I vote for Jonathan Lipnicki, who played the annoying kid in Jerry Maguire. The kid was such a horrible actor he made Tom Cruise look like a master thespian by comparison.
I did do an edit there, as I had misremembered her being related to Jodie Sweetin, who played the middle sister in Full House speaking of abysmal child actors…
I dont really watch the show but Ive seen enough of it to know that the twin boys on Seventh Heaven are up there with the worst child actors of all time
Oh my god. Danielle Spencer, Dee on What’s Happening!! (note the two exclamation points).
She was so bad, she was good. No, maybe she wasn’t.
She was so bad, she was hilarious. Yes, that’s it.
Hilarious, in a point-your-finger-and-laugh-at-the-retarded-acting kind of way.
Actual wood had nothing on her.
Remember troll dolls? the ones with the plastic faces and the fake fur hair. The Olsen twins looked like real-life troll dolls.
Yes, that is it, that is what they used to remind me of. Thank you for the pictures to go with the excellent comparison.
Jim
Ha! I’m almost brought her up, but I figured nobody else would remember her.
I can’t remember if she was really a bad actor or if she was just really annoying, with her loud whine and her constantly tattling on her brother.
Whomever the littlest Keaton was on Family Ties. The blonde girl. And Mallory, too.
REally, it should have been the Alex Keaton Show.
I’m gonna have to offer up Brandon De Wilde, who played the little kid Joey in Shane.
That kid remains the reason I cannot own a copy of that movie.
I think DJ falls into a particular group: The kid who was hired when they were 4 years old and were essentially a living prop, but the series lived on for several years afterward and it became increasingly clear that the kid is no better at acting than they were at 4.
Especially compared to the petite and slender and “young looking” professional actors in their 20s who were hired to play teenagers and still look exactly the same as they did 10 years ago, while their baby siblings have grown into monstrous behemoths who also still can’t act.
I don’t know who this girl is, or if the commerical is still running somewhere out there, but the Welch’s Grape Juice Girl not only was horrid, she frightened me more than a car full of zombies.
I have to add that the entire cast of Facts of Life was just plain awful.
Full Houses’s Kimmy Gibbler made the other children look good.
I forgot the other side of the equation in the evolution of the child actor. On one hand, you have the normal kid who grows up into a gigantic bloated freak next to their svelte “teenage” siblings. On the other hand we have the Emmanuel Lewises and the Gary Colemans who were hired to play kids much younger than themselves, so while their older brothers and sisters are going through puberty don’t appear to age at all…they still look 8 years old compared to their “slightly older” but now adult siblings.
Wait, really? I thought both sisters were ok. Justine Bateman as Mallory was convincing as the fairly air-headed sister and Tina Yothers I thought did a very good job for a kid actress. Besides Justine Bateman was so drop-dead gorgeous that any lack of acting skill would not be noticed by the young males like me that were her age. Tina was only 9 when the show started. She did an adequate job and got better as the show went along. Justine was 15 or 16 when it went on the air. I am not sure if that counts as a child actress.
Michael J. Fox was of course not a kid actor, just a short adult. He was extremely good and he did take over the show.
Jim
This sounds terribly ironic to me, given that Corey Feldman plays the very troubled kid who is destined to go to jail, and Corey Feldman in real life was…well, a very troubled kid who would eventually get in serious legal trouble (with drugs, don’t know if he actually went to jail though.)
Well, it did not help that Sara Gilbert was really playing her age and was an exceptional child actress. It made DJ look that much worse.
Jim
Freddie Highmore. (Had to look him up). Wanted to smack him in Finding Neverland. Wanted to smack him in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Susan
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned her yet - Raven-Symone’s portrayal of Olivia on the **Cosby Show ** made we want to strangle her cutesy little neck. Her character practically ruined the show - a shame, since all the other kids were good actors.
I’ll agree with four-fifths of that, but no one will ever convince me that Lisa Bonet could act.
If you’ve seen Angel Heart then you’ll know that there were a few years when she didn’t need to act, just show up in a wet T- shirt.