From the AVclub: R.I.P. Old Yeller star Tommy Kirk: Kirk starred in a string of high-profile Disney successes in the 1950s and '60s, including The Shaggy Dog and Swiss Family Robinson

I grew up on the Disney Channel in the 1980s, and the Disney Channel in the 1980s was constantly re-running all of Tommy Kirk's movies.  So I grew up on this stuff.  And I think I've seen them all: Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog, Swiss Family Robinson, The Absent-Minded Professor, Babes in Toyland, Son of Flubber, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, The Monkey's Uncle, and also The Mickey Mouse Club Hardy Boys Movie (The movie was serialized on episodes of the Mickey Mouse Club--which was also re-run on the Disney Channel back in the day--and I caught several episodes of it, although not the entire thing .)

I used to love Tommy Kirk's movies, and I always thought he had a great friendly persona. 

Years ago, when I was going through my "spend hours looking everything up on Wikipedia phase" I looked Tommy Kirk up on Wikipedia, and discovered his sad story--fired by the Disney company for being gay, and then getting into drugs after that.   (In fact, I mentioned Tommy Kirk's story as an example of how Disney does business back in March.)

The Wikipedia article, as it currently stands, reads:

Kirk said he knew he was gay from an early age:

I consider my teenage years as being desperately unhappy. I knew I was gay, but I had no outlet for my feelings. It was very hard to meet people and, at that time, there was no place to go to socialize. It wasn't until the early '60s that I began to hear of places where gays congregated. The lifestyle was not recognized and I was very, very lonely. Oh, 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. They were desperate and miserable. When I was about 17 or 18 years old, I finally admitted to myself that I wasn't going to change. I didn't know what the consequences would be, but I had the definite feeling that it was going to wreck my Disney career and maybe my whole acting career. It was all going to come to an end.^[28]

While filming The Misadventures of Merlin Jones in 1963, Kirk started seeing a 15-year-old boy he had met at a local swimming pool in Burbank. The boy's mother discovered the affair and informed Disney, who elected not to renew Kirk's contract.^[29] Kirk was 21 years old. Walt Disney personally fired Kirk.^[30] Kirk describes the situation himself: "Even more than MGM, Disney was the most conservative studio in town.... The studio executives were beginning to suspect my homosexuality. Certain people were growing less and less friendly. In 1963, Disney let me go. But Walt asked me to return for the final Merlin Jones movie, The Monkey's Uncle, because the Jones films had been moneymakers for the studio."^[31]

...hmmm.  I wonder... How would that play today?  Certainly being gay would be more acceptable now.  But that age difference could be seen as predatory nowadays, right?