Tommy Kirk (actor)

Thomas Lee Kirk (December 10, 1941 - September 27, 2021), best known by his screen name Tommy Kirk, was a Hollywood actor whose most notable work was with classic live-action Disney movies. His first start was in 1956 where he portrayed Joe Hardy in the serial The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure, which aired throughout October 1956 during the ABC series The Mickey Mouse Club. After a long span of movies, he was fired from the studio in 1963 after he sexually molested a 14-year-old boy, which infuriated Walt Disney, and some say Walt fired him personally. After Disney let him film The Monkey’s Uncle, Kirk retired from acting, and lived a quiet life, before the Walt Disney Company, by then under new leadership, brought him back to do special features for DVD releases of his movies, and gave him the Disney Legends award in 2006.

Career

After his older brother talked him into getting into acting, Kirk reached the top quickly starting in Old Yeller in 1957. His performance was loved so much, he started in nine more films, being: The Shaggy Dog (1959), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), Moon Pilot (1962), Bon Voyage! (1962), Son of Flubber (1963), Savage Sam (1963), The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1964), and The Monkey’s Uncle (1965).

After he left Disney, Kirk started in lesser known movies such as Village of the Giants (1965) which got more noticed thanks to it being on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1994. He retired from acting in 1975, with his last movie that year being My Name Is Legend, but the film was never released.

Controversy

Throughout his Disney career, Kirk was a closeted homosexual, and although no one knew, some people hated him. According to Kirk, the two most notable were Fred MacMurray and Jane Wyman, the latter of whom Kirk described very harshly. "She was very mean to me. She went out of her way to be sh**ty ... but she was a total b**ch and I think she was homophobic." During the production of The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, Kirk molested a 14-year-old boy at the Burbank pool, and Kirk got fired when he got caught. However, Merlin Jones was a massive hit, so Disney allowed him to return to film The Monkey’s Uncle which was a sequel to Merlin Jones. It was also successful, but Disney soon cut ties with Kirk. Afterwards, his own family disowned him.

Post acting career

Kirk came out as homosexual in 1973, and he never got notable work again. Although when businesses staring getting more tolerant of the matter, Kirk had a slight comeback in the late 1980s to early 2000s where he was in six films. Disney brought Kirk back for special features of his movies most notably being Old Yeller and Swiss Family Robinson for their 2002 Disney Vault Collection release. Kirk was awarded the Disney Legends Award in 2006, and showed up to some meet and greets before he died in 2021 at the age of 79.