"Wonder Child" '' (1944), his debut film Driscoll's brief, two-minute debut helped him win the role of young Al Sullivan, the youngest of the five
Sullivan brothers, in the
20th Century Fox World War II drama The Fighting Sullivans (1944) with
Thomas Mitchell and
Anne Baxter. Additional screen portrayals included the boy who could blow his whistle while standing on his head in
Sunday Dinner for a Soldier, the "child brother" of
Richard Arlen in
The Big Bonanza (both 1944), and young Percy Maxim in
So Goes My Love (1946), with
Don Ameche and
Myrna Loy. He also had smaller roles in movies such as
Identity Unknown (1945) and ''Miss Susie Slagle's
, From This Day Forward
, and O.S.S.'' with
Alan Ladd (all 1946).
Disney Driscoll and
Luana Patten were the first two actors
Walt Disney placed under contract. Driscoll then played the lead character in
Song of the South (1946), which introduced live action into the producer's films in conjunction with extensive animated footage. The film turned Driscoll and his co-star Luana Patten into child stars, and they were discussed for a special
Academy Award as the best child actors of the year, but for the year of its release, no juvenile awards were presented at all. Now nicknamed by the American press as Walt Disney's "Sweetheart Team", Driscoll and Patten starred together in
So Dear to My Heart (1948) with
Burl Ives and
Beulah Bondi. It was planned as Disney's first all-live-action movie, with production beginning immediately after
Song of the South, but its release was delayed until late 1948 to meet the demands of Disney's co-producer and longtime distributor
RKO Radio Pictures for animated content in the film. Driscoll played
Eddie Cantor's screen son in the
RKO Studios musical comedy
If You Knew Susie (also 1948), in which he teamed with former
Our Gang member
Margaret Kerry. Patten and he appeared with
Roy Rogers and the
Sons of the Pioneers in the live-action teaser for the
Pecos Bill segment of Disney's cartoon compilation
Melody Time (also 1948). Driscoll was lent to RKO to star in
The Window, based on
Cornell Woolrich's short story "The Boy Cried Murder".
Howard Hughes, who had bought RKO the previous year, considered the film unworthy of release and Driscoll not much of an actor, so delayed its release. When it was released in May 1949, it became a surprise hit.
The New York Times credited Driscoll with the film's success:
So Dear to My Heart and
The Window earned Driscoll a special
Juvenile Academy Award in March 1950 as the outstanding juvenile actor of 1949. Driscoll was cast to play
Jim Hawkins in Walt Disney's version of
Robert Louis Stevenson's
Treasure Island (1950), with British actor
Robert Newton as
Long John Silver, the studio's first all-live-action picture. The feature was filmed in the United Kingdom, and during production, Driscoll was found to not have a valid British work permit, so his family and Disney were fined and ordered to leave the country. They were allowed to remain for six weeks to prepare an appeal, and director
Byron Haskin hastily shot all of Driscoll's close-ups, using his British
stand-in to film missing location scenes after his parents and he had returned to California.
Treasure Island was an international hit, and several other film projects involving Driscoll were under discussion, but none materialized. For example, Haskin recalled in his memoirs that Disney, although interested in Robert Louis Stevenson's pirate story as a full-length cartoon, always planned to cast Driscoll as
Mark Twain's
Tom Sawyer. He was at the perfect age for the role, but because of a story rights ownership dispute with Hollywood producer
David O. Selznick, who had previously produced the property in 1938, Disney ultimately had to cancel the entire project. Driscoll also was scheduled to portray a youthful follower of
Robin Hood following
Treasure Island, again with Robert Newton, who would play Friar Tuck, but Driscoll's run-in with British immigration made this impossible. Driscoll's second long-run Disney contract allowed him to be lent to independent
Horizon Pictures for the double role of Danny/Josh Reed in
When I Grow Up (1951). His casting was suggested by screenwriter
Michael Kanin. In addition to his brief guest appearance in Walt Disney's first television Christmas show in 1950,
One Hour in Wonderland, Driscoll lent his voice to
Goofy, Jr. in the Disney cartoon shorts "Fathers Are People" and "Father's Lion", which were released in 1951 and 1952, respectively. Driscoll portrayed Robert "Bibi" Bonnard in
Richard Fleischer's comedy
The Happy Time (1952), which was based on a Broadway play of the same name by
Samuel A. Taylor. Cast with
Charles Boyer,
Marsha Hunt,
Louis Jourdan, and
Kurt Kasznar, he played the juvenile offspring of a patriarch in Quebec of the 1920s, the character upon whom the plot centered. Driscoll's last major success,
Peter Pan (1953), was produced largely between May 1949 and mid-1951. Driscoll was cast with Disney's "Little British Lady"
Kathryn Beaumont, who was in the role of
Wendy Darling; he was used as the reference model for the close-ups and provided Peter Pan's voice, and dancer and choreographer
Roland Dupree was the model for the character's motion. Scenes were played on an almost empty sound stage, with only the most essential props, and filmed for use by the animators. In his biography on Disney, Marc Elliot described Driscoll as the producer's favorite "live action" child star: "Walt often referred to Driscoll with great affection as the living embodiment of his own youth." During a project meeting following the completion of
Peter Pan, though, Disney stated that he now saw Driscoll as best suited for roles as a young bully rather than a likable protagonist. Driscoll's salary at Disney had been raised to $1,750 per week, but Driscoll had little work from 1952 on. In March 1953, Driscoll's additional two-year option had been extended (which would have kept him at Disney into 1956) but was cancelled just weeks after
Peter Pan was released theatrically. A severe case of
acne accompanying the onset of
puberty, explaining why it was necessary for Driscoll to use heavy makeup for his performances on dozens of TV shows, was officially provided as the final reason for the termination of his connection with the Disney Studios.
Radio and television Driscoll encountered increasing indifference from the other Hollywood studios. Still perceived as "Disney's kid actor", he was unable to get movie roles as a serious character actor. Beginning in 1953 and for most of the next three years, the bulk of his work was on television, on such
anthology and
drama series as
Fireside Theater,
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars,
Front Row Center,
Navy Log, ''TV Reader's Digest
, Climax!, Ford Theatre, Studio One, Dragnet, Medic, and Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre. On another series, Men of Annapolis'', he appeared with
John Smith, future second husband of Driscoll's
Song of the South co-star, Luana Patten. In some special star-focusing series, Driscoll appeared with
Loretta Young,
Gloria Swanson, and
Jane Wyman. Between 1948 and 1957, he performed on a number of radio productions, which included a special broadcast version of
Treasure Island in January 1951 and of
Peter Pan in December 1953. As was common practice in this business, Driscoll and Luana Patten also did promotional radio gigs (starting in late 1946 for
Song of the South) and toured the country for various parades and charity events through the years. In 1947, he recorded a special version of "So Dear to My Heart" at
Capitol Records. In 1954, he was awarded a Milky Way Gold Star Award, chosen in a nationwide poll for his work on television and radio.
Post-Disney After Driscoll left the Disney studios, his parents withdrew him from the
Hollywood Professional School, which served child movie actors, and sent him to the public West Los Angeles
University High School, instead. There, his grades dropped substantially, he was the target of ridicule for his previous film career, and he began to take
drugs. He said later, "The other kids didn't accept me. They treated me as one apart. I tried desperately to be one of the gang. When they rejected me, I fought back, became belligerent and cocky—and was afraid all the time." At his request, Driscoll's parents returned him the next year to Hollywood Professional School, where in May 1955 he graduated. His drug use increased; in an interview years later, he stated, "I was 17 when I first experimented with the stuff. In no time I was using whatever was available... mostly
heroin, because I had the money to pay for it." In 1956, he was arrested for the first time for possession of
marijuana, but the charge was dismissed. On July 24, 1956,
Hedda Hopper wrote in the
Los Angeles Times: "This could cost this fine lad and good actor his career." In 1957, he had only two television parts, as the loyal brother of a criminal immigrant in
M Squad, a long-running crime series starring
Lee Marvin, and as an officer aboard the submarine S-38 in an episode of the World War II docudrama series
The Silent Service. It was rumored that in early 1954, Bobby, with the encouragement of friend and fellow child star
Natalie Wood, auditioned for the role of Jim Stark in
Rebel Without a Cause, but was rejected. In December 1956, Driscoll and his longtime girlfriend, Marilyn Jean Rush, despite only meeting that July, eloped to
Mexico to marry despite their parents' objections. The marriage was annulled and the couple was later rewed in a ceremony that took place in Los Angeles in March 1957. They had two daughters and one son, but the relationship did not last. They separated, then divorced in 1960. He would have nothing to do with his three children from the mid 60s for the rest of his life due to his drug addiction.
Later roles Driscoll began using the name "Robert Driscoll" to distance himself from his youthful roles as "Bobby" (since 1951, he had been known to friends and family as "Bob", and in
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars – Early Space Conquerors, 1952, was credited as "Bob Driscoll"). He landed two final screen roles: with
Cornel Wilde in
The Scarlet Coat (1955) and opposite
Mark Damon,
Connie Stevens, and
Frances Farmer in
The Party Crashers (1958). He was charged with
disturbing the peace and
assault with a deadly weapon after two hecklers made insulting remarks while he was washing a girlfriend's car and he hit one with a pistol, but the charges were dropped. His last known appearances on TV were small roles in two single-season series:
The Best of the Post, a
syndicated anthology series adapted from stories published in
The Saturday Evening Post magazine, and
The Brothers Brannagan, an unsuccessful crime series starring
Stephen Dunne and
Mark Roberts. Both were originally aired on November 5, 1960. Late in 1961, he was sentenced as a drug addict and imprisoned at the
Narcotic Rehabilitation Center of the
California Institution for Men in Chino, California. When Driscoll left Chino in early 1962, he was unable to find acting work. Embittered by this, he said, "I have found that memories are not very useful. I was carried on a silver platter—and then dumped into the garbage."
New York City In 1965, a year after his
parole expired, he relocated to New York, hoping to revive his career on the
Broadway stage, but was unsuccessful. He became part of
Andy Warhol's
Greenwich Village art community known as
the Factory, where he began focusing on his artistic talents. He had previously been encouraged to do so by artist and poet
Wallace Berman, whom he had befriended after joining Berman's art circle (now also known as Semina Culture) in Los Angeles in 1956. Some of his works were considered outstanding, and a few of his surviving collages and cardboard mailers were temporarily exhibited in Los Angeles at the
Santa Monica Museum of Art. 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. == Death and aftermath ==