Re: Mr. Hannah Montana's Achy Broken Heart

On Tue, 15 Feb 2011, Mike Findlay wrote:
> That's pretty much the long history of child stars in general isn't it?  
> The term "child star" itself has a connotation of trouble.

Possibly.  Though I don't know how many there were before Driscoll.  There 
was Shirley Temple, obviously, but she didn't turn out too bad; yes, she 
filed for divorce from her first husband when she was only 21, but she met 
and married another man a year later and they stayed together until his 
death nearly 55 years later.  And that was about it, no?

Oh, and Jackie Coogan (born 1914) became a big star after co-starring with 
Charlie Chaplin in The Kid (1921), but the biggest scandal around *him*, I 
believe, was the way his parents exploited his earnings -- which led to 
the California Child Actor's Bill or "Coogan Bill" which specified that at 
least part of a child's earnings be put in a trust, etc., etc.  And his 
bio at Wikipedia indicates that he became known for his humanitarian work, 
for enlisting during World War II, and then returning to acting, where he 
found fame again as Uncle Fester on The Addams Family (1964-1966).

So, I suspect Driscoll might have been the first true "cautionary tale" 
among child stars, but I could be wrong about that.

-- 
dadl-ot mailing list
http://mail.thehood.us/mailman/listinfo/dadl-ot_thehood.us
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.music.dadl.ot