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!

Beatniks...

Happy Belated Father's Day to Bobby -- and of course to any of you who are fathers!

The owner of the Bobby Driscoll website gave us a real treat this month, y'all... 

 

This was a picture circa 1960, taken of Bobby and some friends (or at least a friend) by Edmund Teske.  I love this on so many levels, and here's why:

Notice all the other suit-and-tie combos worn by men in this picture... then look at Bobby.  He was obviously starting to dress as more the 60s artist type by wearing a scarf and sweater -- something not many did in 1960.  Bobby certainly knew how to dress the way convention called for, as he did many times for photo shoots and interviews, but his heart may have really been in picking his own style the whole time.  

By 1960 he and Marilyn had split up (just after or around the time their last baby was born) and he was having trouble "finding himself" as he'd stated in a later interview (Suzanne Stansbury would have come into the picture at some point here). He was already friends with Wallace Berman and spending some time in Topanga Canyon, beginning to form his alternate identity as an artist vs. an actor. I believe it shows just in his clothing choices in this picture.

As an aside, don't you wonder if he wasn't hot?  Especially given that he also brought a coat with him it looks like.  Gosh... and this was Southern California!

I realize some details are lost because the picture is so shadowed.  I did attempt to lighten it up some.  But I also can't help but notice how thick and wiry his hair is. 

What else do you notice that you'd like to remark on?

Two Tidbits Today!

Y'ALL.

A "new" picture of Bobby!  Actually, this has apparently been on Facebook since 2010.  It was posted for public viewing by Bobby's high school friend Sherwood Hilliard, who has unfortunately not been active on Facebook since 2014, and therefore I couldn't figure out how to ask if I could re-post this here.  So let me just say, I do not own it, and if it causes any problem for it to be here (I'm speaking specifically if Mr. Hilliard were ever to see this and take issue), please just let me know and it will come down.

Our boy is there in the middle, and he was about fifteen -- it was taken in 1952.  The third boy pictured is one Dick Glass, and this was in Pacific Palisades, where I believe they all lived at the time.  

That big, fun grin!  From what we ever hear about Bobby from his friends, that expression completely captures his sweet, happy personality.  I'm not sure whose car that was, but it looks like kind of a junker they were maybe hoping to fix up.  We know how Bobby loved his cars.

Gosh, I'm so glad to have finally found something different.  I mean, and this takes work, Guys.  I did a Facebook image search for Bobby Driscoll that yielded this, but you have to be patient and meticulous and make it through ALLLLL the pictures that have anything to do with anybody or anything named "Bobby Driscoll."  That means people who happen to share that name, old pictures of him we've seen recycled again and again, usually posted alongside a sob story about his life, but then occasionally it'll all pay off and you run into THIS -- a gem among the junk and the crystals.  

So this got me excited to see what else is out there all over again -- and trust me, I needed the motivation.  So I went back to archive.org and searched through the text files, and came across something else that came out when he was around that same age.  It was an article from something called The Children's Newspaper from November 15th, 1952.  I'll quote it here:

"Boy film actor Bobby Driscoll is studying engineering as a profession, just in case films no longer need him when he is grown up.

'I've seen a lot of child actors,' Bobby says, 'and I've heard more about them from my mother and dad.  One day your name is up in lights and all the studios are screaming for you.  The next day your voice has broken and parts get fewer and smaller until they come to a dead stop.  If that should ever happen to me Lean always fall_ back (sic) on  my engineering training I hope!'"

(The last sentence must have been mistranslated when digitalized, but I'm sure it meant something like, "I can fall back on my engineering training.")

Let's take a moment here.

I felt profoundly sad upon reading this because we all know that is exactly what happened.  Bobby's firing from Disney was only a few months down the road from this very statement.  But this tells me something -- a few things.

Firstly, Bobby knew this could happen.  He knew he could become not so important an entertainment figure anymore, and he was trying to prepare for that.  He'd said over the years anyway that he didn't necessarily know he wanted to be an actor forever, and had even mentioned civil engineering back when he was younger as a career he'd be interested in pursuing.  So what happened?

Well... I'd imagine that even though he knew in theory he could be bounced from the movie star scene, he probably had no idea it was going to happen as quickly and cruelly as it did when Walt Disney let him go within the next six months.  By all accounts, he was emotionally derailed by the action, and the engineer plans just didn't pan out.  Why not?  Well... being bullied at school, and definitely meeting up with drugs are both things that can take a young person's hopes and dreams and toss them in File Thirteen.  This is evidently what happened to Bobby.  In his later years, he would say to interviewer Fred D. Brown that he'd tried to go to college twice, but lacked focus and motivation to follow through.  I'm sure this, at least, was due to addiction.  

Secondly though, it debunks what everyone has said about Cletus and Isabelle.  They evidently knew Bobby might not always hold onto his stardom, so they did at least try to encourage him to pursue another career.  Now I'm not sure how hard they pushed the engineering, or what their follow-through was like, but anyone who says they didn't even try to equip Bobby for his future isn't entirely right.  The Driscolls knew the hazards of child acting, and there were at least a couple of conversations in this vein had with Bobby -- enough to get him thinking about an alternate plan.

So in light of this, it seems pretty clear that Bobby and his family couldn't have been completely surprised that his star eventually burned out.  I just wonder if it felt like something that might happen only in theory, but they still felt secure enough in his talent to carry him through.  

Bobby was bright enough and resilient enough to have done something different with his life once the emotional trauma of being let go by Disney wore off.  But, yet again, I think that's where the drugs stole that opportunity from him.

But despite how sad it is to think of the things that never were... it makes me smile to imagine them at the same time.  Bobby Driscoll... one-time child star, brilliant engineer who went on to carry his genius into another art... raising children, mentoring young actors, making new connections, sharing his artistic vision with the world by maybe doing artwork on the side, continuing to sign autographs for delighted children and old fans with a crinkle of those impish eyes...

... So much could have been had.  And even though it didn't work out that way in this lifetime, it will be truly exciting to see what has become of him in the next, if you believe in a heaven, a New Earth, and second chances.  People can call me blithely ignorant and superstitious, but I do.  

On a slightly sweeter note, Happy Mother's Day to Marilyn, who bore all three of Bobby's children.  She was young, probably naive about romance and marriage, and as we came to found out later, mentally ill.  Her husband was shackled by addiction.  But I'm sure through all that, she did the best she could at the time.

And it was not in vain.  

Glorious Eighty-three

Happy birthday to the man who...

Taught us to fly.

Taught us to be brave.

Taught us that love works miracles.

Taught us the value of a good story.

Taught us about adventure.

... And taught us about the power of addiction.
Not to be judgmental.
To love those around us as well as we can, because we do not know their struggle.
That goodness lingers underneath the grime.

Thank you, Bobby, for your lessons. We will love you always.