Adam Rich, former ‘Eight Is Enough’ little one star, dies at 54 – National

Adam Rich, the kid actor with a pageboy mop-top who charmed TV audiences as “America’s little brother” on Eight is Enough, has died. He was 54.

Rich died Saturday at his residence within the Brentwood part of Los Angeles, in response to Lt. Aimee Earl of the Los Angeles County Medical-Examiner Coroner’s workplace. The reason for demise is below investigation however shouldn’t be thought of to be suspicious.

Rich had a restricted performing profession after starring at age 8 as Nicholas Bradford, the youngest of eight youngsters, on the ABC hit dramedy that ran from from 1977 to 1981.

Betty Buckley, who performed his stepmother on the present, mentioned on Instagram that she was shocked to study of his demise Sunday and referred to Rich as her “young pal” on set and buddy ever since.

“I adored him and loved working with him,” mentioned Buckley, who posted images from the present of the 2 of them collectively on a swing set, on horseback and along with her arm round him whereas he was sleeping. “He was so sweet, funny, fresh and natural. He brought a lot of joy to all of us on the show and to our audiences.”

Rich’s public life after stardom was just like that different little one actors whose promising careers are later derailed by medicine and alcohol, and run-ins with the regulation.

He was arrested for driving below the affect in 2002 after almost placing a parked California Highway Patrol cruiser in a freeway lane closed for upkeep. He was arrested in April 1991 for making an attempt to interrupt right into a pharmacy and in October of that yr for allegedly stealing a drug-filled syringe at a hospital the place he was being handled for a dislocated shoulder.

Rich suffered from a kind of despair that defied remedy and he had tried to erase the stigma of speaking about psychological sickness, mentioned publicist Danny Deraney. He unsuccessfully tried experimental cures through the years.

Deraney mentioned he and others near Rich had been nervous in current weeks after they couldn’t attain him.

“He was just a very kind, generous, loving soul,” Deraney informed The Associated Press. “Being a famous actor is not necessarily what he wanted to be. … He had no ego, not an ounce of it.”

Rich mentioned his psychological well being on Twitter and famous in October that he’d been sober for seven years. He mentioned he wasn’t good — referring to arrests, many stints in rehab, a number of overdoses and “countless detoxes (and) relapses” — and urged his almost 19,000 followers to by no means quit.

“Human beings weren’t built to endure mental illness,” Rich tweeted in September. “The mere fact that some people consider those to be weak, or have a lack of will is totally laughable … because it’s the total opposite! It’s takes a very, very strong person … a warrior if you will … to battle such illnesses.”

Rich was the little brother to a era of TV viewers because the son of a newspaper columnist performed by Dick Van Patten, who has to lift eight youngsters alone after his spouse within the present — and the actress who performed her — died throughout filming of the primary season.

Rich starred within the sequence “Code Red” from 1981-82 and voiced the character of Presto the Magician on Dungeons & Dragons from 1983-85, in response to the IMDB.com. He reprised his best-known position in two Eight is Enough TV film reunions.

But the steadiness of his performing profession was in single-episode appearances on a few of the hottest TV reveals of the time: The Love Boat, The Six Million Dollar Man, Silver Spoons, and Baywatch. His most up-to-date credit score listed on IMDB was taking part in Crocodile Dundee on Reel Comedy in 2003.

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