Feldman - Coreyography: a memoir

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To the stars in my life that shone bright enough to illuminate my world: Jason Robards, Storm Thorgerson, Mary Goldstein, Bedford Goldstein, and my grandmother, Dena Goldstein, without whom I may never have survived my childhood.

And to the stars that faded much too soon: Corey Haim, River Phoenix, Michael Jackson, Sam Kinison, Marc Rocco, Jeff Conaway, Gary Coleman, and Harold Pete Pruett.

May God bless and keep you all.

CONTENTS

He was supposed to be at the dentist.

Ive got a problem with this tooth, hed said when we spoke on the phone that Monday afternoon. It fell out again, man, but the soonest appointment I can get is a week and a half away.

He was plagued by problems with his teethdecades of drug abuse had rendered some of them loose, or rotten and decayed. But he didnt have health insurance, which is why I had started sending him to my dentist. He was willing to work with him, let him pay when he was able to, in installments or whenever he got back on his feet.

In our business there are always ways to make money. Sign fifty autographs at twenty dollars apiece and youve got yourself an easy grand. Show up to a screening of The Lost Boys and you might make several times that. True, easy money used to be impossible for him to hold on to. He was impulsive and irresponsible, andback when he could still get steady workwould somehow manage to blow through thousands upon thousands of dollars in only a matter of days. But by 2009, shortly after his mother, Judy, was diagnosed with breast cancer, he was getting himself together. He moved her into his two-bedroom apartment in Burbank and started accompanying her to chemotherapy. He was doing his best to be a better man for his mom.

Ive actually got an appointment on Wednesday, I told him. Why dont you take mine and Ill take yours next week?

Thanks, man, that would be great. He paused for a moment. I could hear him breathing on the other end of the line. How am I supposed to get there?

He didnt have a car, either. I told him that I would have my assistant Robin pick him up on Wednesday morning. She was on her way to his apartment when she turned on the radio and heard the news.

* * *

Someone was banging on the door to my bedroom.

Corey? Its Eden. Get up, buddy. Its important.

What? I called out in the darkness. No response. Had I imagined the knocking? I wasnt fully awake yet, still halfway inside a dream.

Corey? Its Mindy. You need to get dressed now and come downstairs.

I wiped the sleep from my eyes, reached for my cell phone, and pulled it off the charger: 8:45 in the morning, 135 new messages. That was unusual. I scrolled through the list until I found the first one, sent from Sean Astin at 5:32 A.M. : I am so sorry, bro. If theres anything in the world I can do for you, please know that I am here.

I sat up in bed with a start. What in the hell is he talking about? And then, slowly, I realized that if my brother and sister were here, in my house, waking me up this early in the morning, something had to be seriously wrong. Then came that banging on the door again.

Im coming! I hollered, impatient now. I wrapped my bathrobe around me and began making my way down the stairs.

My living room was filled with peopleEden; Mindy; Robin; Dre, my head of security; and Scott, my manager, were all sitting around in a circle, maniacally working their cell phones, splayed out in front of the television. I padded across the carpet, tugged tighter on the belt of my bathrobe, and suddenly everything stopped. I looked at the television and realized that I was staring at myself, at clips from The Lost Boys, License to Drive, and Dream a Little Dream all films we had worked on togetherand then at more recent footage from The Two Coreys, the semi-scripted reality show we had shot for A&E. Every channel, every station, was reporting the exact same thing: Corey Haim had suffered a drug overdose.

That was it. I had gone to sleep, and when I woke up my best friend was dead.

Theres no way this is an overdose, I said to no one in particular. I didnt care what the news was reporting. I knew that he hadnt ODed.

When something goes down in Hollywoodwhen someone youre associated with gets arrested, or punches a member of the paparazzi, or runs off and gets married, or dies many, many years too soonyou will get a barrage of phone calls. My publicist, Stacy, was dialing me every two minutes now, trying to field requests from CBS Morning News, Good Morning America, the Today show, CNN, ABC, E! News , and Anderson Cooper. Every entertainment journalist, every talk show and news magazine producer, was hunting for a statement or an interview or something they could post on the Web. Everyone was pushing me to come up with some kind of media-friendly sound bite. Instead, I sat glued to the television and watched as helicopters hovered over the Oakwood apartments, where Haim had lived for the previous year.

I know youre upset, Corey, I heard someone tell me, but other people are already coming forward.

I looked up and there was Alyssa Milano, Coreys one-time teenage girlfriend. They had dated on-and-off throughout the final years of the 1980s, before any of us were old enough for a legal drink. Instead, we spent the weekends socializing with Drew Barrymore, Alfonso Ribeiro, Soleil Moon Frye, and other underage actors, loitering in expensive suites at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel or stumbling out of Ralph Kaufmans club, the private dance party for famous teens. Alyssa was one of the first to tweet her condolences, but then the names started to flash in quick succession across the screen: Dave Navarro, Melissa Gilbert, Ralph Macchio, Kevin Smith, Christina Applegate, Hoda Kotb, Khloe Kardashian, Lisa Ling. Everyone was buzzing about how much they already missed Haim, how sad they were to hear of his passing. Tamera Mowry called him her first crush. Ashton Kutcher said Haim was his childhood hero.

I felt like I was going to be sick.

I pulled out my laptop and tried to collect myself. If I could just write a two- or three-paragraph statement and post it on my Web site, I thought, then maybe these reporters could use excerpts and leave me to contend with my grief. But by nine oclock, the press was starting to assemble. Local police had draped yellow tape at either end of the block, news trucks with their satellites cranked up were lining the street, and a group of reporters was milling around the base of my driveway. They were unruly and impatient, and some of them were starting to creep farther into my front yard. I was fiddling with the blog post, still trying to come up with something coherent and respectful to say, when Stacy burst through the front door and plopped down in the center of the room.

Okay, what are we going to do? she asked. Weve got to make an announcement.

I picked my head up from my hands and glared at her, but before I could say anything, I heard a reporter announce that I was preparing to give an impromptu press conference outside my Sherman Oaks home.

Who in the hell said I was giving a press conference? I shouted, standing up suddenly and throwing my cell phone directly at the television.