Coreyography: A Memoir

by Corey Feldman

  * * *

  I’m back at Exodus for another thirty days, but this time I want to get sober. I’m starting to see that maybe AA can work. People are checking in as addicts and walking out as fully realized people, no longer shadows of their former selves. I feel faint glimmers of my spirituality coming back, remember what my life was like when I believed in God and all He could do. I’m praying on a regular basis. They call this the “pink cloud,” the sense of euphoria that comes with newfound sobriety. I’m starting to think, maybe I can do this.

  My counselors want me to check in at Cri-Help, a no-frills, nonprofit rehab facility in North Hollywood, immediately after my thirty days at Exodus are up. Cri-Help is like a military boot camp with mountains of rules, including no communication with the outside world for the first month. I’m terrified, but I decide to go. My hope is that by doing so, the judge will drop all the charges.

  Vanessa takes me to check in. It’s dark and dingy and not air-conditioned. There’s no swimming pool or Jacuzzi. It’s nothing at all like what I’m used to. It’s like prison. But I say good-bye to my wife. I resolve to attend every group therapy session and every meeting. By now I’ve even got my first sponsor, who also happens to have been one of my costars on Gremlins—it’s a strange convergence of my two lives, that of movie star and down-and-out drug addict.

  The first few days at Cri-Help pass uneventfully, but then I experience a hiccup: Vanessa has been leaving me tokens and gifts, like love notes or a pair of her panties, stashed secretly beneath empty crates kept out back by the trash. This is in complete violation of the rules, and we’ve been caught. As punishment, I’m being kicked out of rehab, and the only way to get myself back in is to attend thirty AA meetings in the next thirty days; if I can do that, Marlene, the head counselor at Cri-Help, will be willing to back me in court when asking the judge for a second chance.

  I take this in stride, go to the meetings, get the vouchers signed, until the thirty-day probationary period is up. That’s when I decide I need just one more night of partying before they let me back in. Just one more chance to have some fun before I get locked down for good.

  I’m in a seedy section of Hollywood, idling outside some apartment building trying to score and, apparently, blocking a driveway, when the cops show up. I give them some song and dance about how I’m just “dropping off my maid,” but they run my plates. I’m arrested again, this time for additional outstanding traffic warrants and driving with a suspended license.

  Three days later, on December 10, 1990, I appear in court and plead no contest to all three felony charges. I’m fined five thousand dollars, given four years probation, and ordered back to live-in rehab. I go back to Cri-Help, knowing that it’s my last chance.

  CHAPTER 18

  After nine months of treatment and little to no interaction with people in the actual, outside world, I earned my completion certificate from Cri-Help. I was sober. I was happy. I was ready to get back to work.

  I was also in debt—for legal fees and rehab expenses (I’d borrowed nearly $30,000 from Richard Donner alone)—to the tune of $180,000. My reputation as a rising star in Hollywood had been eviscerated. My name, once associated with a slew of number-one hits, was a punch line. I had just turned twenty-years old and I was starting all over. Again.

  * * *

  By the fall of 1991, there hadn’t been many instances of downtrodden or drug-addled celebrities successfully reinvigorating their careers. This was a full five years before Robert Downey, Jr. became mired in the fallout from the first of his high-profile arrests—for speeding down Sunset Boulevard while in possession of heroin, cocaine, and a .357 Magnum and, one month later, for wandering into a neighbor’s home and falling asleep in one of the beds; more than ten years before he would make what many consider to be the most successful comeback in Hollywood history. Drew Barrymore, once a fan-favorite and critical darling, was also still struggling—it would be another four years before she started landing the roles that ultimately salvaged her career; nine years before her production company’s reboot of Charlie’s Angels re-established her as a genuine, bankable star.

  Without any kind of roadmap to follow, my agent and I go back and forth on how best to move my career forward. And within days of my release from Cri-Help, he brings me offers for two different films: Round Trip to Heaven, starring my old video game–playing costar Zach Galligan, and something called Happy Campers, in which I’ll play a summer camp waterskiing instructor. Both are silly, schlocky scripts, but my agent convinces me to take them. “They’ll forgive the fact that you’re doing B-movies if you can show up on time, do good work, and prove that you’re a professional,” he tells me. “That’s what Hollywood needs to see from you right now.”

  I don’t understand the potential long-term effects of doing low-budget, straight-to-video movies. So, instead of playing the long game, of waiting for a quality project I can really sink my teeth into, I choose roles based entirely on my dire financial situation. Together, Round Trip to Heaven and Happy Campers will earn me $200,000. That’s not such a bad deal for someone with a mountain of debt.

  Despite being a campy T&A comedy, filming on Round Trip to Heaven goes smoothly; people in the business seem genuinely happy to have me back. Soon, there’s even chatter about reprising my role as the voice of Donatello in the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

  The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was brought to me in the fall of 1989, when I was already pretty deep into my heroin haze. It was an independent production, a tie-in to the comic-book series and the successful Saturday-morning cartoon, but to me it looked cheap and cheesy. Still, it was quick work, necessitating only a couple of days in the studio, for which I was paid scale (the minimum amount allowed for members of the Screen Actors Guild). Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went on to gross more than $130 million at the box office, making it the highest grossing independent film of its time.

  Coming back to work on the second sequel (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze was filmed when I was in rehab) felt a little like redemption.

  * * *

  It was late fall, 1991, and we were shooting Happy Campers, a raucous comedy about a lakeside summer camp, at Bass Lake, a laid-back tourist hot spot not far from the south entrance of Yosemite National Park. While the other young actors spent their downtime drinking and partying—in a setting that reminded me an awful lot of filming Friday the 13th—I retreated to my cabin or sought support at daily AA meetings. My costar Jack Nance was also a recovering addict; together, we kept each other focused and on track.

  I was leaving one of these meetings when Kris Krengel, one of the film’s producers and an assistant director, pulled me aside. She had just finished shooting a film called My Own Private Idaho and she was worried about River Phoenix.

  “I wouldn’t normally say anything, but I know you were a heroin addict,” she said, before taking a long, dramatic, deep breath. “And that’s what he’s been doing.”

  I couldn’t believe it. It was true that I had only known River long ago, back when we were just children, but even then he was so dedicated, so driven, so devoted to his craft. More recently, he had been making a name for himself as a budding activist and philanthropist. He might have seemed out of sorts at the Oscars, but heroin didn’t seem like something River would be about.

  “Trust me,” she said. “I know what I’m talking about.”

  Kris encouraged me to call him. She knew I was dedicated to my sobriety, and she thought my experiences with addiction might somehow be of help.

  The phone rang and rang and rang, until finally River picked up. He sounded like he’d been asleep, though it was probably four in the afternoon. He sounded out of it, and I could tell, right then, that what Kris had said was true. I told River that I had heard some things, that I was concerned about him, and that when I was back in L.A. we should meet up and talk things through. He seemed amenable. We made loose plans, said good-bye, and hung up.r />
  River and I played phone tag for a while after that, but never did get together, and I never saw him again. Less than two years later, on October 31, 1993, he would die, in a convulsing, overdose-induced fit, outside the Viper Room, a nightclub owned by his pal Johnny Depp. He was just twenty-three-years old.

  * * *

  As production dragged on, I used the weekends to escape to L.A. and work on repairing my relationship with Vanessa. I was renting a new home in Venice, though I still couldn’t get her to move in with me; even with my newfound sobriety, our relationship was still very much on the rocks. It was when I arrived back from one of these weekend trips that I discovered the film’s producers had cut a last-minute deal. The movie I’d signed on for, Happy Campers, would now be called Meatballs 4.

  I had actually been sort of excited about Happy Campers. It wasn’t exactly Shakespeare, but the director, Bob Logan, had just done the campy spoof Repossessed with Linda Blair and Leslie Nielsen; I thought we’d virtually be guaranteed a theatrical release. Now, Meatballs 4—a film I never would have agreed to make—was destined for a straight-to-video release. People sometimes have the misconception that actors have any real control over their destiny. In reality, the fate of your career is very often in the hands of those you sign on to work with.

  In January, Vanessa and I traveled to Ixtapa, Mexico, for a charity golf tournament. It was our final attempt at saving the relationship, as well as our last public appearance together. By the time we got home—after nearly three years of ups and downs, of lying and cheating and suspicions and jealousy—we were over.

  Despite all the drama, there’s one thing I can say I did for Vanessa Marcil: I got her a meeting with one of my agents. By the close of 1992, she had snagged the role of Brenda Barrett on General Hospital, a role she would play off and on for the next twenty years, and for which she would win a Daytime Emmy. She has also starred on Beverly Hills, 90210, and NBC’s Las Vegas. She was even named one of People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People. She’s done well for herself, and I wish her the best.

  * * *

  Back in L.A. and single, I plunged headfirst into sober life.

  I had been thinking a lot about the way we teach drug awareness in this country—the message of programs like D.A.R.E. is fear-based; we use scare tactics to keep kids off drugs. We preach about the evils and dangers, wind them up until they think that recreational drug use or underage drinking will turn them all into homeless junkies. To me, this is the biggest mistake.

  As anyone who’s ever experimented knows, your heart won’t explode after snorting a single line of cocaine. You won’t become a high school dropout just because you took one puff from a joint. So, when a kid who’s been taught to irrationally fear drugs sees his friend smoking pot—and quickly determines that his friend isn’t on a downward spiral; he’s actually turning out just fine—he starts to think, perhaps I’ve been lied to. He starts to wonder: hey, maybe drugs aren’t so bad after all.

  The truth, of course, is that drugs won’t kill you on impact. In fact, recreational drug use can actually be a lot of fun—why else would so many people partake? But therein lies a bigger truth, as well as a bigger problem: addiction isn’t immediate, but addiction can ruin your life.

  I wanted to change the public discussion. So, in addition to attending as well as hosting regular AA meetings, in addition to acting as a sponsor and being sponsored myself, I also started lecturing at universities about the dangers of drugs but, more important, about the misconceptions that exist around their consumption. I also wanted to use the negative experiences in my life and, by helping others, turn them into positives. It wasn’t a particularly profound or even an original goal, but it worked for me. At least for a while.

  I also dove back into my music career. Whereas before I had been entirely focused on pop stardom, using movies to drive the success of my music, trying to get my singles inserted into my movies, now I just wanted to write songs for me. I hooked up with a drummer friend of mine, as well as Mark Karan, then an independent producer (now, he’s best known for his work with Bob Weir, formerly of the Grateful Dead). Song writing, particularly in the months following the split with Vanessa, became cathartic. And soon, I would have a new tragedy to work through: in April, I got the call that Sam Kinison was dead.

  Just as Sam and I had once competed in coke-off challenges, wagering to see who could stay up the longest, in more recent years we’d begun competing to see who could keep themselves sober. He was battling his own demons, had been in and out of rehab like me, but he had been doing really well in previous months. Which made it all the more ironic that he was killed by a drunk driver.

  Sam was a dear friend. We weren’t always the best influences on each other, but I loved him like a brother.

  CHAPTER 19

  One of the things I very quickly discovered is that going on auditions stone-cold sober is much harder than going in when you’re lit. I hadn’t successfully completed a sober read since childhood, when I’d fearlessly rambled on for Joe Dante or done shameless impressions of the Fonz for Richard Donner. So, when I scored an audition for a new film starring Al Pacino, I was nervous, to say the least.

  Pacino, though it’s perhaps cliché to say so, was easily one of my favorite actors, and I was a huge fan of the Godfather films. (Another cliché—though I was perhaps lucky that The Godfather III hit theaters when I was in rehab.) I studied like mad, prepared for weeks, but by the time I walked in, I was a wreck. I was consumed with fears, and way too busy wondering what the people gathered in that room were thinking. Did they really believe I was sober now? Did they even think I could act?

  Right in the middle of the read, I felt my left eye start to twitch. Then, my lip began to quiver. I lost complete control of my body. It was such an incredible opportunity—a brilliant script (written by Bo Goldman, two-time Academy Award winner for Melvin and Howard and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), an accomplished director (Martin Brest)—and I watched it slip right through my fingers. The role of Charlie Simms in Scent of a Woman would go to a young Chris O’Donnell.

  * * *

  I continued auditioning, but that big break just wasn’t coming. I had managed to pay off a large chunk of my debts, but I wasn’t yet out of the hole. And so, I made the mistake that so many young, impatient actors make: instead of trying to reinvent myself, I went back to doing what “worked.” Corey Haim signed with my agent, and we agreed to a three-picture deal.

  The reunion, however, quickly became awkward, and not just because I had misgivings about a reteaming of the “Two Coreys.”

  Nearly a year earlier, I had come home to find a man dressed as Donatello from the Ninja Turtles waiting for me on my doorstep. I’d never received a singing telegram before, and I just sort of stood there, dumbstruck, as the turtle danced and sang and then handed me a VHS tape. I went inside, inserted the tape in my VCR, and watched as the turtle removed the head of his costume. Inside the suit was Marty Weiss, wishing me a happy birthday. (Apparently, he was doing kids’ parties now.)

  I thought the gesture was more than a little creepy, and when I told Haim about it, he insisted we beat Marty up. We made a plan to lure Marty to a nearby park and jump him.

  This sounds much more sinister than it actually was—I don’t believe either of us actually hit him, we just sort of dragged him to the ground and swatted at him for a bit. But for Haim, it was a way of communicating just how much Marty had affected him. Several months later—around the time we signed our three-picture deal—I moved to Encino, and Tony became my roommate. Haim took this as a kind of betrayal. Looking back on it now, who can blame him?

  Whether it was denial, or the fucked up way your brain works when you’ve been a victim yourself, I just didn’t think of Tony as a bad guy. I still thought, erroneously and ridiculously, that because Haim “wanted it,” the abuse had not been Tony’s fault. While Haim tolerated the arrangement and the two remained civil—Tony even scored a small role in one of
our upcoming movies—it was clear to me that Haim could no longer stand him.

  Despite the awkwardness, the first of the three new films Haim and I would make together seemed promising. Blown Away was an erotic thriller, kind of a Basic Instinct for a younger generation, costarring Nicole Eggert (who would later become Haim’s fiancé). Haim and I were both attracted to the script because it afforded us an opportunity to break sharply from the kid-friendly roles we were used to playing. The film sold to HBO as a first-run feature in April 1993, where it premiered to pretty great ratings.

  The second film on our schedule, National Lampoon’s Last Resort, proved to be a little less promising. Haim and I were expecting to shoot a movie with a budget of between $4 and $5 million; we showed up on the set of what looked like a rinky-dink student film operation. The camera equipment was second-rate, the lighting packages were exceedingly cheap, and we were among a skeleton crew. We looked at each other that first day, wondering what we had gotten ourselves into.

  Working under the umbrella of National Lampoon, we thought, would guarantee a relatively high production value; unbeknownst to us, a low-rent company had recently merged with National Lampoon in order to cash in on the name. It was the second time I’d become a victim of a last-minute bait-and-switch. It was also around the time I noticed Haim was popping Valiums and Somas (a muscle relaxer) by the handful.

  As production dragged on, we began shooting at Paradise Cove, the same beach where Haim and I had played football all those years ago, on the day that we first met, when a dust particle or a grain of sand flew into my eye. The pain and the throbbing soon became unbearable, and filming became impossible—I had a steady stream of tears rolling down my face. (How ironic, when I had been worried about crying on cue all those years before—now I couldn’t stop!) I found out that I had an infected tear duct, for which I would need surgery. After nearly two years clean and sober, I was faced with the prospect of taking prescription pain medicine.