No wish to be cruel at all, but this made me laugh until the dog came to see what was wrong.
A kindergarten-aged Odette Yustman made her debut with Arnold Schwarzenegger in, well, Kindergarten Cop – and played an elementary-school-aged kid in Remembrance with Eva La Rue and Dear God with Greg Kinnear before showing up as a teen in Andy Richter’s short-lived Quintuplets series.
She kept getting work in her twenties – six episodes of South Beach, nineteen episodes of October Road, back to the big screen in Cloverfield before getting the leading role in The Unborn and playing Kristen Bell’s nemesis in You Again – until, as a happily-married Odette Annable, she just finished up simultaneously playing the generous prison doctor Jessica Adams on House and the unattainable safecracker Melanie Garcia on Breaking In – while now playing the Assistant DA on Golden Boy, with another movie coming out later this year.
I guess Jackie Cooper had a reasonable adult life. He was nominated for an Oscar at age 9 and was popular in the 1930s. He didn’t adapt as an adult actor at first as he wasn’t conventionally handsome. But he did other things such as a Captain in the Navy reserves, sports car racing in SCCA, worked at Screen Gems (apparently helping to cast Sally Field as the Flying nun…wonder how she feels about it since that series was a millstone for her for at least a decade). In the 1970s he had a rejuvenated acting career such as a murdering politician on “Columbo” and as Perry White in the Chris Reeve’s “Superman” films (he had a passport ready when Keenan Wynn suffered a heart attack).
Not an actor but Wolfgang Mozart emerged as a popular child prodigy (the rage in the 18th century) into a productive adult, marred only by dying at age 35.
[QUOTE=Jim’s Son]
I guess Jackie Cooper had a reasonable adult life. He was nominated for an Oscar at age 9 and was popular in the 1930s. He didn’t adapt as an adult actor at first as he wasn’t conventionally handsome. But he did other things such as a Captain in the Navy reserves, sports car racing in SCCA, worked at Screen Gems (apparently helping to cast Sally Field as the Flying nun..wonder how she feels about it since that series was a millstone for her for at least a decade). In the 1970s he had a rejuvenated acting career such as a murdering politician on “Columbo” and as Perry White in the Chris Reeve’s “Superman” films (he had a passport ready when Keenan Wynn suffered a heart attack).
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He was already picking up multiple Emmy nominations in the '60s, for his three years in the leading role of Hennesey – after three years in the leading role of Socrates Miller, in The People’s Choice during the '50s.
Switching gears entirely, there’s also Joey Lawrence: in the '80s, he was the wisecracking kid on Gimme A Break from age 5 to age 11; in the '90s, he was the not-too-brainy brother on Blossom from age 14 to 19; he kept getting work in the '00s – a couple of horror films, a few episodes of CSI, half-a-dozen made-for-TV movies – on through to co-starring in Melissa & Joey at present, just now picked up for a third season; he’s not having a superstar career, but I can’t say he crashed and burned.
Sara Gilbert was mentioned in the OP and Galecki in this one, but what about their Big Bang co-stars Kaley Cucco and especially Mayim Balik? The later, after playing a young Bette Midler in Beaches and starring in her own TV show Blossom earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience before joining the cast as the amazing Amy Farrah Fowler.
It took me the better part of a day to figure out the joke.
Richard Thomas made his on-screen debut at seven, in a Christmas movie with William Shatner, Bernadette Peters, Jessica Tandy, and Margaret Hamilton, which (a) I now must see, and which (b) he promptly followed up, at age eight, with a made-for-TV adaptation of A Doll’s House and a title role in Oliver Twist.
He kept getting work through his teens – an episode of Bonanza here, an episode of Marcus Welby there, a bunch of plays on Broadway – before starting the role of his career as John-Boy Walton at twenty and working steadily through to the present, with no apparent trainwrecks.
I didn’t get it. And then the music started in my head..
He is currently in the new show *The Americans *on FX.
No love for Jennifer Connelly? Started at age 14, hit it big with Labyrinth in 1986 and has 39 titles to her credit, with 2 filming and 1 in post-production as we speak.
Or Anne Hathaway, who started off as a princess at 19 and landed an Oscar at the last awards.
Or for that matter, Elisabeth Shue, who also started at age 19, became best known as the Karate Kid’s girlfriend. 52 titles for her (and she was smokin’ hawt in Adventures In Babysitting).
MIla Kunis is doing pretty well for herself. She first started on That 70s Show when she was 14.
Who, absurdly enough, was a very good friend of Michael Jackson for a time and has speculated he may be the sperm donor of Paris.
Danielle Spencer, who played Dee on What’s Happening?, left the business and became a veterinarian.
Her fellow '70s super brat, Alison Arngrim, hasn’t had a great career as an actress as an adult but she’s avoided the Diff’rent Strokes curse and in spite of being an incest survivor (which she’s gone forward with) she’s a well adjusted adult and a very gifted memoirist.
The kids from Good Times (Thelma and Michael- Jimmy Walker was already grown when it started) have at least kept their names out of the papers.
I was wondering recently whatever happened to Adam Rich from Eight is Enough. He was in the tabloids a good bit in the '80s and '90s for usual faded child star stuff, but hasn’t been for over a decade. Hopefull all is well.
For some Schadenfreude morbid diversion:
The David Spade 2003 movie Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star was, as evidenced by the fact it had David Spade, totally missable, except for the video in the credits at the end, a tongue in cheek USA For Africa style former child star choir.
Child Stars on Your Television
This was a decade ago, and it’s sad how many of the ones in that video have died since then (Corey Haim, Gary Coleman, others) or otherwise trainwrecked (Leif Garrett, Erin Moran, others).
At least the Brady brothers seem to be doing well.
I’m afraid I beat you by ten posts. 
Well I keep trying, but there’s that pesky restraining order…
You maybe remember the little lovestruck drummer kid from LOVE ACTUALLY who gets fatherly advice from Liam Neeson before gymnasting across an airport? He was the baby-sat boy in NANNY MCPHEE, with Emma Thompson? The ten-year-old Hitler in that RISE OF EVIL movie, with Peter O’Toole? The eleven-year-old chess master in ENTRUSTED, with Klaus Maria Brandauer? The young Tristan in TRISTAN + ISOLDE, before James Franco steps in to play the all-grown-up version? The teenaged Paul McCartney in NOWHERE BOY, even?
Now in his twenties, he’s apparently just joined the GAME OF THRONES cast, having recently finished shooting a movie with Billy Bob Thornton and Andre Braugher. It’s too soon to say for sure – but by this point, Lindsay Lohan had already crashed her car three times, been in rehab three times, earned a DUI conviction while driving with a suspended license, and gotten busted for cocaine possession; let’s at least give the guy points for smooth sailing so far.
She was a fixture of the tabloids her entire career, but I don’t think it can be said **Elizabeth Taylor **(first film, age 10) ever crashed and burned.
No, but IIRC one of her husbands did, so she was crash-and-burn-by-proxy.
OTOH, when you marry that many men, odds are pretty good one of them is going to be in a plane crash.
I can’t be sure, but I think he may have offered me an 8-ball at a Hollywood Undead show recently.
Suburgatory’s Jeremy Sisto. I knew I remembered him from something… Grand Canyon. Haven’t heard of too many C&Bs.
W/ the exception of Brittany Murphy’s death, the cast of *Clueless *has been relatively unscathed. It may be icky but I wouldn’t call feeding your kid like they’re a baby bird is crash or burn.