Corey Haim, best known for the 1980s movies The Lost Boys and License to Drive, has died from an apparent drug overdose. Haim, who had been staying with his mother in the Los Angeles suburb of North Hollywood was pronounced dead early Wednesday at Providence St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Burbank. He was 38.
The Canadian-born Haim (Dec. 21, 1971, in Toronto) had been struggling with drug addiction for years. In 2007, he attempted a comeback in an A&E reality show The Two Coreys (above), sharing the limelight with longtime friend and costar Corey Feldman.
According to a CBC report, Haim took up acting at the insistence of his mother, who felt that it would help him overcome his shyness.
Haim's first acting gig was in the CBC-TV series The Edison Twins in 1984. That same year, he had a featured role in Michael Apted's Firstborn, playing opposite Teri Garr, Peter Weller, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Robert Downey Jr. Haim then played Sally Field's son in Martin Ritt's well-received Murphy's Romance (1985) and a disabled boy in Daniel Attias' werewolf thriller Silver Bullet (1985) before starring in another well-received film, David Seltzer's growing-pains comedy-drama Lucas (1986), in which Haim played a fourteen-year-old in love with a girl (Kerri Green) who falls in love with his older buddy (Charlie Sheen).
Haim's biggest hits during that period were Joel Schumacher's vampire comedy-thriller The Lost Boys (1987), starring Jason Patric and featuring Corey Feldman, and Greg Beeman's teen comedy License to Drive (1988), playing opposite Feldman, Carol Kane, and Heather Graham. But right after that, Watchers (1988) and Dream a Little Dream (1989) were box-office disappointments. Watchers, in fact, was a total disaster, earning less than $1 million domestically. (The Lost Boys grossed approximately $32 million and Incense to Drive $22 million.)
Straight-to-video releases followed in the 1990s, among them Last Resort (1994), Dream a Little Dream 2 (1996), and Fever Lake (1996), until Haim's career came to an abrupt halt in the early 2000s because of drug problems. At one point, Haim, who had been addicted to cocaine and Valium, actually suffered a drug-related stroke.
In early 2008, Haim placed an ad in the trades that read: "This is not a stunt. I'm back. I'm ready to make amends. I'm ready to work." And back to work he did though his drug addiction would interfere with his career once again.
Following his reality-show stint and a drug relapse that strained his friendship with Feldman, Haim got busy. According to the IMDb, in the last couple of years he had about a dozen films in various production stages, including a direct-to-video sequel to The Lost Boys called Lost Boys: The Tribe. A third sequel was announced in late 2009.
Off screen, Haim was reportedly dating Victoria Beckham when she was starting out as one of the Spice Girls in the early '90s. An engagement to Tiffany Shepis was announced in late 2008.
Corey Haim's two last completed films were both thrillers: B.C. Furtney's New Terminal Hotel, an exploration of the dark side of Hollywood in which Haim plays a "a nosy has-been rock star," and Michael Masucci's American Sunset.
Addendum: There were no illicit drugs found in Haim's mother's apartment. It seems that Haim accidentally overdosed on prescription drugs.
Box Office source: Box Office Mojo
Sad news. I was hoping he would make a comeback.