Corey Haim: A Personal Tribute
Why as a fangirl, I am personally heartbroken by the loss of the Lost Boys star, who died this week.
It's taken a couple of days for the tragic passing of Corey Haim to sink in. The death of any actor is sad, when you mourn the loss of their future presence onscreen. But in the case of Corey, it's to mourn a career wasted on drug dependancy. Other actors have climbed out from the abyss to forge a comeback, most notably Haim's First Born co-star Robert Downey Jr, but it was never to be for Corey, who died at his mother's Californian home in the early hours of 10th March 2010 at the age of only 38.
So for an actor whose glory days were in the mid-Eighties, why has this affected me so badly? Because I had the good fortune to meet Haim four years ago, and can confirm his friend and co-star Corey Feldman's tribute: he was indeed a "wonderful, beautiful, tormented soul".
I was 12 years old when I sneakily got into the cinema to watch The Lost Boys back in 1987, and naturally it blew me away (and started a lifelong obsession with vampires). Of course, I was besotted with the teenage Corey, who embodied the spirit of the decade with his wisecracking, comic book-loving geekiness. It was love at first sight for me and the vampire slayer. These were the days before IMDB and films on demand, so life was spent trawling the Radio Times to see if his name would pop up, and it did - Lucas, Silver Bullet, License To Drive.
The years went by, and because Haim slipped from the public eye, it was easy to forget him, bar the occasional viewing of the Lost Boys, where I would remember the crush fondly. Then, Haim was announced for a Lost Boys reunion at Collectormania in Milton Keynes, May 2006, an event I have enjoyed for years. He, Feldman, Billy Wirth, Chance Corbitt and Jamison Newlander met fans and gave a talk before a screening of the film. Not going to lie, I was shocked at Haim's appearance initially, but as soon as I spoke to him, there was a warmth that is rarely found in most actors when they make public appearances - trust me, I've met many. He was then no different to that blonde blue-eyed adorable creature that had me in fits as a kid, whereas Feldman had an air of arrogance and the businessman about him (I guess what's made it easier for him to survive in washed-up actor wasteland). Haim was humble, honest and forthcoming about his life and limitations.
His assistant on the day was ScreenGeek contributor Christa Ktorides, a huge Lost Boys fan. "The Lost Boys was a true feast for all the senses, a scorching soundtrack coupled with the kind of MTV visuals that seem commonplace today," she tells us. "It was funny, scary and most importantly to a teenage girl it had hot vampire boys on motorbikes. The funny came primarily from Corey Haim as Sam Emerson: he had an utterly relatable charm - yeah we all had crushes on him, but it was his ability to makes us laugh and to laugh at himself that made him so easy to love."
Christa remembers the day she worked with him well: "I can't begin to express my feelings of joy and disbelief when I was told I would be assisting Corey Haim at Collectormania. 19 years later and his star had waned, well publicised tales of his drink and drug abuse and his sadly stalled career had me a little concerned about what he would be like. Would he be a train wreck? Arrogant? A diva? Would he be a disappointment to the fans who had queued for hours to meet him? They say you should never meet your heroes and I began to wish I wasn’t assisting him, that I could instead help with crowd control or sit with any of the other guests. He bounded over bear-like and as I introduced myself he instantly relaxed me. Looking sweetly perplexed at the amount of excited fans awaiting him, he immediately put me at ease.
"I watched as nervous fans, young and old, male and female, met their hero and he was sweet, courteous and polite to them all. No one left disappointed. In fact I’d wager he made some doubters lifelong fans that day. Most of all, for me, he was kind, always polite about asking for a can of coke or to borrow my lipsalve, no demands or diva behaviour. He hugged and thanked me several times during the day and I hoped and believed that he had conquered his demons. It’s upsetting to think that those who never met him would think of him as yet another Hollywood casualty, a screw-up who threw it all away. To those of us who got to spend even a few minutes in his presence he was simply Corey, a true gent."
He had a unique charm that I don't think I've experienced in anyone else: a vulnerable, puppydog likeability that sat alongside - and never masked - his problems with prescription drugs. In fact, for a substance abuser, there isn't a story about him harming anyone but himself. He was the only victim of his mental issues - proof that he genuinely was the kindest soul. My friends and I met him outside the cinema before the screening, where he remembered me from earlier and called me over, and yes, there was a bit of a hilarious exchange, but I wanted to keep the memory from my teenage years pure. But the subsequent hysterical gin-fuelled viewing of this cult film, combined with that encounter, provided me with one of those magical weekends, where you wish you could travel back in time and tell your sad child self: one day, THIS will happen.
I've been reading about fellow fan encounters, and not one has had a bad word to say about him. That's why the premature death of Haim is unfair and heartbreaking. He took us back to our carefree youth, and he knew it. Not once did he bemoan his fate in a petulant way; he knew the mistakes he had made, and every day was a struggle to correct them. I was watching a clip of his recent reality show with Feldman, The Two Coreys, where he was ready to get back to work (as attested by the uncomfortable ad he placed in Variety in 2008), and his face when he got a small part was priceless. His agent said something wonderful that really hit me - that he didn't have to worry about his reputation, because when you meet him, you fall in love immediately.
For my dream-come-true day, the joy he brought onscreen, and the kindness he showed everybody he met, Corey Haim's death is upsetting and unjust. It will be a while before I can watch The Lost Boys again (just listening to the soundtrack has me in floods of tears), but I will always be grateful that Corey Haim made it to Hollywood.
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