Corey Haim

Authorities: Corey Haim had illegal prescription

The actor is said to have obtained painkillers through a major drug ring

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The late actor Corey Haim had a fraudulent prescription for a powerful painkiller that authorities said Friday was obtained through a major drug ring.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office said records of the prescription in the name of the former teen heartthrob were found during an investigation of the ring that illegally obtained prescription pads and used the stolen identities of doctors to fill them out.

“Corey Haim’s death is yet another tragedy linked to the growing problem of prescription drug abuse,” Brown said in a written statement. “This problem is increasingly linked to criminal organizations, like the illegal and massive prescription drug ring under investigation.”

Los Angeles County coroner’s officials, however, said they have not yet determined what killed the 38-year-old Haim on Wednesday.

State law enforcement authorities said they were investigating the drug ring and how Haim, who battled addiction for years, obtained the prescription.

A person familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing said Haim may have been doctor shopping.

Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said four prescription drug bottles bearing the actor’s name were found in the apartment where he collapsed, but all those drugs had been provided by a doctor who had been treating the actor.

The coroner’s office has declined to state what medications were discovered, but said no illegal drugs were found.

Winter said no determination had been made about Haim’s cause of death, and toxicology tests would not be available for at least a month.

He said he had not been contacted by the attorney general’s office.

“It surprises me that Jerry Brown would come out and give a cause of death,” he said.

Brown said later in an interview that he didn’t know what killed Haim.

The illegal prescription was for the powerful painkiller OxyContin, he said.

“This is a growing and dangerous problem,” Brown said.

Christine Gasparac, a spokeswoman for Brown, said the prescription was found through the state’s computer database that tracks prescriptions that are filled.

Investigators believe the ring either sells the pads on the street to addicts or to people who then fill out the forms and obtain the drugs for illegal distribution.

Doctors whose names are on the form usually aren’t aware that their identity is being used illegally.

So far, authorities have uncovered up to 5,000 fraudulent prescriptions linked to the fraud ring in Southern California.

Haim’s agent, Mark Heaslip, said his client’s medications were prescribed by an addiction specialist who was working with the actor. He said he thinks, based on what Haim’s mother has told him, the actor may have had an adverse reaction to the medication because he was ill.

“I don’t think Corey overdosed, not at all,” Heaslip said.

Authorities have said Haim was suffering from flulike symptoms in the days before his death.

Seattle-based Heaslip has served as Haim’s agent for 18 months but first met the actor, best known for his roles in the 1980s flicks “The Lost Boys” and “Lucas,” in November. He said Haim was poised for a comeback and showed no signs of addiction.

“He’s never given me a sign of that,” Heaslip said.

Plans are being completed for a public memorial for Haim in Los Angeles. The actor is expected to be buried at a private funeral in his native Canada, Heaslip said.

Brown’s office has made prescription drug abuse a priority. It worked with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office to bring drug conspiracy charges against two doctors and the lawyer-boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith.

Brown also has launched a probe of doctors whose names have come up during the investigation into the death of Michael Jackson.

Twitter mourns Corey Haim

Colson Whitehead, Jeremy Piven, Lisa Marie Presley and others tap out their grief in 140 characters or less

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Twitter mourns Corey Haim

Grief hits people in different ways. Some keep to themselves, some take to Twitter. Following the news of former child star Corey Haim’s death, celebrities expressed their sadness in 140 characters or less. Below is a sampling of the most interesting.

Colson Whitehead, novelist (most recently of “Sag Harbor”):

“In honor of our fallen Corey, we should all sing David Bowie’s ‘Fame,’ substituting Haim where appropriate.”

Kevin Smith:       

“Lost Boy goes home: Corey Haim, dead at 38. G’bye, LUCAS. You gave hope to the weird & unlikely.”   

Jeremy Piven (appeared in “Lucas” with Haim):

Retweeting Tinybuddha: “Until you stop breathing, there’s more right with you than wrong with you.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

Melissa Joan Hart:

“No way! I just saw him last week at a Lupus event! RIP! RT @dietcokebottle: Did you see Corey Haim died? So sad =(“

Soleil Moon Frye:

“RIP Corey Haim. Nobody made listening to 80′s music back in the day look so good…Save a dance for me up there.”  

Sinbad:

“I always dug the young funny corey haim…..wish he could have enjoyed life a little more than he did.”

Sarah Colonna (writer and comedian): 

“I feel bad about Corey Haim, but I’m more depressed that this is the last season of ’24.’ That may make me a bad person.”

Lisa Marie Presley

“I’m here, guys. And I am very saddened by the death of actor Corey Haim.”

 Caissie St. Onge (writer/producer of “Best Week Ever”): 

“Adored Corey Haim as a kid. Think we can all agree young stardom is harmful. Enough. Time for science to develop synthetic child actors.”

Nick Zano (actor in “Melrose Place” and “Catch Me If You Can”):

“Corey Haim. This is a dangerous industry it plays w ur head & sadly he lost, u have 2 b happy w u & that goes w any profession. U define u.”

Melissa Gilbert (star of “Little House on the Prairie”):

“Corey Corey Corey. You will be missed. May those who love you find peace knowing that there is no more torture for you…no more pain. My heart aches for your mother. Fly well, dear talented boy.” 

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Jed Lipinski is an editorial fellow at Salon.

Corey Haim: Little boy lost as the cameras roll

The late actor is a painful example of how our culture digests little kids and regurgitates them as sideshow acts

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Corey Haim: Little boy lost as the cameras roll

What happens when you make a roadside attraction out of a human being? How do you take a guy who’s spent a lifetime shaking off the vulnerability and ego omnipotence that often comes with child stardom, a guy who struggles with drugs, says he was sexually abused, who’s clearly on shaky emotional ground, and put him back in front of the camera with his longtime friend and foe?

Watching this footage from “The Two Coreys,” a show built around the decaying relationship and revived career hopes of Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, will make you wonder about the practice of pointing cameras in the faces of exactly those people who are destined to get confused, say too much, and regret it. Corey Haim was allegedly troubled long before (and presumably after) these scenes were shot, and his judgment (and Feldman’s) doesn’t appear that sound.

But imagine if your notion of love was tied to the camera’s gaze. Decades after that love is withdrawn, it returns in the form of a TV show. “The world loves me once again!” you’d think, even though your name itself has become something of a nostalgic punch line.

In this clip, Feldman and Haim decide, in the middle of an argument, to one-up each other about who did or didn’t help the other during a period of sexual abuse that they suffered as kids. Are these two people strong enough or sound enough to manage the camera’s gaze in a way that doesn’t hurt them? Or do they equate attention with love, the way an addict equates drugs with escape or release? In retrospect, allowing these two to expose themselves all over again — particularly Haim whom everyone on the show refers to as adrift and unmoored — seems downright reckless.

The public can’t take responsibility for the bad decisions of grown adults. But the machine that turns little kids into demigods then recycles them as freaks decades later undeniably messes with the lives of vulnerable individuals for the world’s idle consumption.

From “Celebrity Rehab” to “The Bachelor,” we clearly love watching other people make bad decisions, even if their primary bad decision was agreeing to appear on camera in the first place. We want to see these mistakes up close, to make our own mistakes feel relatively harmless.

But how much human carnage can we tolerate for the sake of fulfilling our rubbernecking needs, for the sake of something tragic or pathetic to ponder over coffee at work? Haim may have been headed for a fall regardless. Even so, it’s impossible to watch him playing with fire here, and not think about our culpability, as a culture. If Haim and Feldman were regular guys, would there be a show here? Money could be made off keeping these “Lost Boys” lost forever. 

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Heather Havrilesky is Salon's TV critic and author of the rabbit blog. Her memoir, "Disaster Preparedness," published in 2010.

The Corey Haim highlight reel

Slide show: From his breakout film roles to his addled interviews

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The Corey Haim highlight reel

Corey Haim’s death from an apparent overdose at 38 is incredibly sad, but it certainly isn’t surprising to those who followed his career, and troubles, for nearly three decades. He long ago emerged as a Gen X poster child for the dangers of fame in a celebrity-obsessed culture. His battle with substance abuse was its own kind of reality drama, playing out in the tabloids, in interviews that re-surfaced on YouTube and, eventually, his own reality show.

Haim was a gifted child actor who broke into the big time with memorable turns in the nerd underdog tearjerker “Lucas” and the teen vampire saga “Lost Boys,” but it was his partnership with fellow child actor Corey Feldman that shot him into the teen idol stratosphere. Theirs was a match made in Hollywood branding heaven: The Two Coreys. Movies like “License to Drive” and “Dream a Little Dream” were soft-core tween fantasy, in which smirking kids outsmart dopey grown-ups en route to racy romantic adventures. Adulthood did, in fact, prove difficult for Haim, as work dried up and he waged a public battle with drugs and alcohol. A look back in his life through video reminds us how charming he was, and how much he struggled.

View a slide show

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Sarah Hepola is an editor at Salon.

‘Lost Boys’ actor Corey Haim dead in Burbank at 38

Actor dies in Burbank hospital, autopsy to determine cause

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'Lost Boys' actor Corey Haim dead in Burbank at 38Corey Haim, in a still from "The Lost Boys."

The Los Angeles coroner’s office says “The Lost Boys” actor Corey Haim is dead at 38.

Coroner’s Lt. Cheryl MacWillie said Wednesday that Haim died at 2:15 a.m. at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. She said an autopsy will determine the cause of death and there are no other details.

Canadian-born Haim became a teen heartthrob with the 1986 film “Lucas” and 1987′s “The Lost Boys.”

His first role was in the 1984 hit “Firstborn,” in which he played a young child caught up in a family war. He then appeared in the 1985 television movie “A Time to Live.”

In recent years, he appeared in the A&E reality TV show “The Two Coreys” with his friend Corey Feldman. It was canceled in 2008 after two seasons.