Child actors, which research shows is an at-risk group, three times more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs than the average young American

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When Nick Stahl went missing in early May, the media referred ominously to “the John Connor curse,” a reference to the fact that he and the three other former child stars who played John in theTerminator franchise have all suffered bad luck.

Edward Furlong (Terminator 2: Judgment Day) has a history of drug addiction, Thomas Dekker (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) was recently arrested for a DUI. Even the most successful John Connor, Christian Bale (Terminator: Salvation), had a well-publicized meltdown during the making of the film.

And now there’s Stahl (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines), whose wife reported him missing on May 14, only for him to resurface four days later to check himself into rehab.

But these four have more in common than a fictional teenager. All were child actors, which research shows is an at-risk group, three times more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs than the average young American, according to a survey conducted by Wayne State University for A Minor Consideration, an organization whose membership includes 600 current and former child actors.

A surprising number of these troubled young stars have disappeared under circumstances similar to Stahl’s (see sidebar), often after their star power has started to fade. And though Hollywood provided the silver platter that delivered them to misfortune, it is often the youngsters’ parents who place them on the tray.

A Minor Consideration, a non-profit started in January 1990, is one of the few organizations in Hollywood that serves these parents and their kids. Its members use their own experience to assist young performers and their families on an “on call” basis, helping them with education, money issues and character development. Besides counselling, the foundation also lobbies for improvements in legislation for child labourers.

President Paul Petersen, himself an ex-child star (he starred on The Donna Reed Show), says a “red flag” in Stahl’s childhood was an absentee father (who, according to IMDB.com, left the family when Nick was 2). But according to ex-child star Alison Arngrim, who has worked with A Minor Consideration in the past, stage parents more often screw up in two other ways: They’re either too naive or too nasty.

Natasha Lyonne, who starred in Pee-Wee’s Playhouse at the age of 6 and 20 years later in 2005, landed in a New York hospital with hepatitis C, a collapsed lung and track marks up her arm, has suggested her folks were good examples of Hollywood naiveté.

“Even if they were ready to have children, it is kind of a wacky idea to put your child in business at 6 years old,” she told Heeb Magazine in 2009. “I don’t think they knew better. It was a decision of my parents built on hopeful ignorance.”

Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie and is a board member and spokeswoman for the National Association to Protect Children, cites Lauren Chapin’s father as a symbol of “really nasty” parenting. Before she starred as Kitten in the ’50s series Father Knows Best, Chapin revealed in her 1989 memoir, Father Does Know Best: The Lauren Chapin Story, that her dad started sexually abusing her at the age of three. She recounts how she eventually ran away from home only to become a heroin addict and prostitute.

“If you’re willing to make that jump that you can see your kid as a sex object, big whoop, you can legally go make them work eight hours a day and keep the money,” Arngrim told the Star.“If you can make that jump of seeing your kid as a meal ticket, then how much of a jump is it to see them as a prospective date?”

The latter comment referred to off-and-on drug addict Tatum O’Neal, who at 10 became the youngest actress to win an Oscar for her role in 1973’s Paper Moon. O’Neal’s father admitted in a 2009 issue of Vanity Fair that he hit on his own daughter at his late lover Farrah Fawcett’s funeral.

But Hollywood’s inappropriate treatment of child stars doesn’t stop at sex.

“They don’t think you’re a kid anymore so people decide the rules don’t apply,” Arngrim says, adding that the average routine — school, bedtime, play dates — goes “out the window” in the case of child stars.

“A lot of these people just decide that this person’s a celebrity so give them whatever the hell they want or whatever you think they might want,” she says, “So child actors are offered drugs, sex, anything in the universe.”

For kids who come from traumatic backgrounds, “it’s just a little too easy” to get hooked on substances on set, Arngrim says. But even for the ones who don’t, becoming famous as a child causes its own problems.

Petersen used the term “a bug in amber” to describe child stars like Stahl, who reached the zenith of his celebrity at 13 as the star of Mel Gibson’s directorial debut, The Man Without a Face, and Canada’s Neil Hope, who even in his late 20s was recognized as his teen alter ego Wheels from Degrassi.

Arngrim admits it is a “pain in the ass” to be associated with Nellie Oleson 30 years on, but she made typecasting work for her. Her one-woman show, “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch,” premiered in 2001, spawned a book and was recently mounted in France.

“I don’t think most people do that and I think that’s why most child actors are incredibly frustrated,” she says.

That appeared to be the case with Hope, who was found dead in 2007 in a Hamilton rooming house. According to the New York Times, by the end of Degrassi’s run in 1991, at only 19, he already had a drinking problem and spent the rest of his brief life struggling with it.

“He got a taste of the limelight early,” his brother told the Star in February. “He was a little bit spoiled, and once it was gone he didn’t know how to handle it.”

Hope was in good company. Chapin told the Spokane Chronicle in 1983 that when Father Knows Best finished, “everything finished.” While Hope chose alcohol, she found solace in drugs.

“Fame is a hard drug and when you are removed from the things that make you famous, you begin to seek alternatives,” Petersen says. “You’re looking for that high and drugs are a cheap and ill-considered means to gain that high.”

A Minor Consideration offers support to child actors (encouraging them to go to university, which Petersen is convinced helped ex-child stars Jodie Foster and Brooke Shields stay on the right path) but their good intentions aren’t always welcome — a child star’s handlers don’t want to blemish the kids’ image or take up too much of their time.

“When people become dependent on your success, they need you to continue to perform,” Petersen says. “It is a pay cheque issue for them — don’t kill the golden goose!”

Though A Minor Consideration is often called to intervene when a young star hits rock bottom, it prefers to perform a preventative function, pointing out young actors’ worth beyond Hollywood. Or, in Petersen’s words, “help them find other targets by which they can measure their success as a person, not as a celebrity or commodity.”

THESE KIDS WEREN’T ALL RIGHT

Nick Stahl, 32

Claim to Fame:The Man Without a Face, 1993

Missing: May 10-18, 2012

Stahl led a tabloid-light life until January, when he was arrested for failing to pay cab fare. A month later, his wife, Rose, requested full custody of their daughter, Marla, allowing Stahl visitation only if he tested negative for cocaine, marijuana and alcohol. She filed a missing person’s report on May 14, claiming she last saw Stahl on the May 9. After reports circulated that he had disappeared into L.A.’s skid row, he emailed friends on May 18 to say he was entering rehab.

Neil Hope, 35

Died: Nov. 25, 2007

Claim to Fame: Wheels on Degrassi, 1979-1991

Missing: 2007-2012

After Degrassi ended in 1991, Hope (who played Wheels), was already abusing alcohol. He drifted around Canada, taking odd jobs and rarely contacting his family, who said he took poor care of his health. He appeared on a Degrassi documentary in 2005 before moving to Hamilton a year later. In Nov., 2007, the landlord of his rooming house found him dead of a heart attack. He had reportedly passed away a week before. He was buried in March 2008. His family learned of his death this past January.

Natasha Lyonne, 32

Claim to Fame: Opal on Pee-wee’s Playhouse, 1986-1987

Missing: April-Aug., 2005

In 1999, Lyonne starred in American Pie and went on to meet troubled child star Edward Furlong that same year on the set of Detroit Rock City. She was arrested for DUI in 2001. Two years later, she was evicted from her apartment by actor Michael Rappaport, who penned an editorial in Jane magazine about her squalid living conditions. In 2005, she was found in a New York hospital with hepatitis C, a heart infection and a collapsed lung and was undergoing methadone treatment. She went to rehab a year later and is now said to be clean.

Todd Bridges, 47

Claim to Fame: Willis on Diff’rent Strokes, 1978-1986

Missing: Late ’80s

After Diff’rent Strokes was cancelled, Bridges, who was sexually abused at 11, started living in south central L.A. where he became addicted to crack cocaine and methamphetamines. He dealt drugs and acted as a pimp to support his habit. In 1989 he was acquitted of shooting a drug dealer. He went to rehab in 1992 and has been clean ever since.

Danny Bonaduce, 52

Claim to Fame: Danny on The Partridge Family, 1970-1974

Missing: Early ’80s

Following his four years on the Partridge Family, Bonaduce abused drugs and briefly lived in his car behind Grauman’s Chinese Theater. He was arrested for cocaine possession in 1985 and then for attempting to buy the drug in 1990 (while hosting an anti-drug campaign). A year later he was arrested again, for assaulting and robbing a transvestite prostitute. He claims to be sober now.

Lauren Chapin, 62

Claim to Fame: Kitten on Father Knows Best, 1954-1960

Missing: Early ’60s-’70s

She ran away from home after the show ended, when she was just 15, and became addicted to heroin reportedly through a boyfriend. Unable to find work in Hollywood, she became a prostitute to support her habit. The last time she was arrested, she went to rehab and became a born-again Christian in 1979. She is now a licensed and ordained evangelist.

Bobby Driscoll, 31

Died: March 30, 1968

Claim to Fame:Treasure Island, 1950

Missing: 1967-1968

Driscoll was dropped by Disney when he got severe acne during puberty. At 17, he started experimenting with drugs and became addicted to heroin. He entered rehab in his early 20s. In 1962, unable to find work in L.A. he relocated to New York to try his hand on Broadway. He worked in Andy Warhol’s factory from 1965 to 1967 doing collages, before disappearing into the city’s underground. He was found dead in a deserted East Village apartment building following heart failure caused by long-term drug abuse. With no ID, his body went unclaimed until his mother went looking for him 19 months later.