After a career as a child actor (as “Buddy” in several Our Gang films, among other appearances), McDonald joined the military, then the Los Angeles Police Dept.
But a drinking problem got in his way, and he ended up in prison for robbery. There, he joined Alcoholics Anonymous and realized how much damage his drinking had caused him — “my father was confronted with the fact that his life was going down the drain,” his son said. He then dedicated his life to helping others with drinking problems, both as an AA sponsor and then taking the message to schoolchildren.
In the 1960s, McDonald and Downey, Calif., Municipal Court Judge Leon Emerson developed the “court card” system for offenders to show judges to prove that they attended alcohol treatment; the system has been adopted nationally. In the 1970s, McDonald and Emerson co-founded the Southern California Alcohol and Drug Programs, which help 3,000 people a year fight their addictions. McDonald “never forgot he’d been down and out and once needed a hand,” said Lynne Appel, the program’s current executive director.
Thomas “Bud” McDonald died September 22 from congestive heart failure. He was 85.