Posted on 06/24/2023 9:26:01 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The effects of fentanyl are considered the cause of death for Adam Rich, the child actor known as "America's little brother" for his role on the hit family dramedy "Eight is Enough."
The former television star's death this January has been ruled an accident by the Los Angeles County Medical-Examiner Coroner's office, according to an autopsy report.Rich died in his Los Angeles home at age 54.
His stardom came at just eight years old as the mop-topped son raised by a widower newspaper columnist, played by Dick Van Patten, in ABC's "Eight is Enough." He went on to appear in other shows, including "Code Red" and "Dungeons & Dragons" in the 1980s. He also appeared in single episodes of popular shows like "Baywatch" and "The Love Boat," and reprised his "Eight is Enough" role in two TV movie reunions.
Rich had multiple run-ins with police related to drug and alcohol use. He was arrested in April 1991 for trying to break into a pharmacy and again that October for allegedly stealing a drug-filled syringe at a hospital while receiving treatment for a dislocated shoulder. A DUI arrest came in 2002 after he struck a parked California Highway Patrol cruiser in a closed freeway lane.
Rich had publicly discussed his experiences with depression and substance abuse in the months before he died. He tweeted in October that he had been sober for seven years after arrests, many rehab stints and several overdoses. He urged his followers to never give up.
When Rich died in January, his publicist, Danny Deraney, said that he had suffered from a type of depression that resisted treatment. He had tried to erase the stigma of talking about mental illness, Deraney said, and sought experimental cures to treat his depression.
"He was just a very kind, generous, loving soul," Deraney said in a statement. "Being a famous actor is not necessarily what he wanted to be. ... He had no ego, not an ounce of it."
Thanks Biden crime family. Another inconsequential egg cracked torward the building of a brilliant future.
I remember a TV reviewer years ago describing him as “vomit cute little kid with a hideous haircut.” That description alway stuck with me as one of the most dead-on accurate descriptions of a “celebrity” that I’d ever read. Adam Rich, RIP.
Wow, that is really a rather harsh description, and certainly of a kid.
(Possibly really accurate, but harsh ...)
That’s Rich.
The only episode I remember is the one where the Rats were normalizing divorce.
#ing Rats
“He had no ego?!” You can’t possibly be a success in an ego driven profession like acting and have 0 ego.
Thrown into an adult world of attention, fame and narcissism and all too often unscrupulous adults looking to drain away their earnings these kids end up broke, forgotten and tossed into the gutter. Sad.
Eight was too much.
Doesn't sound like he was much of a success. Sounds rather like he was mostly coasting on his "Eight Is Enough" fame.
Regards,
It seems this is the case for many child actors...they never escape their roles that brought their fame. They spend their whole lives typecast in a child character. The Brady Bunch comes to mind. Very sad....and pitiful.
RIP Adam Rich.
One is nothing but self centered ego when you are an addict
Thanks to Biden leaving the boarder wide open to allow anything and everything pour into America!
My strongest memory of this kid involves the apparent genetic predisposition in American women to cut their sons hair like his.
Throw in the possibility/probability that as a cute little boy in Hollyweird, he had been... ‘passed around’.
Between Hollyweird, DC, global human trafficking and the media at large, there’s an “adult world of attention” that is too depraved to know.
RIP, Adam Rich.
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