Research Guru / Moderator
Posted:
Sep 1, 2010, 5:46 PM
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Cammie King Conlon was young Faline in "Bambi"
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Former child actress Cammie King Conlon, the voice of the young doe Faline in Disney's 1942 movie Bambi, died Wednesday morning at her Fort Bragg, California home from a recurrence of lung cancer. She was 76.
Her son, Matthew Ned Conlon, was by her side.
Conlon was uncredited in the classic animated film. Neither was Anne Gillis, who voiced the adult Faline.
Millions saw her in live action as Bonnie Blue Butler, the short-lived daughter of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara, in the 1939 epic Gone With The Wind. She was four years old, and it was the debut of her short screen career.
In GWTW, Bonnie was seen in a few scenes, ending with a fatal fall from a pony. Conlon was paid $1,000 for her role.
Conlon often quipped: "I peaked in show business at age five."
There are four museums dedicated to the Civil War perennial, which has made $1.5 billion.
Conlon was modest about making the film a winner with audiences.
"I had nothing to do with it," Conlon said in a 2009 interview with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat about her role. "I was five. They said 'Stand here. Do this.'"
She spent 40 years working in public relations. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Southern California, she worked for CBS and ABC. She also edited a California magazine and worked in a large savings and loan company, where she created another magazine.
Throughout her life, she accepted invitations to attend reunions, retrospectives award events for the movie.
"I find that the lovely color photo that I sign from my part as Faline in Bambi is very popular with collectors," she said in an interview.
Last year, she published the book Bonnie Blue Butler -- a Gone with the Wind Memoir.
Born Eleanore Cammack King in Los Angeles on August 5, 1934, she was the goddaughter of Technicolor Corp. co-founder Dr. Herbert T. Kalmus. In 1949, she became his stepdaughter when he married her mother, Eleanore King.
She was married twice. Jud Conlon, her father-in-law from her second marriage, was a musical arranger for many Disney films, including Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland.
Cammie King Conlon had two children, three grandchildren and a sister, Diane.
"Imagine being in two classics and never doing another thing after that," she once said.
[Via Santa Rosa Press Democrat -- http://www.pressdemocrat.com/...972&tc=yahoo]
(This post was edited by eminovitz on Sep 2, 2010, 5:27 PM)
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