Child stars often suffer a disrupted upbringing, as we’ve discussed here before; several have died young or been transformed into wretched slaves to booze or drugs as a result. Think of River Phoenix, Dana Plato and the doomed Disney star of the 1940s, Bobby Driscoll.
Daniel Radcliffe, the Harry Potter actor, seemed to be coping well with the demands of early fame and success. Yet the 21-year-old actor was once so reliant on booze – whisky mainly – that he’s given it up altogether. His life went off the rails, he tells GQ, at the time he turned 18 and was filming Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince.
“I became so reliant on [booze] to enjoy stuff. There were a few years there when I was just so enamoured with the idea of living some sort of famous person’s lifestyle that really isn’t suited to me.”
This is the way these days. A generation ago, or two, it would be highly unusual for a an actor in his early twenties to give up drinking, and even less likely that he’d tell everybody about his problems. With the great British carousers of the mid-20th century – heroic, Falstaffian boozers like Burton, Harris, O’Toole, Oliver Reed, Peter Finch – it was usually only the intervention of the Grim Reaper that curtailed their intake. Now, though, plenty of child stars have spent spells in rehabilitation centres by the time they’re 21. This points to the the lack of shame surrounding addiction these days, as I’ve said, but also to the increased professionalism of the acting profession. (Edie Falco is another example: the actress who plays Carmela Soprano and Nurse Jackie reveals in today’s Independent that she joined AA nearly 20 years ago.)
We’ve seen the same process in most other walks of life. Take journalism: gone are the days when journalists could while away three or four hours at midday guzzling pints and then return to their desks and go to sleep. People used to think nothing of colleagues who were half-drunk; they would cover up for each other. This even happened, I’m told, in fields such as medicine and aviation, where intoxication might endanger lives. I remember meeting a pilot for a well-known middle-eastern airline who was dying of varices in his gullet, delicate blood vessels that erupted in geysers of blood when he enraged them with neat booze. He told me that before the airline grounded him he had never to his knowledge flown while under the legal driving limit. (Most of the time he was hungover rather than actually starting to drink just before flying.)
That’s an extreme example: that pilot’s behaviour would never have been acceptable. But suddenly not even mild intoxication is accepted as normal in most jobs – even a glass of wine at lunch seems decadent, and indicative of a defective work ethic. As for appearing tipsy at the office or smelling of booze in the afternoon, most of us frown on such conduct: efficiency is the watchword now.
This new emphasis on clean living and healthy minds makes life safer, and more serious, and perhaps less entertaining some of the time. For child stars like Daniel Radcliffe it’s probably a good thing, because it means he stands a solid chance of entering into a contented middle age rather than veering off the rails like so many of his predecessors.
Daniel Radcliffe, the Harry Potter actor, seemed to be coping well with the demands of early fame and success. Yet the 21-year-old actor was once so reliant on booze – whisky mainly – that he’s given it up altogether. His life went off the rails, he tells GQ, at the time he turned 18 and was filming Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince.
“I became so reliant on [booze] to enjoy stuff. There were a few years there when I was just so enamoured with the idea of living some sort of famous person’s lifestyle that really isn’t suited to me.”
We’ve seen the same process in most other walks of life. Take journalism: gone are the days when journalists could while away three or four hours at midday guzzling pints and then return to their desks and go to sleep. People used to think nothing of colleagues who were half-drunk; they would cover up for each other. This even happened, I’m told, in fields such as medicine and aviation, where intoxication might endanger lives. I remember meeting a pilot for a well-known middle-eastern airline who was dying of varices in his gullet, delicate blood vessels that erupted in geysers of blood when he enraged them with neat booze. He told me that before the airline grounded him he had never to his knowledge flown while under the legal driving limit. (Most of the time he was hungover rather than actually starting to drink just before flying.)
That’s an extreme example: that pilot’s behaviour would never have been acceptable. But suddenly not even mild intoxication is accepted as normal in most jobs – even a glass of wine at lunch seems decadent, and indicative of a defective work ethic. As for appearing tipsy at the office or smelling of booze in the afternoon, most of us frown on such conduct: efficiency is the watchword now.
This new emphasis on clean living and healthy minds makes life safer, and more serious, and perhaps less entertaining some of the time. For child stars like Daniel Radcliffe it’s probably a good thing, because it means he stands a solid chance of entering into a contented middle age rather than veering off the rails like so many of his predecessors.
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