Salt Lake Tribune – Peter Behn of Park City has been a husband, a dad, a grandpa, a home builder and a real-estate broker. But to some people, he’ll always be best known as someone else – someone he became almost 70 years ago.
A rabbit.
Behn was the voice of Thumper in the Disney animated classic, “Bambi.” He recorded his lines for the movie in a Hollywood studio between 1938 and 1940, when he was 4 to 6 years old.
“It was a fun thing that happened a long time ago,” says Behn, 72, who never appeared in another film and hasn’t sought to capitalize on his modest fame. “But I don’t hide it so much anymore. I’ve found that people get a kick out of it.”
Thumper, as you may remember, was Bambi’s best pal and a shot of much-needed comic relief before the darker scenes that traumatized young viewers over the final third of the movie: the hound attack, the forest fire and, of course, the death of Bambi’s mother.
Fun-loving and a bit of a rascal, Thumper got his name from his habit of thumping his hind foot. He had many of the movie’s most memorable lines, including, “Did the young prince fall down?” “If you can’t say somethin’ nice . . . don’t say nuthin’ at all” and my personal favorite, “Whatcha doin’? Hibernatin’?”
When Disney began casting “Bambi,” its fifth animated feature, Walt Disney insisted on kids supplying voices for the young forest creatures instead of adults mimicking youngsters as Hollywood often does now. Behn (pronounced bane) won an audition through his dad Harry Behn, who co-wrote “Hell’s Angels,” the World War I drama famously directed by Howard Hughes.
When little Peter showed up at the Disney studios in 1938, he was one of 30 kids trying out to voice animals in the film. It did not go well at first. Rejected for Bambi, Behn then spoke one of Thumper’s lines but failed to impress the casting director, who reportedly said, “Get that kid out of here. He can’t act.” However Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, two of the leading animators on “Bambi,” liked what they heard.
“One of them said, ‘That kid would be perfect for the rabbit,’ ” says Behn, relating the account he heard years later. And so instead of sounding meek and cutesy, Thumper’s voice booms with young Peter’s exuberance.
“Maybe [my voice] had a personality more than some other kids’, I don’t know. It’s just the way I was in those days – outgoing and not shy,” Behn says. “[Director David Hand] would say a line, and then I’d mimic it back at him. They actually changed part of the story line after they found my voice to make Thumper more of a lead character.”
A production photo shows Peter in the studio holding a live bunny from a tiny Disney zoo built to help “Bambi” animators draw the animals. Behn recorded his dialogue off and on over the next two years – even after his father, wearying of the Hollywood lifestyle, moved their family to Arizona. For his work on the movie, Behn was paid about $4,000. He received no royalties.
Behn saw “Bambi” when it came out in 1942, but his performance as Thumper made little impression on him. Instead, he recalls being scared by the fire. His brief acting career over, Behn moved with his family to Connecticut, graduated from Yale, spent two years in the Army and then settled in small-town Vermont. Unlike fellow child actor Donald Dunagan, who was terrified to tell his fellow Marines that he was the voice of Bambi, Behn wasn’t embarrassed by his Thumper past. He just didn’t talk about it.
“For more than 30 years, nobody around me knew that I’d done this,” says Behn, who didn’t even tell his future wife until after they’d dated for a year. (She was unimpressed.) “Disney didn’t even know where I was.”
Then, in the 1970s, one of his close friends casually mentioned Behn’s “Bambi” legacy to a newspaper reporter, who wrote a brief article. Other reporters came calling, amused that Thumper had resurfaced in the Vermont town of Warren, as in “rabbit warren.” Fan mail began arriving at the Behns’ home, much of it from Disney collectors seeking Peter’s autograph.
In recent decades, Behn has appeared at a few Disney events – including an anniversary screening of the movie at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre – and been interviewed for the two-disc “Bambi” DVD that came out in 2005. Although Behn’s grandkids don’t care much about his Thumper days, some adults beg him to recite lines from the movie. A few even ask him to thump his foot.
Peter and Pam, his wife of 28 years, moved to Park City in 1997 for its outdoorsy lifestyle. Last year they built a handsome, eco-friendly home on a hillside north of town. It has solar panels, a wind generator and enormous tanks to collect rainwater, but no “Bambi” memorabilia. Behn has some old Disney stuff in a box, but he’s not sure where it is. The amiable retiree would rather ski or mountain bike than make a fuss over his role in one of the most iconic movies of all time.
“I’m really not looking for a lot of recognition,” says Behn, whose eyes still have a boyish twinkle. “But I don’t mind talking about [Thumper]. I’ve realized that it gives people pleasure.”
