He shot to fame at just 11 years of age and was one of Hollywood’s biggest rising stars – then his life was tragically cut short and he was found dead in his home by his girlfriend
A beloved child star, who made massive waves in the film industry at just 11 years of age with his debut film was tragically found dead by his girlfriend at just 25. His life was filled with immeasurable highs and unthinkable lows — and this is his story.
Child star Brad Renfro burst onto the scene at just 11, landing a leading role in Joel Schumacher’s legal thriller The Client (1994). His co-stars? The unmatched Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones.
Brad acted in over 20 movies, in a career spanning just about 14 years, until his tragic and untimely death in 2008.
With a decorated filmography — The Cure, Tom and Huck, Sleepers, Telling Lies in America, Apt Pupil, Bully, Happy Campers, The Jacket, and The Informers to name a few — Brad was undoubtedly one of Hollywood’s biggest child stars on the rise. That was perhaps, also his undoing.
Early life and circumstances
Hailing from Knoxville, Tennessee, Brad was raised by his paternal grandmother, Joanne Renfro, from the age of five, and he loved her dearly — a fact he never failed to mention in his early interviews at age 11 after The Client’s successful release.
Growing up with his gran wasn’t by design though — his parents were divorced, he didn’t have a relationship with his father, and his mother was a heroin addict.
By the age of 10, Brad was drinking and smoking and admitted, of his own volition, that he’d ‘experimented’ with drugs. In an interview with veteran journalist Bobbie Wygant, he shared that it was “nothing serious, you know. It’s stupid. You know, drugs are really stupid.”
He was also getting into trouble with the authorities for hanging out with mischief-making teenagers. This saw him getting expelled from school for being a troublemaker — on the very same day that a retired police officer had come to his school to give a talk about the dangers of drug usage.
Shortly afterward, Mali Finn, casting director for The Client, made her way down to the Knoxville police station with a simple request: she was in search of a tough, rebellious, and untameable kid to audition for a movie part.
Dennis Bowman, the retired police officer who had come to Brad’s school, remembered the young and untamable Brad, and suggested him to Mali. She met Brad at her hotel, called the rest of the film’s crew and simply said “I found him” — and so, a star was born.
Sharp rise to fame
Brad’s performance in The Client put him on the map and how. He stole the show and was undoubtedly hailed as the real star of the film.
Director Joel picked Brad from 6,000 young actors — that’s how good he was. He told People: “I think Brad had lived a great deal by the time he was 10 and had experienced many, many emotions. When any actor brings that emotional experience to their gifts, there is an honesty coming from understanding.”
Speaking about her young co-star, Susan Sarandon told People back in 1996: “I learned a lot working with him. Brad is full of surprises.”
After The Client’s release, Brad’s star was on the rise, and quick. He won The Hollywood Reporter’s ‘Young Star’ award and was nominated for People Magazine’s ‘Top 30 Under 30’ list, telling the publication: “I’m really lucky — to love what I do and get paid for it. I’d do it for free if it’s good.”
Brad also starred in the 1995 film Tom and Huck, and even played the younger version of Brad Pitt’s character in Sleepers (1996). The young boy had essentially become the world’s most sought-after child actor at just 11.
It was between 1994 and 1998 that Brad starred in the biggest movies of his tragically short career, appearing in films like The Cure, Telling Lies in America, and Apt Pupil. Around the same time, Brad found himself on the cover of teen magazines, often shirtless.
The Cure director Peter Horton told the Chicago Tribune at the time that the 13-year-old had ‘enormous sex appeal’.
Telling Lies in America screenwriter Joe Eszterhas wrote in his memoir about his experiences with Brad on-set: “At 14 he was already a chain smoker.”
Sharing that he often caught Brad ‘sneaking sips of beer that he thought no one noticed’, the screenwriter added: “Girls surrounded him, driven to the hotel by their mothers, who waited in the car while Brad busied himself entertaining them. Brad was the oldest fourteen-year-old I had ever met.”
Brad’s last major movie was the 2008 crime thriller The Informers, where he starred alongside Hollywood stalwarts Billy Bob Thornton and Winona Ryder.
Run-ins with the law
Shortly after filming of the Apt Pupil ended in 1998, the then 15-year-old child star was arrested for possession of marijuana and cocaine — and this would be just the first in a series of arrests.
Brad’s life off-screen was slowly unravelling, and the child star continued to have numerous run-ins with the law. After his arrest, he told People: “I’m glad I got arrested, because it taught me a lot. I’ve had several months of being sober — I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m glad it happened when I was 16, not 36.”
He also had a piece of advice to share for teenagers about drugs: “If you’ve never done it, don’t. If you have done it, pray. Then get some good sober time. Once you have that, you’ll have a natural high.”
Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be the last of his run-ins with the authorities. Brad was once again arrested and sentenced to two years probation in August 2000, for allegedly being high and trying to steal a 45-foot luxury yacht in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with a friend.
After his film Bully, Brad had a string of arrests and stints in rehab. In 2005, Brad was once again arrested in Los Angeles, this time for trying to buy heroin from a plainclothes policeman in a police sting operation. He was charged with driving under the influence and a felony count of attempting to possess heroin.
He later pleaded guilty to the charge and went to rehab for it.
Untimely death
After making the kind of impact at the beginning of his career that only comes around once in a while in Hollywood, Brad went on to battle several demons off-screen, which ultimately ended the life of the 25-year-old.
On the fateful morning of Tuesday, January 15, 2008, after a night out with friends, Brad was found unresponsive and not breathing in his Los Angeles apartment by his girlfriend.
In the heartbreaking 911 call, the operator asked his girlfriend what happened and she responded: “I’m not sure. I mean, I think he might have taken a couple of pills last night. He had an audition at 1 o’clock this afternoon. I’ve been trying to wake him up to get ready and he just won’t move.”
Brad’s cause of death was an overdose, and the autopsy ruled it an accident attributed to ‘acute heroin/morphine intoxication’.
It was later found out that Brad had allegedly told his friends that he had been born addicted to heroin, and had reportedly been using the Class-A drug since he was just 12-years-old.
Assistant director Fernando Altschul, who worked with Brad on the 1998 psychological thriller Apt Pupil, told BuzzFeed: “I feel like we’ve failed children like Brad in some ways. Maybe there should be someone who says a person in his situation isn’t psychologically ready to be on such a volatile place as a film set.
“I don’t know how you make that judgment, and if you’re offering somebody money, [how] they’re going to say no to it.”
Before Brad passed away, it had been unknown to the public that he had a son, Yamato, who was born in Japan in 2003 and raised by his mother there. While his son’s name was left off the actor’s obituary, it was eventually included in the obituary of Brad’s mother, Angela, who died in 2012.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
