Brad Renfro Dead at 25
By Norm Schrager at January 16, 2008 | 12:26 am | Print
It’s sad when a person in the (semi) limelight can’t learn from history. Tonight, Brad Renfro, an actor with both potential and substance abuse problems, was found dead in his home. He was 25.
Yeah, he was trying to get sober. Yeah, he had been drinking last night. And yeah, he’d suffered more mistakes and arrests than seen in the cautionary tales of other actors gone dead by too much fame and fun.
Renfro had been working on the movie adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ sprawling novel The Informers. Here are two bits of coincidence from that project: 1) the film also stars Mickey Rourke and Winona Ryder (how the hell did the production ever get insured?); 2) the movie’s tagline is: Greed is good. Sex is easy. Youth is forever.
Apparently not. Renfro made his big-screen debut at age 11 in the Joel Schumacher blockbuster The Client, starring opposite heavy hitters like Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. After that, he appeared in a string of high-profile movies including Disney’s Tom and Huck, Barry Levinson’s all-star drama Sleepers, and the intriguing screen version of Stephen King’s Apt Pupil.
A personal favorite is Renfro’s performance in Larry Clark’s Bully, playing a kid pushed around one too many times by an intimidating Nick Stahl. If Renfro was already under the influence in his real life, it may have actually helped the role. He was loose but intense, detached but concerned. Strong work, in a scary, underseen film.
After appearing in Ghost World (2001) and Deuces Wild (2002), Renfro played in less visible movies, and chipped in on a Law and Order episode in 2006.
They’re talking about conducting an autopsy on Renfro this week. Will it really matter?
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4 Comments
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This is well written but you’ve just implied that he OD’d. While it is likely, it is not certain and you forgot to be explicit about that.
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- Anon -
You’re 100% right. I should’ve applied a little more journalism to the obit. There is absolutely no proof, at this time, that Brad Renfro died of an overdose.Thanks for the compliment, and for pointing this out.
-Norm S. (Meet In the Lobby)
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The autopsy doesn’t really matter. He is dead and nothing is going to change that or the devastation felt by his family and his fans like me; who not an hour ago was really crying in a way I hadn’t done since my grandfather passed away near 7 years ago. Anyway, there’s just one thing I want to say to Brad wherever he may be: May you find the ability to rest now as you never did in life.
[...] on his wife, to Mickey Rourke as a sleazy kidnapper, to Brad Renfro, sad and effectively twitchy in the final role of his short life. There’s enough skill throughout the credit list to make something happen in The Informers, [...]