A teenage heartthrob in the 1980s, baby-faced Corey Haim appeared to be the kinder and gentler of the two Coreys; he was the good guy whereas Corey Feldman was the rebel. As a child, the "Haimster" appeared in TV shows and commercials in his native Canada until he made his film debut in the drama Firstborn at the age of 11. Many TV movies followed, including his award-winning role as Liza Minelli's son dying of muscular dystrophy in A Time to Live. After playing Sally Field's son in Murphy's Romance, he was old enough to star in the teen drama Lucas with Charlie Sheen and Winona Ryder. In 1987, Haim made his first co-starring appearance with Feldman in Joel Schumacher's teen vampire movie The Lost Boys. Whether they were friends or rivals, the Coreys co-starred in two more teen movies together: License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream. They later reunited for Blown Away, National Lampoon's Last Resort, Dream a Little Dream 2, and Feldman's directorial debut, Busted. At the peak of their popularity with preteen audiences, rumors began circulating about their apparent drug and alcohol addictions. In order to combat this image, Haim released a video diary in 1990 called Me, Myself & I, which featured him in an array of family-friendly activities. For the rest of the '90s, he laid low in straight-to-video teen movies, including The Dream Machine, Oh, What a Night, Just One of the Girls, and Fast Getaway. In 1997, he declared bankruptcy and wouldn't make another movie until 2000, when he played an ex-con trying to kick drugs in the thriller Without Malice. Haim's career would remain somewhat scattershot, but he would take an interesting, post-modern approach to his public image with the 2007 TV series The Two Coreys, in which he and Feldman played scripted versions of themselves in a series presented as a reality show. He would also continue to act in movies in the late 2000’s, appearing in films like New Terminal Hotel and Crank: High Voltage. Sadly, in 2010 Haim died of a drug overdose at the age of 38.
by Andrea LeVasseur
biography
