March 3rd 1937: The Tragic Life Of Disney's Fallen Peter Pan

Four children were playing in an abandoned tenement building in March of 1968 when they came across a man lying in a cot, he was dead, surrounded by empty beer bottles and religious flyers. With no ID and no missing people in the area matching the man, the body went unclaimed. There were no obvious signs of foul play but an autopsy was carried out on the young man and although nothing flagged in the toxicology report the cause of death was noted as Atherosclerosis which is when the walls of the arteries begin to show lesions and in this man's case, caused a fatal heart attack. Atherosclerosis is a common side effect from long term heroin use. As nobody had come forward to claim the body and the morgue could not hold onto it indefinitely, the man was buried in an unmarked grave on Hart Island. Hart Island was known to have been the site of a women's psychiatric hospital, a men's prison and a quarantine area for during the yellow fever pandemic in the 1870s, so Hart Island has more unmarked graves than you might think possible. 

Robert Cletus Driscoll was born on this day 1937 and he was in a local barber shop in Pasadena getting a trim when the barber told him he should be in the movies and invited him up to his house for dinner. Bobby, aged 5 at the time of the chance meeting was then introduced to the barber's son and was shortly there after, was taken to an interview to audition and things just kept getting better and better for Bobby. 

Shortly after appearing in a few small roles Bobby was contracted by Disney in 1946 and was given his first lead role in "Songs Of The South," as Johnny, a 7 year old boy who goes to visit his grandfather's plantation.  Bobby was given a role in "Treasure Island" and although just a child, he did get banned from Britain as he was technically there without a work permit. Disney ended up having to pay a fine Bobby and his parents has to leave to go home early, Bobby's scenes were not finished so the uncompleted sequences were filmed with his body double. 

Bobby would wait until the role of Peter Pan before really making his mark on the Disney studio. In 1949 the studio began working on Peter Pan which would be released in 1953. He was used, not only the voice of Peter Pan but also as the inspiration for the image and sketches of Peter Pan, he was by all means; The Perfect Peter Pan. 

It was reported that Bobby made $1,750 a week at the time but shortly after Peter Pan was released, Bobby was dropped by the studio. Unlike his character Peter Pan, he was starting to grow up and was no longer the kind of image the studio needed. It is reported that he had acne and his voice starting to get deeper as he went through puberty. 

"I really feared people. 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."

Bobby tried to go back to his life but as a child star he found it hard to fit in and claimed that other students at his school didn't accept him. Bobby turned to drugs to help him deal with his depression and rejection, heroin became his drug of choice. He was picked up on possession charges in 1956 after marijuana was found in his possession. This was a first offence and the charges were dropped against the star. When Bobby was picked up again in 1961 he was not so lucky, he was charged with possession, assault and robbery and was admitted to a rehab centre and parole was to follow after his release. 

"I had everything. I was earning more than $50,000 a year, working steadily with good parts. Then I started putting all my spare time in my arm. I'm not really sure why I started using narcotics. I was 17 when I first experimented with the stuff. In no time at all I was using whatever was available, mostly heroin, because I had the money to pay for it."

Upon his release he found that the whole industry had turned against him, nobody cared for Peter Pan any more and as a knock on effect, nobody cared about Bobby Driscoll. 

"I have found that memories are not very useful. I was carried on a silver platter and then dumped into the garbage can."

Feeling more defeated than ever, Bobby decided to try and distance himself from Peter Pan. He stopped using the name Bobby and began to use Robert, his birth name. Once his parole was up, he moved to New York to try his luck in a new city. 

Late in 1969, over a year after the discovery at the abandoned tenement, Robert Driscoll's mother, Isabelle, went to the police when Disney were not able to locate her son. Cletus Driscoll, Bobby's father, was nearing death and his parents were hoping for a reunion before he passed. This resulted in a fingerprint match with a body that had been discovered in March of 1968. The John Doe that four boys had found lying dead in a cot surrounded by empty beer bottles and religious flyers had been identified. 

He was the child star, Bobby Driscoll. 

When Cletus Driscoll died later in 1969 his headstone marked the death of Bobby although his body still remains on Hart Island. 

"A child lives in a world of its own, so, logically, a successful story for children must strike a chord in that world; possibly involve something he would like to do if he had the chance, like fly with his own wings or go down a rabbit hole, but above all, it must be something he can understand. Anything a child understands, chances are he will enjoy. However, everyone seems to enjoy these successful, so-called children's stories. For instance, you'll never meet a truthful person who says he doesn't like movie cartoons, especially a man. Someone said that women were always women, and men were always children."