We hear a lot about hild stars that burn out tragically or have shitty drug filled lives after their glory days. Its become a cliché. But there are quite a few I can think of that have had very successful careers without turning into complete trainwrecks.
Ron Howard
The main three from Harry Potter
Elijah Wood
Neil Patrick Harris
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Christian Bale (OK he has yelled a bit but he’s not a trainwreck)
Sara Gilbert
Leonardo DiCaprio
Then there are others who didn’t stay in front of the camera but didn’t turn up on the cover of the Enquirer.
Peter Ostrum: (from Willy Wonka) didn’t want to be an actor is a veterinarian
Peter Billingsley: still in show business but mostly as a producer
Mike Vitar (Benny “The Jet”, Sandlot): One day I was watching the movie and started looking up the cast. I was surprised to see he became a LA Fireman.
Shirley Temple seemed to do OK for herself after show business.
Oh and Ryan Gosling was really big on Canadian TV when I was a kid. I don’t know if that counts as a “star” but I sure knew of him (and may have had a crush on him)
Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Mario Lopez from Saved by the Bell have done well for themselves.
I can think of a couple of members of the original Mickey Mouse Club (1955 era) who had problems later on, but most of them, especially Annette, Bobby, Tommy and Cubby went on to be productive and relatively unscrewedup.
BTW Shirley Temple had an extremely rocky adolescence but came through it better than, say, Judy Garland or Mickey Rooney.
Beautiful, talented conservative father of four Ricky Schroder
Dr. of neuroscience Mayim Bialik
Television director and person I personally prayed to come out of his childhood stardom undamaged Fred Savage
Emmanuel Lewis from Webster has done ok. Graduate college in 1997. Not in show biz now, but I’ve never heard of him getting in trouble. He was interviewed last year after his tv dad Alex Karras died.
Deanna Durbin, although she has stayed out of the spotlight for about 60 years
Baby Peggy Montgomery was probably pretty well adjusted despite having $2 million stolen by her great uncle/manager (who had also married her grandmother, took the money and money to Texas to keep his ill gotten loot. Crooks going to Texas, what a surprise). Also lost a bunch in stock market/investing in ranch and depression hit.
Dwayne Hickman (Dobie Gillis, Love That Bob). Interesting in commentary for “Cat Ballou” he mock rants how Burt Mustin got 100s of roles in his 70s and 80s while he can’t get any.
Jon Provost survived falling in all those wells on “Lassie”
Of all the child actors I have watched, I somehow felt the most protective over Fred Savage. It bothered me greatly that he could possibly end up like the less fortunate trainwrecks referred to in the thread title, and I always prayed that it wouldn’t happen. So I’m especially pleased that things did work out O.K. for him, and that he appears to be successful and happy. Not taking any credit for it, just saying that if there was any one actor who could be added to the list of successes, I’d want it to be Fred Savage.
Baby Rose Marie dropped the “baby” and became a TV icon. Larry Mathews also seems to have had a fairly normal life as he grew up, though not in show business.
Brandon Cruz of The Courtship of Eddie’s Father grew up to be a fairly successful punk rocker.
He’s a band leader now playing 40’s music.