Rebecca Schaeffer was young, beautiful, and talented but it only took one twisted mind to end that in a split second.

Rebecca began modeling at the age of 16, even appearing on the cover of Seventeen magazine. She moved to New York to pursue acting. It wasn’t long before she landed the role of Patti Russell on the CBS sitcom My Sister Sam and moved back to Los Angeles. The series, which also starred Pam Dawber, ran for two seasons. After its cancellation in 1988, Rebecca appeared in several movies, including two that were made-for-television. Rebecca also served as the spokesperson for Thursday’s Child, a charity that supports at-risk teens.
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It wasn’t until 2004 that I finally watched 1978’s Midnight Express, the film about an American held in the horrible conditions of a Turkish prison. I was amazed by this film, but mostly by the lead actor, sexy and talented Brad Davis. After the film, I immediately wondered what became of him. By that time, Hollywood and all the excesses it has to offer had consumed Davis.

Brad Davis was born into a middle class family which unfortunately included an alcoholic father and a mother who was sexually attached to her son. It must have been that childhood that both confused and angered Davis as an adult. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and also studied acting in New York at the American Place Theater. Davis’ wife, Susan Bluestein, said in “After Midnight: The Life and Death of Brad Davis” that he had been forced to hustle in Times Square to survive and at one point, had lived with a transvestite.
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Sammy Davis Jr. was an entertainer’s entertainer – starting his career as a child with his father and “uncle” Will Mastin in the dance troupe the Will Mastin Trio.  Over his long career, Sammy earned more than $50 million dollars, but when he died, there was little left.  Rumors have it that not only did those close to Sammy pilfer his home as he lay dying of cancer, but that even in death, they continued to try to squeeze out money from the use of the Candy Man’s image.

Sammy was born Samuel George Davis, Jr. in Harlem on December 8, 1925 of an African American father and a Puerto Rican mother.  When his parents divorced at age 3, Sammy Sr. took little Sammy out on the road with him.  While Sammy didn’t receive a lot of formal education, he learned a lifetime about dancing, singing, and entertaining on the road.  Mastin and Sammy Sr. tried to shield little Sammy from racism as much as they could, but in the early 20th century in America, that was not possible.  For most of his life, Sammy would be torn between his actions and what was expected of him by Black Americans.

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Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was always large, weighing 14 pounds at birth. So much larger was he than his other eight siblings that his father questioned his paternity. When Arbuckle’s mom died in 1899, 12-year-old Arbuckle was abandoned by his father to fend for himself.

While working in the kitchen of a hotel, he caught the attention of a local performer who took him to amateur night at a local theater. Arbuckle won and David Grauman recruited him as a singer and dancer in Vaudeville.
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Oh sure, being a child star today seems like a pretty sweet deal - make the big bucks and walk the red carpets. But, back in the early part of the 20th century, it wasn’t so glamorous. The set of “Our Gang” (later known as “The Little Rascals”) seemed to produce more than its fair share of Hollywood tragedies.

Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket and with freckles and a cowlick, he wasn’t the most attractive of kids. But, he was one of the most popular characters on “Our Gang.” However, like may child stars, once the “child” wore off, jobs were hard to find. By the 1950s, 15 years after he had left “Our Gang,” Switzer was tending bar and serving as a hunting guide between roles. Unlike today’s stars who receive royalties, Switzer didn’t have that luxury, so he was often in financial straits.

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