Bobby Driscoll's Life

Robert Cletus “Bobby” Driscoll was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on March 3rd, 1937, to parents Cletus (1901-1969), an insulation salesman, and Isabelle (Kratz) (1897-1972), a former schoolteacher. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Des Moines, where they stayed until early 1943.

A few months after Bobby’s second movie was released in theaters, The Fighting Sullivans, in the fall of 1944, when Bobby was seven, he had two interviews at Disney Studios. This resulted in Bobby being contracted by Disney in early December of 1944 to play the leading role of Johnny in Song of the South. This contract would only be for 13 weeks but would be reinstated constantly until its early termination in 1953.

In 1946 Bobby was loaned out to Paramount for O.S.S. and appeared in the Disney films, So Dear to My Heart and Song of the South.

In 1948, when Bobby was 11 years old, he began performing live radio.

At 13, Bobby won a Juvenile Oscar on March 23,1950, at the 22nd Academy Award Ceremony as the outstanding juvenile actor of 1949. He was recognized for his outstanding performance in two feature films: The Window and So Dear to My Heart. Some of his radio performances took place that year, and the production of Peter Pan was beginning. Bobby was also loaned to Horizon Pictures for When I Grow Up in the fall.

For the first two months of 1952, Bobby filmed The Happy Time. After the filming of The Happy Time concluded, at the age of 15, Driscoll’s parents withdrew him from the Hollywood Professional School and sent him to the public Westwood University High School instead. Bobby continued to Westwood University High School, where he spent the remainder of his freshman year of high school.

By 1954 at age 17, Bobby began experimenting with harder drugs, mainly heroin, which caused him to develop an addiction to the substance. That summer, he appeared in the stage play Ah! Wilderness at the Pasadena Playhouse. In September, Bobby returned to Hollywood Professional School for his last year of high school at his request.

Sometime in 1956, at 19, Bobby joined the Beat Generation, a subculture of Beatniks who took part in drug use and promiscuous sex, which is promoted by their art. Bobby was introduced to Wallace Berman (an influence of the avant-garde/beatnik culture) by best friends: Dean Stockwell and Russ Tamblyn (former child actors).

In the summer of 1956, when Bobby was 19 years old, he was arrested on a marijuana charge. As the summer progressed, Bobby and a friend, Lester Furgason, were arrested for bean shooting at two women from a car.

On December 3, 1956, Bobby eloped with his girlfriend, Marilyn Verna Rush (whom he met at a party in Manhattan Beach), after around 5-6 months of dating, in Mexico to avoid their parents’ objections. This marriage was later annulled (not legally recognized).

Bobby and Marilyn re-wed in a Los Angeles ceremony on March 8, 1957. After the wedding, he relocated to Santa Monica and began working as a clerk in a haberdashery in Pacific Palisades to support his marriage. Sometime in August 1957, Bobby has his first child, a son named Daniel, who becomes the first of three children.

In 1957 at the age of 20, Bobby met George Herms at Hermosa Beach. Bobby and George Herms become best friends, both involved in the Beatnik culture.

In October 1959, at age 22, Bobby was arrested on a narcotics charge and later acquitted.

Sometime in 1961, Bobby relocates to Topanga Canyon.

Exactly a month and a day after turning 24, Bobby was arrested with his girlfriend, Suzanne Stansbury, for stealing money from an animal clinic. Later, the burglary charge against Bobby was dropped for lack of evidence. Almost a month after his arrest in April, he was arrested again for forging a $45 check and pleaded guilty. On May 2nd, Bobby was arrested a third time for possessing narcotics. Due to this, in October, Bobby was referred to psychiatric court and committed as a narcotic addict to a Narcotics Rehab Center at Chino (Men’s Institution at Tehachapi) for six months.

By the end of 1963, Bobby met Sharon (Didi, Dee Dee) Morrill, which resulted in a marriage officiated by Bob Alexander (a member of the Beat Generation). The wedding took place at Zack Walsh’s house. The marriage was never legalized since the paperwork was never filed. Bobby and Didi relocate to Beverly Glenn.

In 1965, a year after his parole expired, he relocated to New York. People from the Beat Generation relocated here as well. Bobby became part of Andy Warhol’s Greenwich Village art community known as the Factory, where he still focused on his artistic talents, such as making collages and writing poetry.

In 1965, early in his tenure at the Factory, Driscoll gave his last known film performance, in experimental filmmaker Piero Heliczer’s underground movie Dirt, alongside Sharon Morrill.

In 1967, while he was 30 years old, his other poems were published in an underground book, The Great Society. By the end of 1967, he broke up with Didi. His funds depleted, he disappeared into the underground in late 1967 or early 1968, completely dispirited and very ill from Hepatitis due to his substance abuse.