Corey Haim: Video Killed The Movie Star

I watched “License to Drive” earlier this week. Man…that movie sucks. It’s not terribly constructed, only that that world doesn’t exist today. Even in movies, it feels like some other world. I kept thinking if foreigners came into this country and saw that movie, and was the basis of evaluating it to conquer, they’d not want to take on the burden of trying to wrangle our dumbasses.

It got me thinking about Corey Haim. He died young. But he had a SMOKING career. Already a star before he even knew how to drive, he was a HUGE teen idol. I remember seeing posters and teen magazines that were only him and the other Corey (Feldman). These two tore up that new Hollywood. If the internet had existed then, they would’ve been news everyday. At the end of Haim's career, you saw him more and more on straight-to-video projects. In my day, that was the kiss of death. He became, essentially, a parody of himself. In fact, his very last thing he did was a reality show on him and Corey Feldman. The show was awful. Painting them to be spoiled has-been brats. In it's infancy, no one really understood reality. My guess is that they allowed the "producers" to guide their shenanigans. Thereby guiding him back to where he was trying to crawl out from under.

I was surprised to hear that his first days and last days in Los Angeles were at the Oakwood Apartments near Burbank. I’ve had many friends who’ve lived there. To those who don’t know, The Oakwoods Apartments housed people who came into town already on track to be actors (Tom Cruise first lived her). I visited it once. It’s not remotely “Hollywood.” But it has services a normal apartment complex may not have. Like dry cleaning. I recall it being like a college campus. It all looked like dorm rooms. And I don’t remember anyone talking much about it. It seemed really quiet. In fact, the film student I’d visited was the only sign of life. I think his school had some deal with the place. I think they had a deal with a lot of places. The L.A. Fitness in Universal City (downhill from the Oakwood) I know for a fact, has Oakwood residence actors workout there. They look like actors or models.

Anyway, the place is well known in the business as where actors start out. Haim lived here in the last days of his life. According to some, walking around the complex looking for companionship. If you believe success young is what you want, consider his story. Ridiculously rich and famous as a teen, walking around in a fog hanging onto the last thread of your past as a has-been. I think most don’t realize what celebrity does to you.