I was the voice of Bambi – and kept it secret for years

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Donnie Dunagan was a Disney child star in the 1930s before becoming a US Marine.

He was born in 1934 and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, in the midst of the Great Depression. After winning a talent show aged four he was scouted and whisked to Hollywood where he starred in several movies – including a role as the voice of Walt Disney’s iconic animated deer Bambi in 1942. But the Second World War would put a halt to his movie career, and Donnie eventually became a US Marine – never telling anyone about his Hollywood history until he was publicly unmasked in 2004. On the 80th anniversary of Bambi's release, he shares his story.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Zoe Gelber

Transcript

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0:00.0	On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.
0:06.9	It was an extraordinary news story.
0:09.1	The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny,
0:13.7	mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared.
0:18.0	One of the great mysteries in English criminal history.
0:20.7	We're still looking for Lucan. It's honestly one of the great mysteries in English criminal history. We're still looking for
0:21.6	lukin. It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime. I'm Alex von
0:26.6	Tunselman. This is the Lucan obsession. Listen on BBC Sounds. This is the sound of crowd science.
0:34.2	We shoot a laser beam, Etis Etim. Is that a big canister of oxygen in the background?
0:39.5	Oh, there's a wasp in there.
0:41.0	Yep.
0:41.4	That's possibly the most disgusting thing I've heard this week.
0:45.3	But it's one of the nicest fun facts you're going to hear today.
0:48.1	So here I'm actually holding a donut.
0:50.0	What are you going to do with that?
0:51.0	Find out more at the end of this podcast.
0:56.7	Walt Disney, the world's greatest storyteller,
0:59.3	brings the world's greatest love story to the screen.
1:04.2	Bambi, the story that proves that love can be loaded with laughs.
1:13.1	80 years ago, an animated deer with shaky little legs legs and eyes you could swim in made his movie debut.
1:16.4	It cast a spell that is really endured.
1:24.1	It told the story of a baby-faced Dhea, Bambi, growing up in the forest with his friends.
	...

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