I barely know who Corey Haim is - but I’m not surprised he didn’t want to do a show like that. What a revolting idea! Reality TV is sinking lower & lower!
Yeah, they would be, but he left out Social Security and Medicare and state income taxes. All that would probably come to more than the 20% he deducted for agent’s and manager’s fees.
Several sites and his pal Corey Feldman mention that he was destitute, did not own a car, living in a month-to-month apartment (the same one where Rick James died by a couple of accounts). Sad, but…
While he went many years with essentially no reportable income, according to imdbhe has three completed/not-yet-released movies, plus he had a 19 episode reality show that aired a couple of years ago that was probably pretty decent money. He had a few film credits in the past couple of years as well and he did autograph shows and talk show appearances.
So, taken as granted these were all low budget movies (or in the case of Lost Boys 2 a cameo), ANY kind of credited speaking film role is going to pay very well at least compared to working at Starbucks or washing cars- at least a few thousand dollars for a few days of your time- plus his autograph shows and the like brought in some income, most of it cash probably. While he didn’t earn millions I’d absolutely kiss your ass if he made less in the last couple of years than the average public school teacher in L.A.* and while most public school teachers don’t tool around in Audi TT’s neither do most live in poverty.
So if he was destitute and couldn’t even afford a car and he wasn’t doing drugs, where was the money going?
*Average salary for a public school teacher in California is around $60,000.
This is a common courtesy given to celebrities and common folks as well in our culture. I find it interesting to note that the Center for Disease Control lists its record of overdoses under the category of poisonings.
Corey’s description of the progression of his dangerous use of drugs struck a note with me in its offering of annecdotal evidence in the argument against marijuana as a “gateway drug.”
Of course it always burns my ass when people talk about how awful it was that “nobody would hire him” and “he couldn’t get a break” and “he died broke” because of the cruel entertainment industry, blah blah yadda yadda. I remember with both Dana Plato from Diff’rent Strokes and the daughter from Family Matters who went upstairs and got abducted by Chuck Cunningham (i.e. dropped from the show, character never mentioned again) there were tearful “tragic life” stories in which it was mentioned “they had to do soft-core porn to survive”.
Bullshit. MILLIONS of people are broke, but they manage to stay alive without doing porn. Hell- porn doesn’t even pay that much until you’re at the Ron Jeremy level (and most of his income is probably from other avenues of entertainment). The only reason to do porn is because you want to or because you refuse to take a job that doesn’t involve a camera.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO REMAIN IN SHOW BUSINESS. When they stop hiring you and you’re basically a joke, that’s when you move on and go do something else. LOTS AND LOTS of precedents- Christopher Knight (Peter Brady) is on camera a lot now but for many years he was a computer technician; Danielle “Dee” Spencer from What’s Happenin’? became a veterinarian, Mark Lester (Oliver! and other movies) became a chiropracter, Zelda from Dobie Gillis became a lawyer, etc etc and so forth.
If you’re broke and need an education you can get loans just like millions of other students. If you’re a joke in the entertainment industry then move to some place like Omaha or Kansas City where if they recognize you at all they’ll think it’s cool and you might can turn it to your advantage (“My car salesman was that kid from that show!”). Why they get it through their heads that they are chained to this business because they were once stars in it is beyond me.
And while a lot of child stars made the transition to adult filmdom, has there ever been a real comeback story for a totally washed up and in the scandal rags child star? Danny Bonaduce is about as close as I can think of- he at least became wealthy and well known again- but even he is majorly f*cked up and unhappy.
You’re not wrong, I way oversimplified my example. The point I was trying to make was a lot of these young kids only see the gross amount of money they make and then wonder, “What happened?” Like in that example, they might say “I made over two million dollars, how can I have less than a million now?” It is possible for that to happen legitimately.
I recall a TV interview with Malcolm-Jamal Warner, (Cosby’s Theo), he said his mother forced him to sit down every payday and he, his accountant and his mother or father would make him understand just exactly what happened to every bit of his paycheck. He said, he was so uninterested at the time, but it gave him a real good grasp on reality later on
He had one line in Lost Boys 2, and even then, that was because Corey Feldman basically forced him onto the set one day (I believe it featured in one of the episodes of The Two Coreys). He likely got scale and then was sent packing.
I think a lot of it has to do with how the parents handle it. If the parents have another income seperate from their kids, it’s a lot easier to put the breaks on it.
Kim Fields of the Facts of Life said, whenever her mother found her to be getting to big for her britches, she would say “OK enough, I’m taking you off the show.” And the mother would follow through on the threat. Kim unlike some child actors LOVED acting, so it quickly brought her down to earth.
Danielle Brisebois, who turned out to be a very talented singer/songwriters, said she was shocked when Archie Bunker’s Place was cancelled without warning. But she said, her parents told her. “OK this is over and now we’re going to move on to another part of your life.”
Few child actors deserve the reputations they think they have. For instance, Shirley Temple saved RKO from bankruptcy. Gary Coleman along with Johnny Carson saved NBC in the early 80s. (Carson’s show brought in 25% of NBC’s revenue and Coleman’s show brought in another 10%.)
But in most cases kid actors can go missing and not be noticed too much.
I think the parents have a lot to do with it. In the old studio systems, I can certainly excuse people like Judy Garland who were very young and got trapped by the studio system. She was a real victim. But that studio system has long been gone.
As Danny Bonaduce said, “Sure I missed out on a lot of things that ‘normal’ children get to do. But I also got to do a lot of things that ‘normal’ kids would never get to do. So it’s about even.”
I recall an interview with Lauren Tewes of TV’s Love Boat said something that really stands out. She stated she was spending all her money on cocaine. She said, “I knew having a lot of money could buy you anything you desire. But I didn’t ever think it could also kill me.”
Is there something about early success that leads to self-destruction?
I mean, here he is at 17, with lots of money and girls, living in tinseltown.
Then, all of a sudden, you are 30, and your agent hasn’t called in months…bummer!:eek:
So what is the difference with the ones that do keep it together?
Drew Barrymore, Natalie Portman, and (God help me) the Olsen twins seem to be doing ok.
MJ had a pair of Feldman’s underoos bronzed…
In the case of Barrymore and Portman, an unusual amount of drive is present…though Barrymore had considerable drug and alcohol problems starting at a very young age, like 12 or so, but she eventually pulled out of it and make quite a success of her life. The Olsens, as far as I know, don’t have a career. They’re just living off their hundreds of millions of dollars, though Mary-Kate has been rumored to have a problems with drugs and/or anorexia. Still, she doesn’t seem to have gotten worse as time has gone by so the rumors may be false.
Not sure I’d use Barrymore as an example of keeping it together… getting it together after being a stereotypical child star gone wild, maybe.
I think it always comes down to parents. The stage parents living through their kids or milking them for money produce the crazies.
Also, this may be an area where, in some ways, the girls have it easier than the boys. Unless they get too fat for Hollywood (and disappear completely from everyone’s radars), they can go from playing cute kids to sexpots in the course of a year. Whereas puberty does some drastic things to teen boys (acne, voice changes), and the elements that may have made them successful boy stars – exaggerated features, short for their height – often don’t result in attractive adult actors. Of course, no longer being employable may be a relief for some of them, and they also don’t have (as many) people ticking down the days until they’re 18 and ‘legal’…
I recall that some Doper claimed to have met Dana Plato at a party in Vegas (where she lived for several years) and she offered to service him for a hundred bucks—Dont remember if he took her up on it, but she was way messed up for years before she died, and it’s suprising to me that she DIDNT turn to the porn biz for some quick drug money…
I’ve read that Cosby himself also took time out to go over things like that with the kids (and even the adult actors who played the older kids) which helped. He got into major financial trouble in the early '70s due to bad management and not having a clue how much money he had or where it was; at his nadir he was millions in the red and this was back when the IRS was really really nasty (not that they’re kittens today). He said he would have faced complete ruin had friends not gotten him a lucrative gig in Tahoe and the Coke and Jell-O commercials, and gratitude was why he continued playing that casino and endorsing Coke and Jell-O long after he’d paid off all of his debts and was becoming one of the richest men in entertainment.
His advice to all people who go from just getting by to making big money is “Always sign every single check- NEVER give anybody power of attorney to sign them for you, and ALWAYS make sure the government gets their’s before you spend a nickel of it” because those were the big things that [temporarily] ruined him.
Even Phyllicia Rashad (when she was still Ayers) mentioned that when the show became a huge hit she started looking for houses and fell in love with one- a Beverly Hillbillies monster of a place with all the marble terraces and pools and the like and that she could afford with her Cosby income. She said Cosby sat down with her and showed using figures and numbers just how much the house would truly cost over the mortgage payment and how much it would cost to keep up even if she got it paid off while the show ran when you added in maintenance, taxes, upgrades, etc., and how she would have to keep making a fortune when the show went off the air if she wanted to continue living there. She said it was great advice and she bought a lesser (though I’m sure still very nice) house that she knew she could keep on what she’d realistically make through residuals and occasional acting gigs once Cosby was cancelled. (At the time nobody knew how long it was going to last.)
And to think I smoked a ton of pot regularly in my first and second years of university, but never touched any other drug of any kind. FTR, my father was an alcoholic, so I’m a prime candidate for addiction too. Such is the power of anecdotal evidence!
Well it now seems as if Corey may not have overdosed. He was suffering from an enlarged heart (probably brought on by too much drug usage).
The coroner hasn’t ruled it out 100% yet
I hope this combined with his divorce doesn’t make Feldman relapse. He seems to have cleaned his life up pretty well.
I’m another “child of an alcholic/long line of problem drinkers/smoked pot on a semi-regular basis when younger/major childhood baggage/etc.” who never did hard drugs, but I attribute it to many factors. In no particular order:
-They weren’t readily available
-They weren’t really a part of the culture I grew up in (save for alcohol)
-I could never afford the hard stuff
-While my parents were unhappy and some would say dysfunctional* they WERE in many ways good role models and parentally authoritarian
-An almost annoying and completely inexplicable optimism that “this too will pass” during the really bad times
-An understanding, perhaps from the many drunks I knew as a kid, that substances make nothing go away but just make you a bigger asshole to those around and incapable of driving
-Some common sense
With Corey Haim, I think the ubiquity of drugs in motion pictures, no strong role models, LOTS of money, and a roller coaster child-star life all combined to make him very different from most people who never moved onto the hard stuff.
*Personally I do NOT consider my family dysfunctional and think the term is overused, and I’m not getting into a pissing contest with anyone since I know I’d lose with many many people just in my zip code. My father’s alcoholism contributed to his death and my mother had periodic drinking problems, but both were strangely good role models where addicts were concerned: they didn’t drive drunk, show up drunk/drink at work, pass out at parties, etc…
That said I do know many people whose childhood stories would turn your hair gray and who I’d pit against any child star who never did hard drugs. Ironically most of the people I know who did do hard-drugs were either from very poor areas with crack problems or from wealthy homes where there was plenty of money for the hard stuff- hardly any of the working class/middle class kids I knew ever developed habits beyond pot and booze; I wonder if this is typical.
Anyway, while I don’t think Haim deserves a complete pass for his choices I do think that the presence of drugs being everywhere and used by adults who seem to have their life together during his most formative years made an enormous difference and ameliorates his responsibility at least in the beginning. It’s probably what makes the biggest difference in child stars v. regular kids. From friends I’ve had who’ve been around actors and movie sets, the “who’s using” factor is bigger and more taboo insider secret than “who’s gay”- the bad boy punk seeming rocker might be clean as a Mormon day school teacher while America’s favorite TV grandpa or wacky neighbor might be snorting lines just off camera on his sitcom.
I’m 38 and have gotten more out of life than Corey Haim ever did. Actually, that’s true of almost everyone I know.
Kurt Russell turned out fine. Jodie Foster turned out fine.
A certain percentage of people succeed, and a certain percentage fail. The factors that makes people fail or succeed are usually predictable. Lack of discipline in youth is one easy way to mess someone up, and in the case of child actors it seems to be more prevalent.