By now, you have probably heard the sad news that Corey Haim, a teen star of the ‘80s, died on March 10th. When the news was announced, most people just assumed it was drug overdose.
Yes, Haim had fallen into the “teen star that can’t make the transition to adult fame” pit that many fall into. He got rave reviews for his role in Lucas in 1986. Haim was only 15 years old at the time, but film critic Roger Ebert praised his performance saying, “He creates one of the most three-dimensional, complicated, interesting characters of any age in any recent movie. If he can continue to act this well, he will never become a half-forgotten child star, but will continue to grow into an important actor. He is that good.”
As it turns out, it didn’t happen that way. Haim peaked with The Lost Boys in which he co-starred with another Corey he would become forever linked to – Corey Feldman. The two would remain on-again, off-again best friends for the rest of Haim’s life. They appeared in eight films together and even starred in a reality series “The Two Coreys.”
I don’t know if Haim’s drug use caused his career to go awry or if his career bottomed out and caused the drug usage. Either way, it was no secret to anyone that Haim fought with a drug problem. It even caused a rift with best friend Corey Feldman. In August 2008, Feldman, feeling Haim was still using drugs, said Haim wasn’t “safe person to have around my wife and child at the moment.”
When he died, everyone suspected it was a drug overdose. The coroner said the cause of death was an enlarged heart and fluid in the lungs, but still hasn’t ruled out an accidental overdose.
Now, I am no M.D., but it seems almost certain that even if it wasn’t a drug overdose, surely drugs played a part in Haim’s death. Even if he was finally clean, the years of drug use surely damaged his body.
Since Haim’s death, Feldman has defended his friend, telling people to not jump to conclusions about what killed him. He said in a statement, “This is a tragic loss of a wonderful, beautiful, tormented soul, who will always be my brother, family, and best friend.”
(This image has been (or is hereby) released into the public domain by its author, Artemisboy at the wikipedia project. This applies worldwide.)
