Donnie Dunagan, the one-time child actor who voiced Bambi in the classic Disney animated film of the same name, has died, Variety reports. He was 92.
Dunagan’s agents confirmed that he died last week, Nov. 4, adding that the cause was lung cancer.
“We were
proud to represent a Marine, beloved by fans around the world,” Kris Jones and Nery Lemus of CelebWorx said. “While he asked us (in his words) ‘not to be sad due to the great life I lived,’ it would be amiss not to share the impact that Donnie had on people when they met him. His love for life was shown through his encouragement. He knew how to inspire and inspired us to be the best we could be. He had an infectious smile, a warmth and charisma that never shook the child-like spirit of his acting youth. He rallied other veterans, loved his fans, and above all else, loved his wife. We will always love you Donnie. You were the best of us.”
Dunagan’s acting career was brief, comprising just seven movies and lasting only a few years. But during that time, he had prominent roles in two enduring classics: Bambi and the 1939 horror film, Son of Frankenstein.
Dunagan was born Aug. 16, 1934 in San Antonio, Texas. According to an archived biography on his old website, Dunagan’s family moved often, eventually settling in Memphis. There, a neighbor taught Dunagan how to tap dance and he wound up winning a pair of local talent shows. A Hollywood scout happened to see him at the second competition he won, and soon Dunagan had signed a contract with RKO Pictures.
In 1938, at just four years old, Dunagan made his film debut in the family drama Mother Carey’s Chickens. The following year, he starred in Son of Frankenstein, playing Peter, the son of the infamous scientist, Baron Wolf von Frankenstein. In the movie, Dunagan performed alongside several Hollywood legends, including Basil Rathbone as Baron von Frankenstein, Boris Karloff as the Monster, and Bela Lugosi as Ygor.
Dunagan appeared in two other movies in 1939, Tower of London and The Forgotten Woman. After that, he made small, uncredited appearances in 1940’s Vigil in the Night and 1941’s Meet the Chump. His final, but most memorable role, was 1942’s Bambi.
Walt Disney personally selected Dunagan to be the facial model for Bambi because of his brown eyes. As Dunagan recalled in a 2011 interview, this involved sitting in front of a group of Disney animators, who “asked me to look happy, look up, look sad, etc.” as they sketched out the expressions of the white-tail deer. From there, Dunagan was offered the chance to voice Bambi too. He called working on the film “the thrill of my young life.”
Dunagan added: “As I have grown older, I’ve listened to people talk about it when they did not know I was a part of it. I grew to realize that Mr. Disney had let me become part of a neverending love story in this world. My debt to him is great.”
The end of Dunagan’s acting career, however, coincided with a tumultuous time in his personal life. His parents divorced and Dunagan spent some time living in an orphanage and boarding school. While in high school, he worked odd jobs to support himself, boxed, and played football, eventually earning a football scholarship to the University of Alabama.
In the early Fifties, Dunagan volunteered for the Marines, and he spent the next 21 years of his life in the Corps. He served in both the Korean War and Vietnam War, earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, and attained the rank of Major. For all the combat he saw, though, one of the most difficult aspects about his time in the military was keeping his childhood acting a secret.
“I was blessed to be in a leadership role for 25 years, either in counterintelligence or training troops,” Dunagan said in 2005, “and if these animals I was leading had ever found out about Bambi — as much affection as I had for it — they’d have ridden me out on a rail.”
After leaving the Marines, Dunagan retreated out of the spotlight. Then, in the early 2000s, Disney tracked him down and asked him to take part in a DVD release of Bambi. Soon, he was back in the public eye, working as an ambassador for Disney and often appearing at fan conventions.
“I love it now — when people realize, ‘This old jerk, he’s still alive and was Bambi,’” he said in 2015. “And I wouldn’t take anything for it, not a darn thing for it.”
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