In 1964, 23-year-old Tommy Kirk was one of the Walt Disney's most successful stars. Originally from Kentucky but raised in Los Angeles, Kirk had come to Walt Disney's attention at the age of 13 while performing in regional theater. Disney signed the young teenager to a long-term contract, and the next year Kirk joined The Mickey Mouse Club TV series.
Before long, however, his boy-next-door looks, obvious intelligence, and confident acting took him to the big screen with a starring role in Old Yeller (1957). From then on, Kirk was making two or three movies a year for Disney, with leading roles in such crowd-pleasers as The Shaggy Dog (1959), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), and Savage Sam (1963), the sequel to Old Yeller. With the release of The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1964)the first theatrical film in which he was given top billingKirk's future at the studio seemed secure.
Although it may be true that, as some have observed, Walt Disney was grooming Kirk to be the "All-American boy" and "the epitome of young masculinity," it is worth noting that Kirk's characters tended to be outsiders, brainy and somewhat socially inept, though lovable nonetheless. In Swiss Family Robinson, Kirk is the clever castaway brother who very pointedly does not get the girl; she falls instead for the sexy brother (James MacArthur) and decides to stay on the island and make a family with him. Kirk, meanwhile, dressed in top hat and tails, leaves the rest of his family behind at the end of the movie, as he sails off to England for a university education.
Kirk was 17 or 18 when he first realized he was gay and "wasn't going to change," the actor recalled in a 1993 interview. But he was "very, very lonely": "I had some brief, very passionate encounters, and as a teenager I had some affairs, but they were always stolen, back-alley kind of things." He was also scared. "I had the definite feeling that [being gay] was going to wreck my Disney career and maybe my whole acting career."
His fears came true in 1964, when the mother of a boy he was seeing discovered their affair and told Walt Disney about it. Kirk was summoned to a meeting with Disney, who fired him without giving him a chance to explain. No reason was ever given to the press for the young star's dismissal, and in fact, the whole incident appears to have been hushed up.
Rumors about Kirk, however, persisted at the studio. When he returned in 1965 to film The Monkey's Uncle, a sequel to Merlin Jones, the experience was painful. "I was very uncomfortable," he said, "knowing that [my co-workers] were watching me closely."
Kirk went on to make a number of forgettable beach party movies for other studios, as well as a few horror films, but his movie career was essentially over. Around the same time, he developed a drug habit that left him financially ruined and nearly killed him.
After several desperate years, Kirk turned his life around and got off drugs. In the mid-1970s, he left show business altogether and started a carpet-cleaning business in Los Angeles. More recently, Kirk has returned to occasional acting in small-budget, campy horror flicks like Attack of the 60-Foot Centerfold (1995) and Club Dead (2000). But with Disney's latter-day gay-friendliness, who knows what the future holds for Kirk's acting career? A new Merlin Jones movie may be just around the corner.
Rawley Grau has won four Vice Versa Awards for his writing on gay and lesbian culture. He can be reached at GayNestor@aol.com.
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 2, Mar. 9, 2001