Whatever Happened to Bobby Driscoll?

Peter Pan

Peter Pan. Growing up, he was a hero of mine. Well, to be honest, he was also a crush of mine. But Peter Pan. Disney’s Peter Pan.

As a mother, we watch and rewatch and rewatch again lots of the old cartoon classics. My son took a liking to Peter Pan and I can’t even count how many times I have seen that movie in the past two years. But I’m okay with it because, like I said, I love Peter Pan.

As an adult, rewatching the same cartoons over and over again, I find that I spend my time Googling many of these cartoons up. You watch them enough, you want to learn more about them. So I looked up Peter Pan to see how old the voice actor was when he acted in it. He sounded so young and honestly, he was really very good. The actors who portrayed both Peter Pan and Wendy Darling were fantastic. 

Bobby Driscoll – Disney’s Golden Boy

Peter Pan was portrayed by Bobby Driscoll. He was between 12 and 14 when he acted the part and he was awesome. Wendy was portrayed by Kathryn Beaumont who was between 11 and 13 during the film’s production. Damn. They were so good and so young! I was thoroughly impressed. 

My curious mind came into effect and I ventured down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. Whatever happened to Bobby Driscoll? 

You can’t make this stuff up.

As it turned out, Bobby Driscoll was a very famous child actor who starred in several of Disney’s hit movies. 

His life started like the American Dream. He was born in 1937 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His family moved to Los Angeles in early 1943 for his father’s health and by age 6, Bobby had gotten his first film role. He was a boy wonder and impressed the movie executives, so he just kept landing roles. By 1946 at age 8, he had been cast in eight different films and this is when Disney decided to scoop him up. 

In 1946, Disney cast Bobby Driscoll in Song of the South, a film which while controversial today, was a huge hit when it was released. Bobby was a success and Disney put him and his Song of the South costar, Luana Patten, under contract. 

Disney used and reused Bobby in a bunch of films, and even loaned him out to other studios. Notable productions include The Window, Treasure Island, and of course, Peter Pan. He even received an Academy Award in 1950, at age 13, for his portrayal in The Window. 

Peter Pan was released in 1952 when Bobby was 15 years older, and just weeks after its release, Bobby Driscoll’s contract with Disney was prematurely terminated. Disney’s excuse? 

Acne. 

Acne?

Bobby had just gone through puberty and the poor thing had gotten a severe case of acne. Disney said that it took too much makeup to hide the acne for all the performances they were going to use him in. 

After leaving Disney, Bobby tried to find work in other studios, but he was typecast as a Disney kid and the other studios just didn’t want to work with him.

This is where it all went down for poor Bobby Driscoll. 

The Beginning of the End

Bobby was attending a private high school in Los Angeles, the Hollywood Professional School, where other child actors received their education. Bobby wasn’t making money anymore and his family couldn’t afford to keep him in, so they had to withdraw him from the program and put him into the public school system.

His peers in high school weren’t any kinder than the studio executives and he was made fun of for being a Disney boy. It was around this time that Bobby started taking drugs and becoming more aggressive, as a defensive tactic and coping mechanism for being continuously ostracized. 

Bobby begged his parents to let him finish out his high school education at the Hollywood Professional School, which they finally agreed to. But it was too late. His drug use increased, even leading to his arrest in 1956 for possession of marijuana. His career was now fully tarnished. 

In 1957, Bobby married his longtime girlfriend, Marilyn Jean Rush. Together, they had three kids, but by 1960 the marriage ended in divorce. With the end of his marriage and unable to find steady work, Bobby’s drug use increased. In 1961, he was arrested for drug use and possession and went into rehab. When he got out in 1962, nobody would hire him.

Bobby completed his parole in 1964, and in 1965 he moved to New York City hoping to get acting work there. Unfortunately for him, his reputation followed him and his hope of relaunching his acting career was unsuccessful. For a brief time, Bobby joined Andy Warhol’s famed Factory hoping to get his art career off to a start. Although he had some art shows and even an acting gig in a 1965 short film, Dirt, he wasn’t a commercial success and Bobby Driscoll left the Factory in 1967.

In 1969, Bobby’s father was dying. His mother tried to find him, to rekindle his relationship with his dad before his passing. She had contacted the New York City police department for help locating him. After a fingerprint match, she learned that Bobby had died the year previous. What had happened?

This stuff is so sad, you just can’t make it up. In early 1968, a year before his mother sought him out and shortly after he turned 31 years old, Bobby Driscoll’s body was discovered by two boys playing in an abandoned building in the East Village. He was lying dead on a cot. The official cause of death was heart failure, likely from drug abuse. There was no identifying information around, and since no one claimed him, Bobby was labeled as a homeless man and was buried in Potter’s Field, a pauper’s grave on Hart Island in the Bronx.

But…but…

I still love Peter Pan, but watching the movie breaks my heart. Hearing his voice, how good he was, with his whole life ahead of him, is just so heartbreaking. 

Whatever happened to Bobby Driscoll? Disney took him in, made tons of money off of him, then threw him away with the onset of acne. 

Shame on you, Disney. Shame. Shame. Shame.