He starred in some of the Walt Disney Studios' best-known live-action pictures of that period: Song of the South (1946), So Dear to My Heart (1949), and Treasure Island (1950), as well as RKO's The Window (1949).

In ill health from his substance abuse, and with his funds depleted, his initially unidentified body was discovered on March 30, 1968, in an abandoned building in the East Village of Manhattan.

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),[5] with Don Ameche and Myrna Loy.

[6] 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.

[7] Now nicknamed by the American press as Walt Disney's "Sweetheart Team",[8] Driscoll and Patten starred together in So Dear to My Heart (1948) with Burl Ives and Beulah Bondi.

[citation needed] 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.

[10] 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).

The striking force and terrifying impact of this RKO melodrama is chiefly due to Bobby's brilliant acting, for the whole effect would have been lost were there any suspicion of doubt about the credibility of this pivotal character.

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,[16] using his British stand-in to film missing location scenes after his parents and he had returned to California.

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.

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.

"[25] 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 likeable protagonist.

A severe case of acne accompanying the onset of puberty,[27] 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.

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.

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 December 1956, Driscoll and his longtime girlfriend, Marilyn Jean Rush (occasionally misspelled as "Brush"), eloped to Mexico to marry despite their parents' objections.

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).

Some of his works were considered outstanding,[52][53] and a few of his surviving collages and cardboard mailers were temporarily exhibited in Los Angeles at the Santa Monica Museum of Art.

The award was presented as a special miniature Oscar statuette for "the outstanding juvenile actor of 1949" for his roles in So Dear to My Heart and The Window, both released that year.

[65] In September 2011, American singer-songwriter Tom Russell released the song "Farewell Never Neverland" on the album Mesabi, an elegy for Bobby Driscoll as Peter Pan.