Corey Haim: young, popular artist die at 38

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The way of someone's life, who do know? he is young, he is popular, but today he dies.....

Corey Haim, an actor whose status as a teenage heartthrob of the 1980s gave way to substance abuse and rehabilitation as an adult, died on Wednesday at a hospital in Burbank, Calif. He was 38.
His death was confirmed by Sgt. Michael Kammert of the Los Angeles Police Department. The assistant chief coroner of Los Angeles County, Ed Winter, told The Associated Press that Mr. Haim’s mother had called paramedics. “As he got out of bed, he felt a little weak and went down to the floor on his knees,” Mr. Winter said. No other details were provided. The police said they were investigating.

Mr. Haim started acting as a child and shot to fame as the gawky adolescent star of coming-of-age comedies like “Lucas,” a 1986 film in which he played the lovelorn title character, and “License to Drive,” a 1988 feature about a young man’s dreams of piloting the family Cadillac.

He was also among the stars of “The Lost Boys,” a 1987 vampire thriller directed by Joel Schumacher. The film was the first in which he appeared opposite Corey Feldman, another gangly teenage actor, whose films include “Stand by Me” and “The Goonies.” With a common first name, Mr. Haim and Mr. Feldman came to be known as the two Coreys and worked together in several more films, including “Dream a Little Dream” in 1989

In recent years Mr. Haim underwent rehabilitation for addictions to prescription pills and cocaine and outgrew his once scrawny form and image. In an interview with The New York Times in 2007, he said he had ballooned to more than 300 pounds and been offered a spot on the VH1 weight-loss reality show “Celebrity Fit Club.”

He was candid about his frequent attempts to overcome his drug problems, telling the ABC News program “Nightline” in 2007 that his habits had ruined his career “to the point where I wasn’t functional enough to work for anybody, even myself.”

After a long estrangement, Mr. Haim reunited with Mr. Feldman in 2007 for an A&E reality series called “The Two Coreys” during which Mr. Haim lived with Mr. Feldman and his wife for three months. The show was renewed for a second season but not a third after Mr. Feldman said he would not work with Mr. Haim until he had gotten “the help he truly needs.”

Mr. Haim was born on Dec. 23, 1971, and grew up in Toronto. Information on survivors was not immediately available.