 |
The Eighties teen idol, actor and artist Corey Haim has died in North Burbank, California, following a prescription drug overdose. He had been staying with his mother Judy, who was looking after him while he had the flu. She found him collapsed in the bedroom in the early hours of this morning (local time) and contacted the police, who rushed him to Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center, but he was pronounced dead on arrival. Haim had a long history of drug addiction and had previously suffered a stroke due to overdosing.
Probably most famous for The Lost Boys, Haim was an iconic Eighties star with a particular fondness for the horror genre, appearing in adaptations of Dean R Koontz's Watchers and Stephen King's Silver Bullet. He also appeared alongside Charlie Sheen and Winona Ryder in Lucas, and in the Nineties went on to work as a producer. When not working on films, he loved to paint, and exhibited his work in several leading galleries. He also enjoyed a glamorous social life, including a reported flirtation with Victoria Beckham and a relationship with Baywatch star Nicole Eggert.
Haim blamed his drug difficulties in part on the Hollywood lifestyle. "I did cocaine for about a year and a half, then it led to crack. I started on the downers which were a hell of a lot better than the uppers because I was a nervous wreck. But one led to two, two led to four, four led to eight, until at the end it was about 85 a day - the doctors could not believe I was taking that much. And that was just the valium." In the mid Noughties he began working hard to fight his addiction and returned to the public eye in reality TV show The Two Coreys, alongside fellow former teen idol Corey Feldman, but the series was cancelled last year when he slipped back into addiction, Feldman refusing to work with him until he got clean. His struggles were compounded by the death of close friend Michael Jackson.
At the time of his death, Haim had several feature films in production and was preparing to direct for the first time.
