This 89-year-old war hero kept his secret for a long time: he was the voice of Cotton for Disney!

This 89-year-old war hero kept his secret for a long time: he was the voice of Cotton for Disney!

He’s not the only child star to try his hand at film before breaking away and retraining. But for Donnie Dunagan, hiding his past was a priority in his new profession.

Born in 1934 in San Antonio, Texas. Donald “Donnie” Roan Dunagan and his family quickly move to Memphis, Tennessee, where they have to fight poverty. But when he was only three and a half years old, little Donnie won a $100 prize in a talent contest. Then he was spotted by an agent and moved with his family to Hollywood, where he began appearing in films and quickly became the main financial support in his family.

He first started out in Rowland V. Lee’s feature films, Happiness in renting (1938), Frankenstein’s Son (1939), in which he played the young son of Baron Frankenstein, and The Tower of London (1939). He thus continues to play roles, as well as appear the forgotten woman By Harold Young the same year, in the wake of George Stevens the following year or so Meet the Chump Edward F. by Klein in 1941.

Finally, in 1942, at the age of 7, he ended up voicing Young Bambi in the Disney classic of the same name. However, after this experience, he retired from the world of cinema.

Far from Hollywood glitz

We meet at the age of 13 Donnie Dunagan Far from cinema and glitter, he lives in a boarding house and works in the industrial field as a film director. In 1952, at the age of 18, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and became the youngest drill instructor in the history of the US Navy.

He eventually served three tours of duty in Vietnam, where he was wounded several times, before finally retiring as a major in 1977. He received a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for his service.

Keep your secret at all costs

Throughout his military career, he managed to keep it a secret that he was the voice of Cotton. As Storycorps (via Gala) reported in 2015, for Donnie DunaganIt was important to keep this secret, his military background was incompatible with the image of a little owl crying for his mother and traumatizing a whole generation of children.

In people’s minds, the image of Bambi is a weak little deer, not very brave, sliding on its belly on the ice.“, he said. For him, being associated with a character will discredit his profession. “I haven’t said a word about cotton to anyone“- and neither to his wife.

However, one day, one of his superiors ended up discovering his past, and he was right: the blackmail came, the latter assigned him painful tasks to keep the secret, as well as threatened to call him “Major Bambi”. But more than 70 years later, at that time, his feelings on the subject had changed: “I really like today.

in 2004, Donnie Dunagan Officially reviewed and extensively interviewed by film historian Tom Weaver in the “Special Donnie Dunnagan Issue” for Video Watchdog magazine.

As of 2024, the 89-year-old retired major, as well as his colleagues Peter Benn (who voiced the young rabbit Thumper) and Stan Alexander (who lent young Fleur, the male skunk in the film), were the last three actors from the iconic Walt Disney film.

waiting Cotton live actionStill in the works, the 1942 cartoon can still be seen on Disney+ – in the original version with the voice of Donnie Dunagan, or in French, as you prefer!


Source: Allocine

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