One of Washburn’s most iconic roles was in Walt Disney’s 1957 film Old Yeller. Tommy Kirk played Travis, a boy who finds a stray dog he names Old Yeller.

Tommy Kirk, whose career as a young leading man in Disney films like Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog and Son of Flubber came to an end, he said, after the studio discovered he was gay, has died. He was 79.

51 years before Marley came Old Yeller, who was quite the opposite of the excitable Labrador. While the former was wrecking ...