pictures instead.  I'm pretty sure if any of you follow Facebook or Instagram's Disney Archives page, you've seen these two... but I love them.  Firstly, FIFTIES HAIR.  I love how they take Peter Pan and put him in the context of the era.  Even though I can promise you Peter Pan's wouldn't wear a polished quiff under his cap, Bobby sure looks dapper.  And gotta love how he's cradling that stuffed animal.

I have always found it rather sad that Kathryn Beaumont -- the person most of us would think might have the very most memories of working with Bobby -- says she really didn't interact with him much.  They had fun-looking photoshoots together and worked closely with one another on Peter Pan... not only the actual film, but all the publicity shots.  Bobby has left an indelible imprint on the memories of almost everyone who knew him, but not really Kathryn.  There's certainly nothing wrong with that, but it is rather a disappointment for Bobby fans.

Oh well.  One can't have everything!