Ah, Corey Haim. What can I say about the dear departed star of “The Lost Boys,” the kid who made me think it was possible for ME to be a football player with his heroics at the end of “Lucas?”
What can I say about the man who had a “License to Drive,” and whose poster hung in the
bedroom of millions of teenage girls?
Well, I can say a lot of things. First of all, it wasn’t a shock to me when I heard he died this morning, but it is a tragedy when someone dies at age 38. That’s ridiculous, that a kid who had so much going for him at such a young age, could see his life snuffed out before he hits 40.
Second, Corey Haim came around at exactly the perfect time. He became a teen idol with his alter-ego Corey, Corey Feldman (who I always thought was obnoxious), and he cashed in on his looks and limited acting ability in the 1980s in a very short amound of time.
He made a few movies, dated a few babes (I was always jealous that he got to make out with super-gorgeous Nicole Eggert in the awful movies “The Double-O Kid” and “Blown Away”), and then descended into a world of drugs and pills.
Third, the unintentionally hilarious reality show “The Two Coreys,” was like a train wreck, but it showed just how much pain Corey Haim was in. He seemed to have no real friends, no idea, even in his mid-30s, that the glory days of Hollywood were over for him, and no direction in his life. You watched and you just felt there here was a guy who desperately needed something to cling to, yet he just kept drifting.
I never thought I’d utter this sentence, but Corey Feldman was dead right when he said something today. He was told that all kinds of Hollywood actors, like Alyssa Milano and Ashton Kutcher, were expressing their utmost sympathy over Haim’s passing.
Feldman’s reply: “”Where were all these people the last 10 years? Where were all these people to lend a handout, to reach out ot him and say, you’re a legend, you’re an amazingly talented wonderful person who’s never really gone out of his way to hurt anyone, other than himself?”
“In this entertainment industry, in Hollywood, we build people up as children, we put them on pedestals, and then, when we decide they’re not marketable anymore, we walk away from them.”
He’s exactly right.
R.I.P. Corey Haim. Your star burned out so fast, and you never seemed able to find the light again.
**OK, on a much happier note: I watched the new HBO documentary this week on the incredible rivalry and friendship between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, and it was fantastic.
Those two got me hooked on basketball more than anyone else. I loved Magic and the Showtime Lakers. I wanted to BE Byron Scott and James Worthy, filling the lane on a fast-break and knowing Magic was going to put the ball in the exact right spot.
The movie is 90 minutes and it was so good, I wished it was longer. I learned a lot I didn’t know, like that Bird was obsessed with checking the boxscores in the newspaper each morning to see what Magic did, and that the two never really got along until a 1985 Converse TV commercial forced them to spend time together.
Anyway, I’m guessing the doc somehow coincides with the new book Magic and Bird wrote with the great sportswriter Jackie MacMullan.
But I would definitely go out of your way to see the HBO movie; it’s re-running all month, and it tells the great story about how one tall, doofy-looking white guy, and one smooth as butter African-American, saved the entire NBA.
Wide World of Stuff 