Donnie Dunagan, Original Voice of Disney’s Bambi, Dies at 92

Donnie Dunagan, the former child actor who voiced Bambi in Disney’s classic animated film, has died at age 92, Variety reports.

Dunagan’s representatives confirmed that he passed away on November 4. The cause of death 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 remiss not to share the impact 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 childlike 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 over only a few years. During that time, he held prominent roles in two enduring classics: Bambi and the 1939 horror film Son of Frankenstein.

Dunagan was born on August 16, 1934, in San Antonio, Texas. According to an archived biography on his former website, his family moved often before eventually settling in Memphis. There, a neighbor taught him tap dancing, and he won a pair of local talent shows. A Hollywood scout saw him at the second competition he won, and soon Dunagan 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 film, Dunagan performed alongside 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 before a group of Disney animators who “asked me to look happy, look up, look sad, etc.” as they sketched the expressions of the white-tailed deer. From there, Dunagan was offered the chance to voice Bambi as well. 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 never-ending love story in this world. My debt to him is great.”

The end of Dunagan’s acting career coincided with a tumultuous period 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 1950s, Dunagan volunteered for the Marines and 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, one of the most difficult aspects of 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 from the spotlight. 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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