Remembering Bobby

Hi All!

So I’ve decided that I’d be interested in making this into a serious blog.  Not that, mind you, tumblr isn’t ever a serious place.  I just have come to realize I may “reach” a bigger audience if I’m on blogger as opposed to here.

And, truthfully, tumblr is more the place you go to repost gifs and “short form” writing, not these big long entries like I do :)

Therefore!  I’m going to keep all my content up here on tumblr in hopes that 1) people will continue to enjoy past entries, 2) people who have been following me here will have a link to follow me over there, and 3) NEW Bobby fans that may happen upon my stuff will know where to find me.

It’s been so fantastic to meet the handful of Bobby fans I’ve come to know through this tumblr.  I thank you all so much for giving me the chance to babble about a person I love, and I hope to continue to see you over on my blog!  Comments are enabled and you are free to message me any time:

Guess what’s back??  Our favorite Bobby Driscoll site!  

www.bobbydriscoll.net

There are some updates including Bobby’s poems and also his artwork, which are great additions.  The uploads to youtube aren’t quite complete yet, but that’s okay.  When they come up, I’m gonna find a way to download youtube videos and download EVERYTHING, man.

I’d like to talk for a minute about Bobby’s artwork.  I have always felt a very personal connection to Bobby and who he was as an individual, but I can’t exactly “fake it” when it comes to his collages and poems.  I love the FACT that he did collages, because I love collages, but I honestly don’t “feel” any of the pictures Bobby did.  His poems, also, are beyond my interpretation.  I’ve wondered if this was because he was high most of the time by that point?  He was also known to be highly intelligent, so it could be that his intelligence is just far beyond this good ol’ simple girl’s brain.

I think they’re rife with symbolism, and I’m a super symbolic person myself, but I just can’t follow most of them.  However, today I want to point you in the direction of the poem he wrote called “For America.”

Btw, just go to the site and find it if you haven’t read it.  I don’t want to repost the words here because the book they came out of is owned by the site owner and I want to respect copyright stuff.

This is the only one I THINK I MIGHT discern the meaning of, and I wouldn't swear to it.  I wonder if he's telling people not to get all torn up protesting Vietnam and some of the other things happening in the 60′s, because it's an issue that would pass like anything else...?  The very title of the poem alone, and its subject matter, would lend us to realize Bobby paid more attention to national news than I original thought he did during that time period.  I think what he might be saying is, don’t make things worse by getting riled up -- the justice and things you are seeking by protesting are going to become apparent, you just have to wait for it.  Don’t lose yourself to hate.

So who else thinks it is HIGHLY POSSIBLE that the guy to the right of Bobby and Kathryn -- not the one who got kicked, but the other one -- is Bobby’s dad, Clete??

Look at the face, the profile, the hair, and then....

Plus....

And...

Don’t you think the one at the top looks exactly like Clete Driscoll??  I wonder if he was the one who’d taken Bobby to the photo shoot, and when an extra was needed, he was called upon to step into the photo.... or if he volunteered?  

Hi!  So I did this the other night, inspired by my whole “Bobby would’ve made an amazing Alternate Universe Jack Dawson” thing.  This is my favorite rendition of the Titanic song (”The Portrait”) along with my favorite pictures of Bobby.  It’s horribly PlainJane though, so if anyone would like to take it and truss it up for us, if you have video experience, be my guest!

Hi All!  Happy Sunday to you.  I hope everyone’s had a good first week of March!

I have a couple of Bobby blurbs for us today, but firstly, might I draw your attention to the title of this post -- some of you might have figured it out, but that is the original Irish spelling of Bobby’s last name.  What a bored, obsessive person might I be to look such a thing up, you may ask?  Well let me assure you, I came upon this quite accidentally, so don’t judge :P  I was strolling BehindtheName.com looking for an RPG character name in the Irish category when what pops right up at me from the screen?  This!

I love it, so I had to share.

Also, Hank, aka yourgrandpop on tumblr gifted us with an awesome addendum to the Natalie Wood/Bobby spread he found!  Thanks so much for sharing, Hank!  This is Bobby and Natalie in what is presumably Bobby’s car at Tiny Naylor’s, a California diner.

How adorable is this?  Btw, going back a few lines, I do like to assume this is Bobby’s car because I know he was crazy about cars, and enjoyed working on his own.  That leads me to believe he might’ve pushed hard for this photo shoot to happen in his own vehicle.  

If only we might ask Natalie what her memories were of this sweet photo shoot from the early 50′s -- but she’s dead too.  I’m pretty sure I’ve lamented this way before on here, but slowly those who knew Bobby and can tell us these little things are disappearing.  Soon, a good deal of firsthand knowledge about him will be lost.  This is why I wish someone would write a book, but it might already be too late to assemble alot of information.  

Anyway, I digressed to something depressing, sorry.

My second bit is to talk some about So Dear to My Heart, which I FINALLY saw this past weekend!  I would have to say this is my favorite of Bobby’s “little boy” movies along with Sunday Dinner for a Soldier.  Bobby’s acting ability once more outshines everyone else’s, and his facial expressions are unparalleled.  My ultimate favorite was the one he wore during the after-dinner scene with his grandma, uncle and cousin (I think that’s what Luana was in this movie??) when his Uncle Hiram first mentioned the County Fair.  The little sidelong glance he gave Luana was absolutely priceless.

I do remember reading in a newspaper article from way-back-when that Bobby did have a “job” on set of actually feeding the lambs.  I bet he greatly enjoyed this, as I recall reading later that he’d considered being a veterinarian when he was young.

That must be where this pic came from, which I’m sure most of us has seen before.

Happy birthday, sweet Bobby.  You came into being 80 years ago today.

So during this time of waiting for updates from bobbydriscoll.net, a good resource for Bobby fans is the Bobby Driscoll Remembered Facebook page.  It’s probably the closest thing there is to an “active fanbase,” even though it still doesn’t buzz.  But then, we can’t really expect anything to buzz in regards to Bobby anymore, bless his heart.  The years are going by, and his stardom is becoming more and more obscure...

Anyway, a man on there called William Gruendler managed to capture some pictures of Bobby from a TCM showing of his Screen Director’s Playhouse episode, and added some effects to them.  Here are my favorites:

The show is evidently about the Korean War, and as I was looking through these pictures, I got to wondering what Bobby’s position might have been on the military.  He was of age to go off and fight right in between the Korean and Vietnam Wars.  I wonder if this episode packed an emotional punch for him and caused him to think back on it in later years when his name was removed from the draft board because of his legal issues (I would quote the magazine I saw this in, but I only saw the isolated article and, upon inquiry, never found out what the name of the actual publication was).  Was he relieved?  Did he feel that something he would’ve taken great pride in -- being able to be called upon to go to war for his country -- was taken from him?  It would be so nice to know... Bobby was strung out, we can safely assume, during the early and mid-60′s when Vietnam came around and antiwar protests were all the rage.  Did he have an opinion about it, or was he too lost in his downward spiral to know or care?

This is a montage of pictures of Bobby from his first credited role, The Fighting Sullivans.

A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E.

A guy on Bobby Driscoll Remembered posted them the other day, so I presume he took them.

Okay, so you know what?  I was ready to close this blog, as you guys probably read.  But I’ve been thinking, and I’m just simply not going to let worrying about other people and what they think ruin something I truly love.

So I’m back, and I’m still gonna bring y’all any Bobby content I personally possess (even though it’s my feeling that Bobby’s stuff should be available for everyone, as that’s how he would want it, so NONE of this is “mine”).  And I’m still gonna share my feelings about it.

In honor of today, we have this!

We’ve all seen this before, but this is the purest quality I’ve ever seen of this particular picture.  Isn’t it gorgeous?  Wasn’t he?  Btw, saved the jpg of this from ebay if anybody think I’m jackin’ they stuff again. Happy Valentine’s Day to you Bobby.  I know you’re having a happy day where you are.

Look look!  And here I thought there was no other Bobby picture out there we’d never seen before!  This was apparently taken during the “date” he and Natalie Wood went on when he was 17, but didn’t make it into the spread.  They’re picking out records together.  Who of us would’ve loved to have been in Natalie Wood’s place on that date when we were that age?  (Of course, many of you still are...)

So I’ve been thinking lately about what my next post would be.  I had originally thought to put up the Peter Pan stills that look the most like Bobby’s actual face, so we can all commentate on that, but it was too hard for me to look for.

I came up with a better idea though, and that is the idea to put up some pictures of the Peter Pan live action that are often confused between Bobby and Roland Dupree, the man who helped more with the dance-like motions Peter would have, particularly while flying.  There is nothing about these two guys that looks alike in the face, but somehow there’s still confusion, particularly about one of the pictures, and then there are some where I really can’t tell who’s who.

Therefore, this is an interactive post!  Feel free to give your feedback.

Firstly, we have those pictures that are obviously Bobby:

Oh my goodness, this is as plain as day, down to the way Bobby would wrinkle his little nose when looking disgusted over the supposed kiss coming at him.  Everyone knows this is Bobby Driscoll.

This, also, is our Bobby, even though he’s wearing a different style costume here than he wears at any other people.  Anyone know why this is, btw?  I think I’ve blogged asking that before, but I’m pretty sure no one’s left who knows.

We know this is Bobby too.  Next to that top pick, this one is my absolute favorite.  I love how his face always looks tender, even when he’s in contemplation.

And yes, this.

Now, these are the pics that are either obviously or just about have to be Roland.

This gets credited as Bobby alot, but if you look at the face, you’re almost guaranteed to be looking at Roland.  Also note the strong dancer’s arms and legs, which Roland, as a dancer, would have.

My one way of trying to tell Bobby and Roland apart are the fact that Bobby was a gangly 14-year-old boy with long arms and more slender legs, and Roland’s frame was a bit more muscular and polished, as he was in his mid to late 20′s.  

For those reasons, I think this is Roland too:

Notice also that he’s bending a bit to Wendy.  Kathryn Beaumont and Bobby seem to have been around the same height.

We know this is Roland because he signed underneath.

Middle - Bobby, each side = Roland.

This is also why I believe Roland is the one in the picture with Kathryn Beaumont -- his biggest focus was helping the animators chronicle “flying,” and from an interview I read, Kathryn talked alot about “the actor who did the flying” helping her to fly better herself, telling her not to be nervous.

This picture actually came from an article about Roland, so that’s him.  The hair is a little different too from Bobby’s, which we can see here.

THIS.  I honestly cannot tell who this is, though I’m tending toward Roland.  Anyone else have feelings/thoughts?

More Roland.  Now!

I THINK this is Bobby, due to his frame.  You can see only a HINT of the features if you look closely at this in its largest size, but not enough to tell exactly.

Okay and I legit cannot tell about this one at all.  On one hand, it looks like Bobby.  But it makes more sense to be Roland.  What do you guys think??