Hollyweird Babylon: Why Corey Haim "Had" To Die
Rudolph Valentino had it. James Dean had it. Elvis Presley had it. And Corey Haim had it. That rarest trifecta of looks, charisma and raw magnetism that adds up to what we call star power.
By the time he turned 18, Corey Haim had already achieved what thousands of hopefuls flocking to Hollywood every year dream of. A string of hit films had catapulted him to matinee idol status. His trademark puppy dog eyes and lopsided grin were everywhere, and the adulation of his fans had reached a fever pitch. Success, fame and acclaim had come so seamlessly for Corey that he’d seemed almost anointed for stardom. And, to be sure, Hollywood gave teenage Corey Haim the star treatment alright. Fancy cars, flashy clothes, beautiful girls, luxurious McMansions, wild parties…for a time, he got to enjoy the finer things in life. And while his “partying” may have begun to get a little out of hand, Corey would have never guessed that, by 1989, his shelf life was up and his best years were already behind him. For two decades, he scrambled desperately to get back into the limelight while the drugs that had once given comfort and sanctuary eroded him from within. His comeback efforts drew sympathy and support from fans but a return to a working career was not in the cards for Corey and on March 10, 2010, he was found unresponsive in the Toluca Lake apartment he shared with his mother Judy. In the wake of his passing, the search for answers spawned a veritable cottage industry of half-truths and snow jobs. Today, we’re going to try to sort out fact from fiction and try to find some answers to the question that was being asked years before he passed away: why did Corey Haim have to die?
As it were, Corey Ian Haim was born to play the younger brother. His sister Cari was two years old when he was born in Toronto, Ontario December 23, 1971. Israeli-born Judy Haim worked in computing as a data processor while father Bernie worked in “sales.” The Haims moved to Quebec for a time before returning to the Toronto area. Having to change schools and start over repeatedly made socializing a challenge for young Corey. To help him overcome this, Judy enrolled him in drama and improv classes. Corey also took to hockey and, while at Zion Heights Secondary School, was reportedly scouted for Ontario junior league.
But by age 10, show business would become the locus of the Haim family. Corey picked up work in local commercials before landing a recurring role as Larry on the CBC children’s educational series The Edison Twins. Around this time, he also made his feature film debut, playing Christopher Collet’s kid brother in Michael Apted’s Firstborn. Before filming had begun, Bernie and Judy Haim divorced. Corey reportedly blamed himself and his career for breaking up his family. Bernie soon remarried while installing himself as Corey’s full-time manager.
His first day on set, 12 year old Corey was assaulted by costar Peter Weller. The Actor’s Studio alumnus was reportedly “in character” when, in response to an attempt at paying a compliment, he grabbed the child by the collar, threw him against the wall and yelled “Don’t ever talk to me after a take, you little shit!” Three Assistant Directors were required to intervene. Describing the incident in a 2000 interview, Corey noted “I was terrified. Fucking freaked.”
For his next film role, Corey played C. Thomas Howell’s kid brother in 1985’s Secret Admirer, co-starring future college prep guru Lori Loughlin. His turn as the scrappy paraplegic Marty in the movie adaptation of Stephen King’s werewolf thriller Silver Bullet earned a nod from Roger Ebert in a review that otherwise panned the film. He appeared alongside Liza Minelli and A Christmas Story star Scott Schwartz in the TV movie A Time to Live, where his portrayal of a child struggling with muscular dystrophy would go on to earn him a Young Artist Award.
Corey turned 14 on the set of what would come to be his breakout performance, the title role in 1986’s Lucas, where he plays an advanced-placement high school student handicapped by physical frailty and social awkwardness. His adeptness at puppy-like expressions added depth and substance to the character’s vunerability beyond the 80’s trope of thick-framed glasses. During filming, Corey became infatuated with costar Kerri Green, who played his romantic interest, and his unrequited attraction helped him deliver a viscerally believable performance which netted him a second Young Artist Award.
1986 was also the year Nancy Reagan introduced her anti-drug abuse campaign, “Just Say No.” The Reagans’ outsized vilification of drugs while ignoring the AIDS epidemic lingered from Ronnie’s tenure as governor of California. The hippie movement had sprouted up under Reagan’s watch, and he’d never forgiven himself for his failure to snuff it out. His wife, meanwhile, was still bitter over her days in Tinseltown. Nancy Davis never became anything approaching a household name in spite of her reputation as one of the hardest working starlets on the Casting Couch, and so she had to settle for Jane Wyman’s sloppy seconds and a second-life in political prostitution. As First Lady, Nancy now had the power to make Hollywood’s A-list her personal bitches, all in the name of protecting the children of course.
With the success of Lucas under his belt, Corey had the confidence and encouragement to move from Canada to live full-time in LA. One of his first steps after relocating was to reach out to a costar from his next film. Corey Scott Feldman was only a few months older but already a show biz veteran. Beginning at age 3 with an appearance in a TV spot for McDonald’s gift certificates, Feldman had over 100 TV credits to his name. His scene-stealing turns in Gremlins, The Goonies and Stand By Me had earned him some name recognition among the newest generation of actors. Feldman had reportedly jockeyed for a role in an upcoming teenage vampire movie that was in development for production summer of 1986, but was initially turned down.
The “Brat Pack” of the 1980s was primarily defined by the ensemble casts of two movies in particular; John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club and Joel Schumacher’s St. Elmo’s Fire. Schumacher’s followup The Lost Boys would feature an A-plot lead by the Brat Pack-adjacent Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland and Jami Gertz, and a B-plot where kid brother Sam Emerson, played by Corey Haim, teams up with The Frog Brothers, played by Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander. As life began to mirror art, Haim and Feldman quickly developed a circle of celebrity friends that would be seen together frequently. This new who’s-who of Young Hollywood included Silver Spoons stars Ricky Schroeder and Alfonso Ribeiro, Nicole Eggert and Alyssa Milano of Who’s the Boss? and triple threat Scott Grimes.
Alphy’s Soda Pop Club was a pop-up discotechque that hosted weekly dances exclusively for minors who worked in the industry. 35 year old Alphy Hoffman was an industry gadfly who largely skated by on the prestige of his father Bobby Hoffman, a high-profile casting director at the time. For his Soda Pop Club, Alphy teamed up with 17 year old Randy Miller, founder of Original New York Seltzer, who sponsored these events. In a 2004 interview for Vice Magazine, Corey recalled that Feldman had invited him to check out the first night, and the two somehow ended up as hosts for the club’s debut. Randy Miller performed a stunt jump from the 11th floor of the Hotel Mondrian that evening which was turned into a TV spot for New York Seltzer. Haim Feldman and their junior Brat Pack became regular fixtures at these events from 1986 to 1989. And while no open displays of sex or drug use might have been found at Alphy’s, the brew of unsupervised adolescent rising stars and the shady adult friends the proprietor began to bring around ensured an inevitable undercurrent of sordid behavior at the purportedly squeaky-clean weekly happenings.
Corey would later have this to say about Alphy Hoffman:
“I got really sick and tired of Alphy, to be honest with you. I don’t think he’s a good human being, and you can print that shit too!
I lost complete respect for Alphy Hoffman. Alphy sucks! Point-fucking-blank.
He’s a piece of shit! A user. He had all of us and thought he was the shit. Randy Miller is one of the coolest people I have ever met. Alphy was always trying to steal Randy’s light and get in the way and take it all over. You don’t do that to someone who is sponsoring your fucking club!
[voicemail] When you discuss Alphy’s Soda Pop Club—he had a weird personality, but he never, ever, ever, ever offered us drugs, booze, liquor, anything bad at all as far as substance abuse goes. It was for the kids, and that’s just what we were. Just a bunch of kids.”
Accounts differ considerably, but it seems that Feldman introduced Corey to Dominick Brascia around this time. At age 15, Feldman had fought for his emancipation after years of mismanagement and alleged embezzlement on the part of his parents. Brascia was 29 at the time, and later commented on Feldman’s E! True Hollywood story that he’d befriended the child half his age newly living on their own with no adult supervision out of concern for the child’s wellbeing. Feldman soon convinced the courts that Brascia was a more responsible in a supervisory capacity than Bob or Sheila, as evidenced by their ongoing substance use, and they began a decade-plus shared living arrangement.
When Feldman and Haim began hanging out together, Brascia was reportedly infatuated with Haim and begged Feldman to introduce him. One night while partying it up, Feldman obliged, and between rails of cocaine, Brascia performed oral sex on Corey. In all likelihood, this abuse was ongoing, as Judy Haim would later recall having to intervene when she witnessed horseplay between the two begin to get out of hand.
Meanwhile, art mirrored life in a morbid sense when Corey starred in a short-lived sitcom for NBC, Roomies. In it, Corey plays 14 year old college student Matt who cohabitates with an older man, in this instance, 40 something ex-Marine Nick, played by Burt Young. A clear attempt to cash in on the success of Lucas, Roomies was cancelled after 8 episodes in the spring of 1987.
The Lost Boys was released July 31, 1987. The on-screen chemistry between Haim and Feldman was compounded by their shared first name, and their next project, License to Drive, was developed as a showcase for The Two Coreys as a duo. Corey Haim turned 16 during production, and would later point to the shooting of License to Drive when his substance use escalated to problematic levels. Bob and Sheila Feldman had done little to hide their use of marijuana and cocaine from their son growing up, particularly after their divorce. Corey Feldman started smoking weed while working on Stand By Me and acknowledges experimenting with coke on the set of The Lost Boys, by which time the still-15 year old was already partying with the likes of comedian Sam Kinison and porn actor Ron Jeremy. Feldman soon became infamous for challenging friends to “coke-offs.” Corey Haim had begun with beer-drinking during the making of Lucas, tried weed for the first time while shooting The Lost Boys and quickly graduated to cocaine. Within a year and a half, cocaine use escalated to crack smoking.
Meanwhile, as quickly as principal photography wrapped up on License to Drive, the Two Coreys went to work on their next project. Dream A Little Dream was, to say the least, bizarre from the outset. Writer/producer/director Marc Rocco must have wanted to follow up his ode to the LA rock circuit Scenes From The Goldmine with something simultaneously more mainstream and envelope-pushing. What resulted was a body-swap vehicle in the vein of Freaky Friday, Big, Like Father, Like Son or Vice Versa, but with ham-fisted attempts at twists incorporating transcendental meditation and alpha waves that only serve to convolute the plot. Adding to the mess; Feldman, who played the lead role this time around, had by now graduated to heroin use. Thanks to Marc Rocco’s inability to rein in his star, Feldman was given the freedom to indulge his obsession with stylizing himself after friend and hero Michael Jackson. Roger Ebert commented:
Robards, as Feldman, walks and talks exactly like Feldman, which is to say that Feldman does not act as if an old guy is inside him.
Released July 6, 1988, License To Drive was a box office success, raking in $22 million on an $8 million budget. That summer, Corey filmed the Dean Koontz sci fi thriller Watchers, for which he would be nominated for a Saturn Award. By the end of 1988, Corey’s crack and cocaine use had driven him, in his own words, “out of whack.” The March 1989 release of Dream A Little Dream was overshadowed by industry reports of the 17 year old’s drug use becoming problematic. In a March 30 interview, Corey proudly reported four weeks sobriety on his own accord, adding that he:
”just stopped. There was no one big moment that made me decide to do it-get off drugs-it was more like a little moment that kicked in.”
Ten days later, Corey made a personal appearance at a Just Say No event at Knott’s Berry Farm. The situation quickly deteriorated as the thousand plus overzealous fans who showed up overtook security, and Corey had to be whisked away by the fire marshal. But throughout the summer of 1989, no work came in, and the excess free time made relapse all but inevitable. Corey checked into rehab for the first of 15 treatment episodes. At this facility, Corey was prescribed Valium, unknowingly trading out his cocaine abuse for dependence on benzodiazepines. In October, he was put to work on another teens-and-sports-cars comedy, Dream Machine, which was filmed in Salt Lake City. The hope was that being away from LA would help Corey stay on track. That November, Corey released a self-promotional documentary video called Me, Myself & I. In an effort to show he was both physically fit and fully camera-ready, Corey is depicted playing softball and hockey in what is presented as a day in his life at that time. Lost Boys costar Brooke McCarter wrote the script and co-directed. Producers William Boyd and Michael Swartz’s other lone credit was the Just Say No-funded anti-drug video Nightmare on Drug Street that same year. However, Corey often appears unfocused throughout, and his monologues trail off in moments that leaves the viewer with the impression he may still be under the influence.
Prayer of the Rollerboys was described by its screenwriter W. Peter Illiff as “A Clockwork Orange meets Blade Runner via Lord of the Flies.” Set in a dystopian near-off future, the indie film’s cyberpunk component is largely implied in the aesthetic. But it nonetheless attempted to be ultra-contemporary by heavily featuring inline skating, which had begun to take off in popularity by 1990. Corey did most of his own stunt work for the movie, and he clearly would have liked to see his career evolve towards action roles. After filming for Rollerboys completed in April 1990, Corey went straight to work on his first direct-to-video title, Fast Getaway. Brooke McCarter, who worked on the soundtrack for the movie, had taken over as Corey’s manager by this point. Prayer of the Rollerboys premiered at the Milan Film Festival in October 1990 and saw a video release the following March. Capitalizing on the popularity of Saved By Bell, NBC reran Roomies that summer during their Saturday morning programming block. That August, Corey starred in his next direct-to-video offering, Oh What a Night. In this coming of age comedy, adult-minor romantic pairings are again normalized as Corey’s 17 year old character Eric becomes smitten with an older woman. His love interest, Barbara Williams, had played Corey’s mom a few years earlier in Watchers. Dream Machine was released on video that November, a full two years after it had been shot.
Corey began work on his next movie, The Double O Kid in March 1992. He and co-star Nicole Eggert had dated off and on in the 80’s, and the two picked up again while working together. Eggert later described the four-week shoot as a non-stop cycle of on-set medics keeping Corey propped up throughout the day and nights spent in the emergency room begging for narcotics. Seth Green also costarred, and he later shared his impression from working with Corey Haim as a “professional who loved acting” on one hand and a full-blown “addict” on the other.
A week after production wrapped on The Double O Kid, Corey and Nicole went to work on their next film together. The erotic thriller Blown Away also reunited the Two Coreys. Corey Feldman had checked into rehab in December 1990 and completed nine months at the Cri-Help program. Blown Away appears to be an effort by Haim and Feldman to break away from teen-oriented roles and into more adult work, with both Coreys as well as Nicole appearing in softcore sex scenes. Blown Away premiered April 1, 1993 on HBO.
On December 20, 1992, three days before his 21st birthday, the LA Times reported that Corey had gone into a lease-option on Hancock Park mansion with his new business manager Michael Bass. The article includes a quote from Bass:
“…we rushed to get this deal so we could hold our 'Toyskis for Totskis' party here this year.'"
In the 80s, Michael Bass had served two years in prison for multiple mail order fraud schemes he’d operated. After his parole, Bass went into professional boxing as a talent manager, where he made an effort to poach Julio Cesar Chavez from legendary promoter Don King. Bass attempted to stage a scam charity dinner during the 1990 Oscars. The event purported to benefit Ryan White, a 7 year old with AIDS who died shortly afterward, but fell through after Bass neglected to secure a permit for the $70,000 tent they’d set up on Sunset Boulevard.
Toyskis For Totskis was to be a charity drive to collect toys from wealthy celebrities that would be distributed to children in need in Moscow. And while thousands of toys were reportedly collected, one invitee became immediately suspicious. Washington Post columnist Art Buchwald received his invitation, which presented itself as coming from actor and, by coincidence, his personal friend Jack Lemmon. On top of misspelling his name, Buchwald was perplexed as to why he was invited to an event to include Paramount Pictures president Brandon Tartikoff and hosted by Eddie Murphy, as Buchwald had active lawsuits pending involving both parties. Bass’s claim that newly-elected Russian president Boris Yeltsin would also attend turned out to be a bridge too far, and the scam quickly unravelled.
On February 5, 1993, Corey Haim was arrested on charges of terrorism against Michael Bass. During a dispute at the mansion, Corey allegedly pulled out a BB gun and began target shooting. Corey Feldman posted the $250 bail and the charges were reduced to threatening with a replica handgun.
Corey and Nicole starred together in one more movie together, another teen comedy, this time centered around gender-swapping. While exact production dates aren’t available, Corey was by now in his early 20s as he attempted to portray a high schooler who presents as female at his new school, at first to avoid bullies, later to take advantage of what he regards as privileges of the fairer sex. Released on video as Anything For Love and Just One Of The Girls when it aired September 13, 1993 on Fox Night At the Movies, Corey’s latest efforts did little to raise his profile in Hollywood. He also starred in Double Switch, a mystery adventure video game for PC and Sega CD that featured full motion video, an innovation for its time. The same studio, Digital Pictures, had also produced the controversial Sega CD game Night Trap, starring Diff’rent Strokes star Dana Plato.
In the summer of 1993, The Two Coreys were teamed up once again, this time for National Lampoon’s Last Resort. By 1990, the National Lampoon name had changed hands a number of times and was now owned by J2 Communications, whose speciality was low-budget direct-to-video fare such as Tim Conway’s Dorf series. Between the cheap production values and the lack of on-set discipline, the Coreys once again abused their creative latitude, with Haim gratuitously incorporating techno-nerd elements and Feldman again indulging his obsession with Moonwalker era Michael Jackson. That September, a quickie sequel to Fast Getaway was put together. In the three years since he’d made the first installment, the toll his drug use had taken on Corey’s appearance was particularly noticeable.
February of 1994, the Two Coreys paired up again for Dream a Little Dream 2. Presumably for the sake of continuity, Feldman yet again stylizes himself after Michael Jackson as the two bumble through a half-hearted storyline that, this time, uses magic sunglasses as the mechanism for body-swapping. That year, Corey signed a recording deal with Germany-based Edel Records. An album’s worth of material was recorded that remains unreleased, though a maxi-single of “You Give Me Everything” was released the following year.
In 1995, he appeared in another coming of age romantic comedy-drama, Life 101, this time playing a college freshman in the 1960s. In September, he starred in an action thriller, Demolition High, along with Alan Thicke and Dick Van Patten. In an interview for Big Gay Horror Fan in 2014, director Jim Wynorski remarked:
"Corey Haim was a nice kid who was totally fucked up in the head. You could see the path he was going down even then. I wish I could have turned him around. But I had to have a paid babysitter with him all the time. Believe it or not, he had to have a babysitter. The kid was in his early 20s and still didn’t have it figured out yet."
That fall, Corey also filmed a slasher film, Fever Lake, alongside Mario Lopez. In February 1996, Corey filmed another action movie, Snowboard Academy, in Quebec. He had a supporting role in the Canadian dramedy Never Too Late. In a 2005 Q&A for Entertainment Weekly, Corey disclosed that costar Cloris Leachman had told him
”You know, that smirk you have is cute, but sometimes it looks a little fake.”
That year, he also appeared in an action comedy called Shooter on the Side. In May 1996, production began on what could be regarded as Corey Feldman’s Citizen Kane. How exactly the exceedingly raunchy sex comedy Busted came to be, and how Feldman came to be the director remains a mystery. Screenwriter Ronald Jacobs’ background had been as a producer on the Danny Thomas and Andy Griffith shows. According to Feldman, he hired Haim for the film out of want to help out a friend. But after Corey’s ongoing substance use continued to render him unreliable on set, Feldman had to fire him, one of the toughest decisions of his lifetime. It is wholly unknown if Corey had any knowledge ahead of time that Dominick Brascia, Feldman’s longtime close friend and now housemate (the two had recently moved into a house in Encino together), was a part of the cast.
That fall Haim took an uncredited cameo part on Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin for union scale. He shot a sequel to Demolition High, Demolition University, and appeared in bit parts in Wishmaster 2 and the TV movie Merlin in 1997 before retreating to Toronto and isolating himself in an apartment for over a year.
In March 2000, an article was published in the University of Regina’s student newspaper The Carillion. The author, Cabral Rock, had worked as Third Assistant Director on a TV movie, working title A Lucky Shot, filmed in Saskatchewan, that starred 29 year old Corey Haim in what was described as his “cinematic comeback.” In it, Corey plays Marty, “an ex-drug addict who gets involved in a murder cover-up” in what he regarded as “a transition stage for me as an actor.” During the three week shoot, Corey racked up a $1700 tab at the local bar where he opened up to the writer about his experiences. The article mentions instances of Corey suddenly pausing the production to call back home to Toronto so he could check in on his dog’s wellbeing along with “medical incidents [which] would require emergency prescriptions to be filled.” These included a reported tooth infection along with twice getting a dart thrown through his hand. Without Malice debuted on TMN in Canada in late 2000. Corey also guest starred on the YTV series Big Wolf On Campus. In the episode “Blame It On the Haim,” Corey plays himself, in town to shoot a vampire movie, only to turn out to be a vampire himself.
Corey briefly returned again to LA hoping to stage a comeback. In April 2001, Corey filmed another direct-to-video title, The Backlot Murders. In July, E! Network caught up with him to discuss comeback plans. On October 17, 2001, the Corey Haim E! True Hollywood Story premiered. Featured in it was the footage that showed Corey in especially poor shape. While this original 2001 version of the Corey Haim THS is currently unavailable, I distinctly remember catching it at the time. I recall vividly that the overall tenor of that edition was one of a washed-up has-been and a cautionary tale on the perils of fame. By this time, Corey had retreated again to Toronto to focus on getting clean.
In 2003, Corey made a cameo appearance as himself in the David Spade comedy Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. The following year, Irish pop band The Thrills released the first single off their second album, “Whatever Happened to Corey Haim?”
In September 2006, A&E Network announced they’d ordered eight episodes of a new reality television series based around The Two Coreys. Corey Feldman had already become a fixture of the genre; he was a cast member on The Surreal Life for the first season, the finale of which featured Feldman marrying girlfriend Susie Sprague. The new series, at the time titled The Coreys: Return of the Lost Boys, was described this way:
“When the entirely less stable — as well as broke and homeless — Corey Haim moves in with the newlyweds, how can hilarity not ensure?”
E! aired a revised edition of the Corey Haim True Hollywood Story with a tacked-on update at the end. Filming for Season One of The Two Coreys began June 11, 2007. The first season episodes present as typical lighthearted reality fare of its time. The Feldmans play up the maturity, discipline and serenity their marital status would suggest with Corey’s juvenility and irresponsibility. In the background, casting for the “hotly anticipated” Lost Boys 2 serves as a plot thread for narrative drama. Things take a turn, however, during a season finale “showdown” at Art’s Delicatessen, when Corey broaches the subject of molestation. This confrontation serves as the inflection point to the considerably darker Season Two.
The climax of the tense second season comes when Corey is set to film his part for Lost Boys 2. And it’s here that putting events in chronological order reveals the duplicitousness A&E employed in constructing a narrative for Season 2. On February 7, 2008, in the spirit of “making amends,” Corey took out a full page ad in Variety stating. “This is not a stunt. I’m back.” In Season 2, this takes place in Episode 4. Episode 5 then shows Corey on the set of Lost Boys 2, which had actually been filmed back in August-September 2007, at the same time Season 1 was airing on A&E. Corey is shown struggling considerably with his lines and, as the crew become more impatient, he shuts down and goes back to his trailer. What exactly happens next is less clear. The broadcast edit implies Corey begins snorting an unspecified “hard drug,” kicking off another relapse. What Corey tries to clarify during the “intervention” in Episode 8 with Pauly Shore and Todd Bridges is that he’d taken an extra Ativan, which was currently being prescribed to him. What the hot mic seems to catch was that Corey had snorted them, in all likelihood a common practice for him.
Despite his firing from Lost Boys 2, Corey was able to land a supporting role in Crank: High Voltage. After filming his parts that summer, Corey returned to Toronto to shoot his next feature, Shark City. Corey appeared as himself in the made-in-Tucson comedy Trade-In as well as a detective in the indie crime drama New Terminal Hotel. In 2009, Corey shot his last two screen appearances; a Taken clone titled The Hostage Game/American Sunset, and a heist caper called Decisions.
On March 10, 2010, Corey Haim was found unresponsive at the Oakwood Apartments in Toluca Lake, and soon after pronounced dead at Providence Saint Joseph in Burbank. A month prior, after reconciling from the fallout of The Two Coreys, Feldman had brought him to the Playboy Mansion for the first time.
