Except for the three films he has coming out in the next year or two…
quote:
Originally posted by Wendell Wagner
Macaulay Culkin: Good child actor, but was lucky in that he got a role which made him a star. It’s hard to tell how his life will turn out. Reasonably happy personal life. Has left acting for good, apparently.**
Except for the three films he has coming out in the next year or two…
I would also point out that Home Alone was written for Macaulay Culkin based on his hilarious performance in Uncle Buck. It wasn’t just “luck”. By the way, Mac also just guest-starred on “Will & Grace”, and did quite a good job I might add! Mac is going strong!
Rickjay, you wrote: “Let us not forget arguably the second-most-successful child-to-adult transition ever: Kurt Russell.”
This statement raises the question: who would you say is #1?
Normally I’d say Judy Garland, who, it can’t be denied, was a top-tier STAR as both kid and adult – so she made the transition okay, at least in the public’s mind. Trouble is, on a personal level she crashed and burned big time, so I guess she’s disqualified.
So, with JG out of the running, I would say her pal Mickey Rooney is #1 choice. Top tier kid star, not-quite-top-tier adult star.
Or Jodie Foster, stuyguy. She’s done fairly well since passing puberty, wouldn’t you say?
And was DaveRaver being repetitive, saying the same thing twice?
I read a Judy Garland biography several years ago; she had stage-managing parents and became an addict at the studio. She and Mickey Rooney were in several movies together and did promo tours together in the days an actor contracted with one studio who controlled their life; they were given uppers when the studio wanted them up, downers when the studio wanted them down in order to make it through the intense shooting schedules.
Don’t forget the guy my mom still hates for bawling at the end of whatever movie he was in as a small child; Ricky Schroeder who went from Silver Spoons to who knows where to NYPD Blue.
Jerry Mathers has a cameo as a science teacher in Better Luck Tomorrow.
The Champ?
DaveRaver writes:
> Except for the three films he [Macauley Culkin] has coming out
> in the next year or two…
O.K., I was going by what KGS was saying about Culkin quitting acting. But now it appears to me that KGS actually meant that he had temporarily quit acting.
How about Drew Barrymore?
She seems to be an example of a child-actor who “spiral[ed] into a depressing life of drugs and alcohol” and came back to have a reasonably successful acting career as an adult.
I still think RickJay made the most salient point. Most of the problems people perceive among child actors are actually problems that afflict almost EVERYONE in show biz.
Can you think of kids who became stars, and subsequently got into all kinds of trouble with drugs and booze? Sure- but I can also name dozens of stars who had similar problems after gaining stardom as ADULTS (Colin Farrell wasn’t a child star, was he?).
Can you name loads of kids who achieved stardom, but were completely forgotten just ten years later? Sure- but I can name loads of actors and actresses who starred in hit movies or TV shows as ADULTS, but who’d now be delighted to get a good soap opera role, or even an infomercial (Philip Michael Thomas wasn’t a child star, was he?).
What dantheman said.
I’d like to see you sit through The Champ (Voight and Schroeder, not Wallach and Cooper) and not be bawling at the end.
Wallace Beery, actually, but let’s not quibble… 
No, I meant the really little-known version of The Champ with Eli Wallach and. ummm, Alice Cooper, yeah, that’s right, Alice Cooper. Bombed at the box office; went straight to The Late Late Show.
Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.
The Late, Late Show? With Art Carney and Lily Tomlin? Excellent movie!
The Olsen twins are going to be interesting as they grow up. Their fan base is somewhere between about 5 and about 11 or so, and who knows how these girls will react to the twins’ getting older.
Also, their identities are so entwined that if one wanted to get out of the business, the other would probably have a rough go of it.
Robin