![]() I got a whole new contract, and I’ve been working ever since.”Īn arrest for possession of marijuana cost him work in the 1965 films The Sons of Katie Elder and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and he told Minton he “almost died of a drug overdose a couple of times.” But a short time later, the studio called me up and offered me a role in Swiss Family Robinson. “I thought the whole world had fallen to pieces. That was when the studio told me they didn’t have any future projects for me, so I was being dropped. “I was thin and gangly and I looked a mess. Kirk was earning $1,000 a week but soon went through “a difficult stage,” he noted in 1962. I think his talent and range as an actor were taken for granted somewhat. Talking about Old Yeller, film historian Leonard Maltin said, “One of the reasons people remember is not just the fate of a beloved dog, but the shattering grief expressed by his owner, so beautifully played by Tommy. In 1956, the studio sent him and Mouseketeer Judy Harriet to the Democratic and Republican national conventions for newsreel specials. He was a great talent, and it was a privilege to work with him and call him a friend.” “A friend of mine who was a casting director told me that when Tommy Kirk came in to audition, he had never seen a kid actor as good as he was, especially because he could instantly cry on cue. Frighteningly talented,” his Hardy Boys onscreen brother, Tim Considine, said in a statement. “He was one of the most talented people I ever worked with. ![]() After they found out I was involved with someone, that was the end of Disney.” He added, “Disney was a family film studio and I was supposed to be their young leading man. “I didn’t know what the consequences would be, but I had the definite feeling that it was going to wreck my Disney career and maybe my whole acting career.” “When I was about 17 or 18 years old, I finally admitted to myself that wasn’t going to change,” he told Kevin Minton in an interview for a 1993 article titled “Sex, Lies, and Disney Tape: Walt’s Fallen Star” for Filmfax magazine. Disney execs learned about the relationship through the boy’s mother, and Kirk was let go, though he did return for one more movie, Merlin Jones sequel The Monkey’s Uncle (1965). While filming the movie, Kirk, then 21, started seeing a 15-year-old boy he had met at a swimming pool. Kirk brought many a tear to movie audiences’ eyes starring as country kid Travis Coates alongside a heroic Labrador retriever in Old Yeller (1957), then turned into a pooch himself - a sheepdog named Chiffonn - in The Shaggy Dog (1959), the first of four movies he made with Fred MacMurray.Īfter portraying Biff Hawk opposite MacMurray as a chemistry professor in The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and the sequel Son of Flubber (1963), Kirk had an unexpected hit with The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1964), which had been developed for television before Disney decided to place it in theaters instead. ![]() Darren Kent, 'Game of Thrones' Actor, Dies at 36 ![]()
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