I'll Be the Sun Shining on You
One of the kitschiest thrills of my life happened last year. I met Corey Haim at HorrorHound Weekend in Indianapolis. My friend Chad and I circled his table, eyeing the various glossy photographs he had for sale; there was a decent-sized line of adoring fans keeping Haim occupied, so our vulturing didn’t seem completely ridiculous. Chad picked out a nice two-shot of Corey Haim and Jason Patric from The Lost Boys. I opted for a still of the main cast from License to Drive, the film that, in 1988, cemented Haim’s status in my eleven-year-old mind as the coolest kid on earth.
When it came time for Chad and me to get his autograph, I was giddy and a little nervous. I’d watched both seasons of his reality show, The Two Coreys, in which he struggled with drug addiction and a shaky career comeback, and I wasn’t sure which version of him I’d encounter: the personable optimist or the bleary eyed freak show. While waiting in line, I saw him smile and take pictures with fans, and I was ready for a really nice experience with one of my childhood idols. When my turn at the table came, though, things got a little weird.
I don’t know if I gave off the wrong vibe or if he thought I was having a laugh by getting his autograph on that particular picture. Whatever the case, my sincere “Nice to meet you” and “biggest fan” small talk was met with a chilly reception, and I was instantly reminded of the cliche of the dangers of meeting one’s heroes. I can’t speak for Chad’s feelings on meeting Haim, but in the picture that he took with us, it’s clear the actor was nonplussed. Walking away from the table thinking about Haim’s disinterest, and contrasting that with the smiling, confident face in the signed photo in my hand, I felt cheated and a little angry—as if I’d just paid $20 for a forgery.
Corey Haim passed away last week, at the age of thirty-eight. The circumstances surrounding his death have yet to fully come out, though it was just announced that illegal drugs were not involved. For his fans, myself included, this is a relief. It doesn’t make what happened any less tragic, but at least he seems to have died on the noble side of his own personal war on drugs.
He was a known-substance abuser, an addict whose very public lapses and relapses destroyed the career of one of the 1980s’ brightest and most charismatic stars. He was Lucas, for God’s sake. And had it not been for a series of bad choices—personal and professional—he might have broken from the confining Tiger Beat mold and matured into something more substantial. I’m not saying Haim had leading-man chops, but hell, even Charlie Sheen has a sitcom.
Haim and long-time friend and partner Corey Feldman proved themselves at the box office with a number of hits, but the toll of fame and drugs drove both actors to excess; they burned bridges and found themselves doing direct-to-video comedies and thrillers of the kind that spawn Family Guy jokes. Feldman eventually cleaned himself up and managed to work enough in the ensuing years to claim some sort of relevance. But Corey Haim’s resume during this period was a head-scratching melange of projects you’ve probably never heard of. He resurfaced briefly on the anniversary DVD of The Lost Boys a few years ago, and shocked fans with his appearance: the once slim teen idol had ballooned to well over 200 pounds (by the actor’s own admission, he’d hovered around 300 for a time).
Thus began the freak show stage of Corey Haim’s career. In 2007, Haim and Corey Feldman starred in The Two Coreys, both seasons of which seemed to promise a major comeback for both performers. Haim was excited about getting off drugs—prescription medication, his latest vice—and pitching a sequel to The Lost Boys, with he and Feldman returning to kick vampire ass. The show also featured constant blow-ups with Feldman’s wife, Susie, who became a sort of third wheel in the newly re-formed relationship between the two dysfunctional friends.
The show was like a cross between Intervention, The Real World, and Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. The Two Coreys would alternate between, say, getting everything read for Corey Haim’s surprise birthday party and therapy sessions where Haim and Feldman hurled teary insults at one another regarding who failed to stick up for whom during multiple sessions of mutual childhood sexual abuse. The show didn’t know whether it was itself a tabloid punch line or an earnest attempt to heal two wounded souls.
Unfortunately, the answer to this conundrum came during one of the final episodes where, on the set of Lost Boys: The Tribe, we hear Corey Haim wrestling with a couple of lines of dialogue for multiple takes; I don’t recall how long the crew waited around for him to get his act together, but it may have been hours. The shot went uncompleted, and Haim retired to his trailer. With the microphone still transmitting, he could clearly be heard snorting something.
The sensationalism of this scene cemented in my mind that, even if there were to be a third season of the show, I wouldn’t watch it. It was too weird to see Corey Haim on the skids, trying so hard to perform. In his prime, he lit up the screen with wide-eyed, Reagan-era optimism; he was the quintessential clean-cut movie teen. In his best roles, he didn’t play the cool kid; he played the nice kid, the average guy who hung out with wacky friends and aspired to plant a PG-13 kiss on the lips of the girl of his dreams. The sniffling, pale, awkward fiend of The Two Coreys was too harsh a caricature for me to stomach.
In that way, Corey Haim is the 80’s-teen-Elvis, a once-popular figure of tremendous potential whose later years are glossed over by history—and the need of pop culture junkies to have their heroes preserved in amber. Thirty years from now, when some teenager puts on The Lost Boys for the first time, I doubt they’ll see Corey Haim electrocuting a vampire and flash on a bloated, glassy eyed addict with a needle sticking out of his arm.
It’s sad that Haim never channeled his young fame into a more lasting career. With a bit of luck and a lot of fortitude, he could have navigated the ups and downs of Hollywood and become either a major player or at least a well-paid, consistently working actor—Robert Downey, Jr. and Kiefer Sutherland are proof of that. Instead, he became a guy that I met at a horror convention. That’s not a slam on Haim or on horror conventions, but there are definite gradations in the echelons of notoriety, and the only current poster at Corey Haim’s table was a miniature one-sheet advertising his cameo in Crank 2.
He’s gone now, and I hope that wherever he is, he’s found the peace that he couldn’t attain in life. Despite his later troubles, Corey Haim made a handful of pretty wonderful movies that impacted a generation. That smiling, confident kid will be with us forever, leaving his tragic adulthood lost in the shadows.