http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/11/25/actors.death.ap/index.html

This is something I've always found interesting. Not the demise of people, but how people can put the glamour of hollow Hollywood celebrity before the wellbeing of their children. There are very few child actors that I can think of that have grown up to be normal, if at all. The rest seem to go to hell in a hand basket. Here are just a few examples:

Jonathan Brandis: dead, hung himself last week (SeaQuest, Movies, a teen idol) Scotty Schwartz: drugs & porn (the kid from "The Toy" with Richard Prior) Dana Plato: dead, drug overdose (Dif'rent Strokes) Leif Garret: drugs, boozing, no career (teen idol) McCauley Culkin: total oddball (Home Alone, etc. $$$)
These are just off the top of my head, but there are many many more. So why can't any of these kids make it? Better yet, why, when they don't make it, can they not walk away and start someting new? They're still young - it's not like they can't just go to college and make something of themselves. Why the downward spiral? I'm sure there are examples of this in other countries, these are just the ones I know of from the US.

Also - feel free to list any other actors you know of who've met a similar fate. Let's get a good list going.

Well, considering a person's ego, view of himself as well as the rest of the world develops as a child.. It just can't be good for someone to grow up rich like heck and knowing everyone loves you and admires you, and the whole world seems to exist around you. And then discover that you're not a god afterall.

Fame equals power in many ways. And power is never good in a child's hands.

They dont a "normal" upraising. This messes with their view upon the world (probably like Fora said).
There's a term in psychology "the too-young adults" and I'd say most child-stars end up in this category unless their parents take proper care of them. I think that since they haven't had their "normal" childhood and instead been more or less forced into whatever shows or celebrity stuff it might be, the only outlet they see is through booze, drugs, etc. which sometimes end in the ultimate escape from the world.

Jodie Foster
... um, no wait! Nothing wrong with her.

What about Brooke Shields then? Jennifer Love Hewitt? Kirsten Dunst?

My point being: don't generalize! :)

I never said all child actors, but I would say a majority. The ones you mention are successful exceptions. Most child actors - the ones who achieve pop-icon status of some kind - fall into a career slump from which they never recover.

To build on Earl's list:

Ron Howard
Danny Bonaduce
The guy from "Lost in Space" who went on to B5...
Melissa Gilbert

@ Rally - I'm not sure that Danny Bonaduce belongs entirely in the "success" category. He had a long history of substance abuse and disappeared for quite a while. It's great that he's reinvented himself with his recent radio show, but he exhibited many of the child star issues listed above.

To build on my list:

Cory Haim
Cory Feldman
Nicole Eggert
Scott Baio
Willie Aames
Adam Rich
Gary Coleman
Todd Bridges
Rick Nelson
Tatum O'Neal
Danny Bonaduce (was a druggy for years, and makes a career on nostalgia alone)
ALL of the little rascals
Drew Barrymore
Patty Duke
Judy Garland
David Faustino
Justine Bateman
Tina Yothers
Shannen Doherty

edit - DMC beat me to the Bonnaduce

Didn't Michael Jackson start as child-star too ? And this guy has really some issues.

I think Drew Berrymore had a lot of issues too, but had some serious help (Spielberg ?) in her later years, which helped to get her feet back on the ground and even manage to have a further career.

The danger for child-stars for me is mainly that it may be a very anormal position. Not the parents are providing for the children, the children are providing for the parents. And the child becomes there main financial asset, maybe even their only income source. Under this circumstances, I think it needs special parental abilities to make the decisions which are right for the child and not right for the parents, their financial needs or would come handy to get a new expensive appartment. So it would be the best for the child, if the parents are independent, have their own job which yields enough income, so they can say no to jobs offered to the child. At expense of the education and "social forming" of the child. I think the McCauley case is a worst case scenario, as far as my understanding is, that the parents partied a lot of his money through.

If they one day are 20 and they're child-cuteness has vanished and they can't compete with their peers in show-business anymore, they might find themselves standing there with no options in a normal life. And maybe even an empty bank account.

Jodie Foster I think is quite the opposite of this scenario. As far as my understanding is, she did at one time stop delibaretly (or her parents decided that, I don't know) with making movies and got herself a good education. Even if she wouldn't have made movies after that, she would potentially have had a good life after child-staredom, even if not in movies.

The guy from "Lost in Space" who went on to B5...Bill Mumy. Also dabbled on music and writing. A good guy.

I know I'm off topic, sorry. Had to defend Lennier!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression was that McCauley Culkin just got burned out by the industry and went into seclusion because he wanted the world to leave him alone.