Yesterday 80s icon and actor Corey Haim was laid to rest at a small ceremony in his hometown of Toronto. He was pronounced dead in his apartment last week. Pending toxicology reports, the cause of his death is unknown but surmised as a result of prescription drug overdose. Corey Haim was 38 years old.
His untimely death comes in a string of celebrity passing in the last couple of years and serves as a sad reminder that for every Drew Barrymore success story, there is a counterpoint of tragedy rinsed through a ruthless industry when children are denied their childhood to succeed.
Last night I watched reality show The Two Coreys on youtube. I’ve never seen it before now. The idea is obvious; recycle old formulas. Capitalise on 80s nostalgia. Haim + Feldman = quids in. Money for the network, publicity for two ailing ex-actors struggling so desperately to claw attention back they use reality TV to return to the only thing they knew as success; constant camera glares. In this episode, Feldman and Haim’s friendship is fractured when Feldman fabricates an ‘intervention’ after Haim’s apparent meltdown on the set of desperately orchestrated Lost Boys 2. It is uncomfortable viewing. Nothing is genuine. No one really seems to know why they’re there. It is vigorously depressing. Which is an indication of inevitability, seeing pictures of the shanty apartment block Haim was found in last week. Corey Haim’s funeral was paid for by an auction site that sold his celebrity tinted possessions to his fans.
Corey Feldman was on Larry King hours after the news first broke, reminding the public not to jump to the wrong conclusion of his sobriety and angrily pointing out that for all their celebrity and the outpour of sympathy, nobody had been there for Haim to help clean up after the party. But, he hoped that Haim would be remembered for his art.
As such I would like to make light of what I can only see as a deeply shady and tragic situation. It is sad that a once successful child actor was led to a flatlining career and early grave by drug abuse. But there is a reason I have worn his image on my name badge at work this week. Haim will always have a special place in my heart because the vast majority of his work is still only available on VHS, and, a part of my childhood. Lost Boys will always be one of the greatest ideas ever committed to celluloid. But License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream will always be the films on the top shelf I wasn’t meant to reach but relentlessly found a way. They’re the stuff you saw and forgot. I never entirely understood Dream a Little Dream. The plot should have been a cheap studio counterpoint to Tom Hanks’ Big, or a cheaper Fred Savage’s Vice Versa; a simple body swap plot. But it’s vastly more complex than that, and not just because I was seven. Haim and Feldman are Bobby and Dinger, whose friendship is tested when Feldman is possessed by his elderly neighbour, unable to get to grips with youth. It turns the American high school movie on its head. For a plot so uniform, it’s deployed in an original way, executed by bizarre dream sequences and Haim’s delicious one liners (“Yeah, me Dinger, you Bobby. Me look cool, you look like shit, pal. That’s okay, we’ll make it a fashion statement.”)
However I think it’s important to understand why Haim’s passing is not just a nod to poster boy culture gone to clinic hell, but a loss to film. Separating Corey Haim from the ‘2 Coreys’ franchise for a minute, I hope to remember him for a lesser known slice of 80s pie by the name of Lucas. Haim here is barely a teenager. He plays a misfit who is just not jock enough to run with the Charlie Sheeny shiny football players, or rich enough to play with the prep kids. He is sincere enough, however, to form a friendship with a girl desperate to fit into these high school templates he dismisses as superficial, and makes the mistake of falling in love. I will remember this role as Haim’s tour de force, because his talent is so raw and enveloping. Lucas doesn’t win out. He doesn’t get the girl in the end, and he doesn’t score the goal (sorry to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it.) In fact he’s nearly killed for trying. But his final scene, returning to school to find a baseball jacket with his name on inside his locker, is a triumph of acceptance. I hope Haim’s memory can be taken seriously and embraced by the public and the industry that fed from his publicity, not just as a cautionary tale of too much too soon or a mediocre joke, but as an example of a talented contributor to great storytelling that has stayed with those who headed straight for their phones and facebook status updates on news of his passing. Protected by a trusty husky.
RIP Corey. 1971-2010.
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