Corey Haim is The Inspiration of a Generation. I once tried to market a line of t-shirts with that slogan, but it wouldn’t fit. Corey Haim made many young artists pursue a career in entertainment, but they didn’t know about the man’s private struggles with drug addition. Corey Haim showed up to his first audition high, and his career was a downward spiral of drug-fueled chaos from there.

The Lost Boys

It is well documented that Corey Haim was not interested in acting. He wanted to be a rock star or a hockey player. His success in his first film, Lucas, was on account of his not realizing that he was in a movie. His drug-addled mind thought that everything was really happening. Corey was lured into participation in The Lost Boys on the promise of meeting real vampires. After learning of the deceit, he vowed to stay in the movie business out of spite, doing movie after movie until he would get the chance to pull “the wickedest prank ever” on the producers of The Lost Boys.

Friendship with Corey Feldman

After meeting on the set of The Lost Boys, Corey Haim became best friends with Corey Feldman. Together, as ‘The Coreys’, they would have an impact on the popular arts matched only by The Beatles. Originally, Haim got close to Feldman to try and meet Michael Jackson, Feldman’s long-time BFF. Over time, doing drugs and women together, Haim would come to insist that he and Feldman were the same person, a story which would become the basis for the 1999 film Fight Club.

Explorers

My family was the first one in the neighborhood to get Pay-TV back in the day, and my sister and I used to watch the movie Explorers so often that my parents banned it in frustration. I loved the way they turned a Tilt-A-Whirl car into a spaceship. We could all relate to Ethan Hawke as the everyman, River Phoenix gave us a new appreciation of the downtrodden in the elementary school social structure, and Corey Haim… wait, Corey Haim wasn’t in Explorers.

Dream a Little Dream

The 1988 teen comedy Dream a Little Dream was a huge hit. The song Rock On by Michael Damien from the film’s soundtrack was neither memorable nor interesting, yet it became a huge top-40 hit on the strength of The Coreys’ appearance in the video. I didn’t see the movie, but my friend’s sister had the posters and magazine photos all over her wall. In time, those posters and clippings would end up in the Recycle Bin, replaced on those walls – and in that girl’s heart – by New Kids On The Block. This happened across America, heart by heart and bedroom wall by bedroom wall. But Corey Haim would not be forgotten.

License to Drive

Corey Haim showed that he could deliver the goods in the 1988 epic swashbuckling adventure film License to Drive. This film would be the launching ground for the careers of both James Avery, who would go on to play Uncle Phil in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and (more famously) give voice to Shredder in the Ninja Turtles cartoon, and Heather Graham who would go on to great acclaim as Rollergirl in Boogie Nights. An anticipated Oscar nomination did not materialize, and Haim sank deeper into drugs and despair.

The “I’m Not on Drugs” Video

After a tidal wave of negative publicity concerning his drug use, Corey Haim responded with the video documentary Corey Haim: Me, Myself, and I. In the video, he addresses his fans to show them how he is not on drugs, likes to play music, and enjoys a refreshing dip in the pool. The irony of the project was that Corey was actually high while taping the video, having taken so many drugs that he couldn’t remember taking them.

The Archie Movie

When I was a kid, I was a huge comic book collector. Finding out that Corey Haim was also a comic book collector endeared him to me. Finding out that he was lobbying for the role of Archie in a live-action Archie movie really made me think he was cool. But the money people decided to go with a TV movie instead, cutting costs by hiring actors in their middle age to portray the teenage citizens of Riverdale. Corey’s dream project was dead, and he spiraled ever-further into despair.

My Friend Gets to Meet Him

A friend of mine had a mysterious rash so he visited a doctor’s office in his, and Corey Haim’s, hometown of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. While in the waiting room, a nearby vagrant struck up a conversation about movies, television, music, and previous visits to the doctor. The vagrant asked my friend his name. My friend said “Shaun”, which is his name. As Shaun shook the man’s hand, he introduced himself: “Corey Haim, actor.” He had come full circle, and was on the road to recovery.

Corey Haim will never get to receive the Oscar he vowed that he would one day earn. He died very suddenly, if not unexpectedly, in California on March 10, 2010.

The Academy didn’t want to give him an award, but there’s one waiting for him at the great podium in the sky.