Child stars who they are and what brought them to fame

Though there have been scores of child stars, very few have had that special combination of luck, skill, and emotional stability needed to reach and maintain stardom as adults. Part of the inability of child stars to sustain their careers stems from their very special and intense appeal as youngsters; audiences fall in love with them as they are and cannot abide the swift and inevitable change in the young actors. There is, therefore, something both innocent and tragic about Hollywood’s child actors. They are at once blessed by fame and fortune, and then often discarded before they are old enough to appreciate their success.

Virtually from the beginning of the film industry, child actors have been a cinematic staple. MARY PICKFORD and LILLIAN GISH, among a great many actresses, began their film careers when they were teenagers, and their youth and childlike innocence was accentuated in their starring vehicles. Among the countless child actors during the silent film era were Baby Peggy, Madge Evans, and even the future director HENRY HATHAWAY. But the first true child-actor superstar was JACKIE COOGAN, who burst into stardom as CHARLIE CHAPLIN’s young charge in The Kid (1921). Coogan was a major box-office draw in his own right during the early to mid-1920s, starring in such films as Peck’s Bad Boy (1921), Oliver Twist (1922), and Little Robinson Crusoe (1925).

Coogan’s phenomenal success led HAL ROACH to put together an endearing crew of child actors who became the comedy group OUR GANG. Among the silent stars of the Our Gang shorts were Joe Cobb and Mickey Daniels. Later, during the 1930s and early 1940s, the group was blessed by having among its members, Spanky Macfarland, Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, Darla Hood, and Buckwheat Thomas.

At one time, young Jackie Cooper was a member of Our Gang, but he left the group and went on to childhood stardom and an Oscar nomination at the age of eight in Skippy (1931), followed by The Champ (1931). He was particularly affecting in the latter film, crying up a storm and tugging at the heartstrings. In Cooper’s autobiography, he wrote that he was told if he didn’t cry, his dog would be shot!

Cooper was a star for roughly five years, generally playing tough, lower-class American kids. Though his popularity faded, he continued his acting career throughout most of the ensuing decades, eventually playing Perry White in the Superman movies of the late 1970s and 1980s.

At the same time that Cooper played tough kids, Dickie Moore was on the scene playing sensitive children. He started at the age of three and appeared in a total of 13 films before he turned seven years old. He was Marlene Dietrich’s little boy in Blonde Venus (1932) but came into his own when he was seven in Oliver Twist (1933). The latter film aside, Dickie Moore played mostly supporting parts. But he was among the busiest of child actors during the 1930s. He eventually disappeared from the screen by the time he was 14.

Both Cooper and Moore were shunted into the background by the arrival of Freddie Bartholomew, who starred in David Copperfield (1935) at the age of 10. Bartholomew was as dignified as a child actor could be. With his English accent, big eyes, and curly hair, he seemed like a young heir to the throne. During the next four years he did, indeed, rule the male child-actor roost, playing Greta Garbo’s son in Anna Karenina (1935), starring with Wallace Beery in Professional Soldier (1935), and playing the title role in Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936). Just like Dickie Moore, however, his career ended after the age of 14.

While there were plenty of male child stars during the 1930s, there was but one transcendent female star: SHIRLEY TEMPLE. Between 1934 and the end of the decade, she was not only the leading child actor of her time but also one of Hollywood’s biggest draws. In fact, she was the number-one box-office star of 1938 when she was only 10 years old. A truly talented child who could sing, dance, and act, Shirley Temple was a phenomenon. Her blond curls, dimples, and infectious upbeat attitude were just the antidote for depression- weary audiences. Among her many memorable films were Little Miss Marker (1934), Captain January (1936), Wee Willie Winkie (1937), and Heidi (1937). Unfortunately, despite her genuine talents, Shirley Temple was unsuccessful in her attempt to make the transition to adult stardom.

Even as Shirley Temple was losing her grip on fame at the end of the 1930s, new child actors were emerging. Two of them, MICKEY ROONEY and JUDY GARLAND, attained stardom together at MGM. Like Temple, they were not only fine actors; they could both sing and dance, as well.

Rooney had been a child actor in silent films at the age of six, appearing in the short Not to Be Trusted (1926), and he hasn’t stopped working since. He was Puck in the Warner Brothers version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), and he achieved stardom in 1937 as the title character in MGM’s long-running Andy Hardy series.

Judy Garland appeared in the Andy Hardy films, too, but her classic performance at the age of 17 in The Wizard of Oz (1939) was her ticket to everlasting stardom. DEANNA DURBIN, another young actress and singer with a vibrant personality, became a film star at the age of 15 in Three Smart Girls (1936).

The 1930s were clearly the golden age of child stars; even infants became famous. For instance, Baby Leroy, who appeared most notably in four W. C. FIELDS films in the early to mid-1930s, was given a seven-year contract at the age of eight months. He retired at the age of four. Baby Sandy also had a meteoric film career that began in 1939 and ended in 1942 at the age of five. While the decades after the 1930s offered fewer child stars, the 1940s still managed to yield a bumper crop. For instance, Roddy McDowall and Dean Stockwell were both popular child stars, who like so many others, faded from view by the age of 14. Unlike most others, they reemerged years later as working adult actors. ELIZABETH TAYLOR was a young beauty who started in films at 10 years of age in There’s One Born Every Minute (1942). She played mostly supporting roles as a young teenager despite her strong starring performance in National Velvet (1944). She didn’t achieve true stardom until she was a young adult.

The most affecting and natural of child actresses during the 1940s was pigtailed Margaret O’Brien. Unlike Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, or the young Elizabeth Taylor, O’Brien seemed like a real child. She was cute rather than pretty and therefore seemed as if she could be anyone’s child, sister, or friend. Her film career began at the age of four in Babes on Broadway (1941), and she charmed audiences in supporting roles in films such as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), The Canterville Ghost (1944), and Bad Bascomb (1946). Her career, unfortunately, ended by the time she was 12.

Another notable child actor of the 1940s was NATALIE WOOD, who made her screen debut at the age of four and at seven gave a memorable performance in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Wood, of course, went on to become a major adult star, far outshining her performances as a child. Beginning in the 1950s, Hollywood began to make fewer films, and it became far more difficult for a child actor to build and sustain a career; they simply aged too much in between a mere handful of movies. In addition, television, because of the steady work it offered, became a more fertile area for child actors to practice their craft. Just the same, a handful of child stars made their mark during the 1950s, and the most famous of them was certainly Brandon de Wilde, who, at the age of 10, was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in Shane (1953).

Though de Wilde played a young boy who worshiped ALAN LADD in Shane, Ladd’s own son, David, became a child star at the age of 11 in The Proud Rebel (1958), playing opposite his father. He was, in fact, a better actor than his dad. Patty McCormack, another 1950s standout, won an Oscar nomination when she was 10 years old for her performance in The Bad Seed (1956). Other notable child actors of the 1950s included Billy Chapin, Kevin “Moochie” Corcoran, and George “Foghorn” Winslow.

The 1960s was a relative child actor’s desert, although Kurt Russell, Hayley Mills, and Patty Duke were young teenage stars in the early part of the decade. Films such as To Kill a Mockingbird (1963), Mary Poppins (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), and A Thousand Clowns (1965) featured children in significant supporting roles, but none of the young actors who appeared in these films became child stars. With the apparent end of the family movie in the 1960s, it appeared as if there might never be another child star again, but the 1970s saw a resurgence in roles for child actors, led by 11-year-old Linda Blair who appeared in The Way We Live Now (1970). She became a fleeting star and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee three years later for her performance in The Exorcist (1973).

In that same year, though, nine-year-old Tatum O’Neal made her film debut in Paper Moon (1973) and won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, becoming Hollywood’s youngest Oscar winner. In her second film, Bad News Bears (1976), she became the highest-paid child star in movie history with a salary of $350,000 and 9 percent of the net profit of a very profitable hit film. In the late 1970s, 12-year-old Brooke Shields made a splash as a child prostitute in Pretty Baby (1978) and continued to build her career into adulthood. Ricky Schroder, who played the Jackie Cooper role in a 1979 remake of The Champ, proved himself a good actor and appeared in a few more films in addition to his later work on TV.

Others might have been nominated for and won Oscars, and starred in hit films, but the premier child actor of the 1970s was, without question, JODIE FOSTER. She made her feature-film debut at the age of nine in Napoleon and Samantha (1972), making her mark in Taxi Driver (1976) and the beguiling Bugsy Malone (1976). Unlike most of her contemporaries, Foster showed great range as an actress and won Best Actress Academy Awards for her performances in The Accused (1988) and Silence of the Lambs (1992).

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) ushered in two new child stars of the 1980s, Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore. Of the two of them, Barrymore had the most screen success during the rest of the 1980s, starring in several other films, including Irreconcilable Differences (1984). River Phoenix emerged as a much admired child star in such films as Stand by Me (1986) and Little Nikita (1988). He died in 1993 at the age of 23.

Perhaps the best-known child star of the 1990s was Macaulay Culkin, who was initially very cute in Home Alone (1990) and its sequels. His career seemed to dead-end with Richie Rich (1994), perhaps because of the way his career was micromanaged by his father, who then turned to promoting his other children. One child star who made a successful transition to adult roles was Anna Paquin, first seen in The Piano (1993), for which she won an Oscar. She has subsequently appeared in Jane Eyre (1996) as the young Jane, Fly Away Home (1996), and Member of the Wedding (1997), playing Frankie in the made-for-television remake of Fred Zinnemann’s 1952 adaptation of Carson McCullers’s novel and play. By 1997 Paquin was acting under the direction of Steven Spielberg in Amistad. In Hurlyburly (1998), she played her first adult role.

Haley Joel Osment was the child sensation of the later 1990s because of his stunning performance in The Sixth Sense (1999). After having played roles in Bogus and Last Stand at Saber River (both in 1996), Osment was “discovered” by director M. Night Shyamalan. He was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and won the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Child Performance.

Child stars who they are and what brought them to fame

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