Enough Is Enough

For Hayden, Mishy and Daveigh

How is it possible that no one in the mainstream media has picked up on this?

Within one year, Michelle Trachtenberg, Daveigh Chase and Hayden Panettiere have died. DIED! Three former female child actors of the same generation are gone. Tragically, heartbreakingly, agonizingly too soon.

I call them female actors because the term actress, to me is as misogynistic as calling a female doctor a doctress.

They are gone and the question I have been turning over and over in my head is, ‘WHY?”. Why are these three sweet, wildly talented, vibrant, vital young women gone?

And why does this all feel so personal to me? I did not know Hayden personally and only worked briefly with Mishy and Daveigh. It feels personal because I was them. As were Tatum, Kristy, Brooke, Patty, Anyssa, Dakota, Elle, Shirley, Britney, Jodie, Drew and my sister Sara, to name a few.

We are all members of the same tribe; Female Former Child Performers, and when one of us dies, it runs through all of us like an electrical current.

When three of us die so close together, something is very, very wrong.

We all know the stories of how the entertainment industry uses, abuses, exploits and then throws away it’s youngest, but for some reason, this trend is getting worse. My thinking is that it is tied to the invention of the mobile phone.

Once a VIP area, lounge or anything meant privacy. We could travel to restaurants, events, clubs, etc. and go through the paparazzi into a safe zone. The invention of the mobile phone with camera obliterated that.

Now everyone is a paparazzo. There is no privacy. What’s worse, is that what was once kept private is now exploited and sold. Often with the profits going to those whom the victim (yes, victim) was/is closest to and trusts. It’s not just in restaurants, clubs, and on red carpets, it’s in homes, doctor’s offices, schools, everywhere.

The media uses it for click bait and they profit. The voracious, tabloid-happy public eats it up with a spoon so they can feel better about their own lives. They can point to and judge these articles about addiction, dysfunction and misery. It’s all an Uroboric Horror…. A monster that eats itself.

The real question haunting me is “How do we fix or end this before someone else dies?”

Maybe we all stop clicking. Maybe we allow these women privacy. Maybe we listen when men like my friend, Jack Coleman, call out the misogyny that drives the media and its audience.

Maybe it’s the parents of these young women who set them up for these horrendous ends.

It is likely a combination of many factors, but it is incumbent on those of us who came before to support those experiencing it now.

Where is our Union in all of this?

Where is the collective outrage?

Where are the regulations?

Where is the protection of privacy?

It really seems like no one cares enough to enact real change. At least, not until the next death and everyone talks about how sad they are and how we must do something and then they forget and get on with their lives until it happens again and again and again.

Yes, addiction is a real disease. Family dysfunction is real. PTSD is real. In actors, all those things are assets. They enable us to access emotion and share it with an audience. But when it comes through children, it should be treated tenderly, protectively, respectfully and in a way that is as limited as possible.

One of the most universal assets and ultimate liabilities I hear about child actors is that they “Deliver no matter what.” They are referred to as, “soldiers”, “Machines”, “Pros”. Saying ‘no’ is something child actors are discouraged from doing. Lest they seem difficult.

And then, there’s the “Doctor Show Syndrome”. That’s the thing that kicks in and enables us to perform when we are sick both physically and emotionally.

I can’t tell you how many times I worked while horribly sick, injured or worse. My father died when I was just eleven years old and I was back working on Little House within months. And not one single adult on that set discussed it with me or offered condolences. I later found out that the fear was I would become too upset to work. I was eleven, my Daddy had just died and I was shattered. Thank God my character cried in every single episode. That, as twisted as it sounds, was my therapy. My release.

But that set me up for a pattern of working no matter what. I even nearly worked to death a few times. At twenty-two, I had an emergency appendectomy right in the middle of shooting a movie of the week in Portland Oregon. I felt so bad that I was affecting the schedule, I went back to work three days later. A few days after that I got sick with a horrible fever. I continued to film a few more days until I finished my work, flew home and was immediately hospitalized hallucinating from the fever. I was on the verge of sepsis.

I’ve since worked with pneumonia, through divorces, deaths, with the flu, broken toes, a concussion, stitches, a dislocated knee, and danced on stage in a musical for six months, with what I would later find out was a broken back, because I didn’t want to cause problems or be thought of as unreliable or worse, a diva.

That is what we are taught as young actors. These young professionals are children, and we should make sure they are allowed to be children. They should be allowed to say “no”. Not push through physical or emotional pain. Not be made to support their entire families. And most certainly not to be followed everywhere they go by cameras, phones and prying, exploitive eyes.

I recently watched footage of a sweet, young Britney Spears being interviewed by Matt Lauer and him asking her what it will take to make the paparazzi go away. Her reaction shattered me. Her quivering lip, tears and overwhelming sadness fully on display. That should have been enough but no, cameras still follow her everywhere she goes. Not for fun. They are waiting for their next headline. Their next click. Their next sale. The worst part is, it’s not just the media. It’s people she encounters every single day.

Imagine for a moment that you go to your local CVS for something personal and it becomes a viral headline. Of course you can’t…that’s not your life. But I bet you’ll read about her buying feminine itch cream, or driving drunk, or whatever the fuck she or any of us is doing.

As I am typing and editing this Anna Paquin posted something on her Instagram account which I reposted. She did put these three tragic deaths together and offered for anyone experiencing similar issues to reach out to her. I actually see in that, the beginning of a possible solution of sorts.

Our union has really been unable to do anything substantive about this. Sure, there’s a young performers committee, but it is essentially toothless, political and tends to get short shrift because there are always bigger fish to fry. They have handbooks and orientations but no real functioning, well-funded, far reaching support group.

It’s clear that no one else is going to do it for us, so maybe one solution is for us, Anna, myself, Drew, Elle, Dakota, Jodie, Sara ,Kristy, Brooke, Bella, Emma, Amber, Abbie, Cynthia, Sarah Jessica, Reese etc. to take this into our own hands.

Maybe we start a group of our own to meet and share ideas and ways we might be able lobby to support these young women.

Maybe we sit down with the heads of the studios and Networks and have real conversations about mitigating exploitation. They have certainly come a long way from then days of giving pills to poor Judy Garland. Or horrendously overworking and controlling a young Elizabeth Taylor. She once told me that aside from making friends with Roddy McDowel, her experience as a child actor was nothing but misery.

Then there was Patty Duke. Given to her managers as a child who horribly abused her while the studios and networks gleefully worked her to a frazzle.

I think if we collectively had the opportunity to sit down with these “bosses” we might be able to work with them to Lobby for and enact real, substantive change.

Mental health care is available for corporate, tech, public sector and government workers, but for performers it is only available if one qualifies for health insurance based on earnings.

We need to work with the studios and networks to establish accessible free mental health support for all child actors as they transition into young adulthood. That can only be accomplished with industry-wide cooperation.

Maybe we can show up on a set where one is struggling and just be there to support and help them self-advocate.

Maybe we start collectively speaking up and admonishing the media for its unbounded exploitation.

Maybe we get a ribbon on red carpets that simply says “ENOUGH”.

Maybe our ranks grow in number, and we begin to affect change through legislation that would enforce boundaries and rights to privacy.

Maybe then we begin to change the culture of our industry and the media.

All I know is something has got to be done.

I have this image in my mind of Hayden’s little girl who will now grow up without her Mama. She is eleven years old. That’s the same age I was when my father died.

And now I am weeping as I type this and I just want to scream from the rooftops,

“ENOUGH!”