Donnie Dunagan, the original voice of Bambi in Walt Disney Pictures’ iconic film of the same name, died from lung cancer on Nov. 4, 2026, at the age of 92.
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Dunagan was born in San Antonio, Texas, on Aug. 16, 1934. His family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, when he was 3 years old. While in Memphis, Dunagan tap-danced in a talent contest, winning the $100 grand prize and the attention of a studio talent scout, and his family soon relocated to Los Angeles.
Dunagan was quickly cast in 1938’s “Mother Carey’s Chickens,” starring Anne Shirley, but his breakout role was in 1939’s “Son of Frankenstein,” where he played Peter von Frankenstein, the son of Basil Rathbone’s Baron Wolf von Frankenstein. Dunagan has said that during production he often played checkers with Boris Karloff, who was in full makeup and dressed as Frankenstein’s monster.
Dunagan appeared in a series of other films, including “Tower of London,” again with Rathbone, before his family received a call from Uncle Walt himself — Walt Disney.
In a 2025 interview on voice actor Jim Cummings’ podcast “Toon’d In with Jim Cummings,” Dunagan said his mother received a call from Disney himself saying he wanted Dunagan to “help his artist put a child’s expression on a deer.”
That call led to 6-year-old Dunagan appearing as the titular deer in Disney’s 1942 classic, “Bambi,” which he would spend more than a year working on.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Dunagan said that the hardest part about starring in the movie “was being serious. I loved the studio. The people were very different. I had a great time. The animators and all the different people at Disney offered to show me how certain things worked, and the ice cream in the dining room was great.”
In a 2011 interview, Dunagan recalled his time working on the film’s most emotional scene, when Bambi’s mother is killed by a hunter.
“I remember this well,” he said. “When I was told to say, with some stress, ‘Mother … Mother,’ I must have not had the tone of fear that the story needed. A coach, I think it was a nice lady at the studio, asked me how I would cry out loud if my own real mother was lost and in great danger. That made it easy.”
Dunagan retired from acting after “Bambi.”
After “Bambi,” Dunagan’s parents divorced. He lived in several boarding homes, boxed and played football in high school and supported himself before joining the Marines in 1952 at age 18.
According to Dunagan, he became the youngest drill instructor in Marine Corps history and served three tours in Vietnam before retiring as a major in 1977.
He kept his role in “Bambi” a secret during his service because he had “a dislike for showoffs and those that boasted about themselves.” He also didn’t want anyone mocking him or calling him “Major Bambi.”
“One of the biggest regrets of my life is that I didn’t have the courage to tell my close personal friends in the Marine Corps that I had been a part of the wonderful work of Mr. Disney,” he said.
Dunagan was a counterintelligence officer and a Force Recon Commander. In addition to his three Purple Hearts, he was awarded a Bronze Star, a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with V device, an Army Commendation Medal and two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals.
Dunagan is survived by his wife, Dana, whom he married in 1992.
