In May 1993, a letter arrived for Bill from an unexpected corner of American entertainment history. The writer was Spanky McFarland, the child star remembered by millions as the round-faced leader of the Our Gang comedies and the Little Rascals shorts of the 1930s and 1940s. McFarland wrote warmly to Bill, thanking him for a recent letter and noting how much Bill seemed to keep himself busy. That, McFarland explained, was also how he kept himself from growing bored.
He quoted his mother’s old saying, “An idle mind is the devil’s playground. ” He mentioned a trip to Canada, a single visit in 1968, when he had stopped in Vancouver and bought a raincoat. He closed with best wishes and signed off with a simple, friendly farewell. Along with the letter, he sent an autograph, though he warned Bill not to duplicate it.
The correspondence was brief and unremarkable in itself, the kind of friendly exchange between a fan and a former celebrity that happened all the time. But it carried a quiet significance. George “Spanky” McFarland had been one of the most recognizable child actors in America, the chubby, clever instigator who led the gang of neighborhood kids through dozens of short films that stayed in circulation for generations. By the early 1990s those films were decades old, but their audience had never fully disappeared.
For Bill, the letter was a direct connection to that vanished world of Depression-era comedy. McFarland’s death came only weeks after he wrote that letter, on June 30, 1993. He was just 64 years old. The man who had once been the face of childhood mischief for an entire generation was gone, and the friendly note he had mailed to Bill in May became one of the last pieces of correspondence he ever sent.
That short, unassuming letter, with its cheerful tone and its gentle advice about keeping an idle mind busy, now stood as a final word from a man whose entire public life had been defined by the joy and energy of youth.