# Child Actors that didn't crash and burn **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 15, 2013, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964 "2013-03-15T00:52:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2026, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964/241 "2026-08-07T11:10:14Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > The Goonies cast disappeared as well. I would have expected big things from the asian kid (huge role also in Indy Jones 2). This is fun to read 13 years later, because we’ve since seen Ke Huy Quan achieve big things. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2026, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964/242 "2026-08-07T13:17:58Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > > [@Green\_Bean](#): > > > > A lot has been made of “Can you believe that Hal is Heisenberg?” I always found it even more amazing that Buggin’ Out is Gus Fring. > > Daveigh Chase did her first TV movie at eight, and did three more before turning eleven, at which point she played Donnie Darko’s little sister. > > She was still eleven when folks heard her voicing the kid in LILO & STITCH – same year she memorably crawled out of television sets in THE RING. :eek: > > (And, for the sake of this thread, I’ll add that she was a castmember on OLIVER BEENE from age twelve to fourteen; at fifteen, she started playing the disturbingly young bride-to-be on BIG LOVE, and kept at it until she was in her twenties; she’s since done movie after movie after movie as a grown woman, showing up for work on time and having no apparent need for either jail or rehab.) Some posts have not aged well. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2026, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964/243 "2026-08-07T19:06:56Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Some posts have not aged well. Oof. Yeah, that’s [a sad one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daveigh_Chase#Personal_life). ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2026, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964/244 "2026-08-07T19:42:44Z")
I don’t think [Missy Gold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missy_Gold) (Katie Gatling, “Benson”) and [Tina Yothers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Yothers) (Jennifer Keaton, “Family Ties”) have been mentioned. [_Tracey_ Gold, OTOH…](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracey_Gold#Battle_with_anorexia) ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2026, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964/245 "2026-08-08T01:11:14Z")
> [@AnalogSignal](#): > > Jackie Coogan > > The Kid (1921) - a Charlie Chaplin movie > Uncle Fester on The Addams Family - (1964 - 1966) > > plus lots of other stuff Hands down, Coogan’s biggest impact on the Film industry is the law named after him. He made millions as a child star, yet when he became an adult he discovered that his parents had spent virtually all of it. [Coogan Law](https://www.sagaftra.org/membership-benefits/young-performers/coogan-law) prevents this abuse from happening now. And not just in California. It does kinda suck that he paid a huge price to protect others who came after. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2026, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964/246 "2026-08-08T03:48:14Z")
That song is such a Mandela Effect for me. I could have sworn I heard it in high school, and I graduated in 1991. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2026, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964/247 "2026-08-08T13:27:57Z")
I was watching _To Kill A Mockingbi_rd (1962) last night and was again impressed by the young actors in it, especially Mary Badham (“Scout”). It looks like she did not act very much after the movie was released, though she appeared in about a dozen productions over many years. She appears to have been quite successful in other areas and has a family. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2026, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964/248 "2026-08-08T14:51:25Z")
Did a search, and it looks like I didn’t mention her the first time around, so: Lillian Gish. Didn’t smoke, rarely drank, lived to 99, and made 105 films. No one is sure the number of her live performances, since in some cases, the records just aren’t there. She also was in episodes of many, many TV shows. She appeared on _The Defenders_ as well as _The Love Boat_. She started appearing on the stage at age six, an that where DW Griffith first saw her, when she was 19. Very soon, she made her first film, with Griffith. After making _His Double Life_ in 1933, a sound film which she didn’t think came off well, she returned to the theater. She accepted a few cameos and some parts on TV-- of note, she spotted the script of _A Trip to Bountiful_ as a diamond in the rough, agreed to make a TV movie based on it, in 1953, and then went on to star in it on Broadway-- but then in 1955, she appeared in what is considered a powerful “comeback”: _Night of the Hunter_, as Rachel Cooper. If she had a rough adolescence, she was through it by the time Griffith discovered her. She talks about her youth having been very regimented, and directors and her mother could demand any hours or anything else of her. Albeit, I think she did say her mother treated her better than other stage mothers did their children. Probably to busy to crash and burn. Anyway, I wrote her a fan letter when I was 17, and got a personal answer, so, decent person, too. ---
**Author:** ![AnalogSignal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/analogsignal/32/1085_2.png) [@AnalogSignal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnalogSignal)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2026, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964/249 "2026-08-08T15:07:45Z")
@Cartooniverse You replied to my post 13 years later. I have thoughts about what you wrote but will wait to post them until 2039. 🙃 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2026, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964/250 "2026-08-08T15:14:30Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#): > > I was watching _To Kill A Mockingbi_rd (1962) last night and was again impressed by the young actors in it, especially Mary Badham (“Scout”). It looks like she did not act very much after the movie was released, though she appeared in about a dozen productions over many years. She appears to have been quite successful in other areas and has a family. I saw her in a production back in 2022. She played the old woman neighbor of Scout. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2026, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964/251 "2026-08-08T16:07:55Z")
Collin Wilcox was also in _ **To Kill A Mockingbird** _, as the girl who was allegedly molested. I remember her best as the grieving widow in an episode of _ **Columbo** _. [Collin Wilcox (actress) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collin_Wilcox_(actress)) For a long time, I thought she had played Scout, but I know now that I was mistaken. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2026, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964/252 "2026-08-10T11:19:13Z")
> [@AnalogSignal](#): > > @Cartooniverse You replied to my post 13 years later. I have thoughts about what you wrote but will wait to post them until 2039. 🙃 A much needed laugh !! And not for nothing, but wouldn’t it make for a more paced and genteel world if everyone waited 13 years before launching into their replies? (Depending on just when you posted, I didn’t even wait 13 hours. For shame, for shame.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/child-actors-that-didnt-crash-and-burn/652964.md?page=12)