What is the most stressful, hazardous job in Hollywood? Stunt people? Show runners? Producers? Personal assistants to celebrities?
Well in the more than 100 years of Hollywood’s movie and TV industries, in the greater scheme of things, I would say the answer would be child stars.
Child stars?
They may look cute and precocious in roles in family-oriented fare that would make them mega stars. But like a car, they begin to show their age and lose their lustre as they get older. Their fishbowl careers in the spotlight and in front of the camera can end quite abruptly as these cute kids become adults. And if they don’t face the reality of having a regular life after the glimmer and glamour of Hollywood fades, the results can be tragic.
Bankruptcy, drug addiction, alcoholism, crime, poverty and psychiatric issues are the end results. And the child star casualty list is endless: Jackie Coogan, Bobby Driscoll, Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, Rusty Hamer, Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges, Dana Plato, Patty Duke and Danny Bonaduce, to name a few.
Another name to add to this casualty list is Jennette McCurdy, who was best known for her recurring role of Sam Puckett on the Nickelodeon teen sitcom iCarly from 2007 – 2012, and its spinoff Sam & Cat in 2013-2014 (which she co-starred with an up and coming young singer named Ariana Grande). During her time on both series, McCurdy endured the hazards of being a child star who couldn’t handle the sudden fame, such as a stage mother from hell, condescending producers, endless promotional tours, health issues (including a near-fatal eating disorder) and a struggle to draw the line between fantasy and reality.
Luckily, McCurdy survived this uphill struggle, left the acting profession and still lives in L.A. As a form of self-therapy, she put together a solo show that played to sold-out crowds in L.A., which evolved into her #1 New York Times best-selling memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died.
This book is one of the best former child star memoirs since Patty Duke’s Call Me Anna. McCurdy tells her story in a blunt, honest and humourous manner of how she lived through an upbringing in California that was white trash in nature in a ramshackle house filled with furniture that was Walmart and Costco chic. At the age of six, McCurdy won her first acting audition, with the goal of living her mother’s dream of fame and fortune in show business. And her mother put her through the wringer towards that goal in such extreme measures, which reached its peak with what her mom called “calorie restriction”, which meant eating nothing but granola bars and steamed vegetables and weighing herself five times a day, in order to get that perfect show business weight that could win her more auditions.
When McCurdy auditioned for – and won – the part of Sam Puckett in iCarly, it was more like being a successful actor so that her mom could taste the fame. In fact, McCurdy was uncomfortable in the spotlight and became more and more of a reluctant celebrity (similar to what Milhouse experienced when he won the role of Fallout Boy in the Radioactive Man movie in that well-known Simpsons episode). And that sense of reluctance led to self-punishment to spite her mother, especially anorexia and bulimia. And to top things off, her mother was dying of a terminal form of cancer, which strengthened her mother-daughter ties and determination of making her final years more comfortable, but at times veered off from reason and rationality, especially during a birthday dinner when she asked McCurdy if she would sing “Wind Beneath My Wings” at her funeral.
However, she credits her friendship with iCarly star Miranda Cosgrove as a way of preserving her sanity and get the chance to live life as a real teenager than a shadow of her mother’s ambitions. “We’ve gotten so close. Like sisters, but without the passive-aggression and weird tensions. I have my judgments around female friendships being catty and petty and backstabby, but that couldn’t be further from the truth with Miranda,” writes McCurdy. “With Miranda, it’s always been so easy. Our friendship is pure.”
Part memoir, part confessional and part toxic, dysfunctional soap opera, I’m Glad My Mom Died is a brutally honest coming to terms story of child star fame being lived through the dreams of an overly-ambitious parent from a survivor of a group of young stars who ended up on a too-lengthy casualty list.
As Jennette McCurdy sums it up in an highly unabashed manner at the end of the book: “If she were still alive, she’d still be trying her best to manipulate me into being who she wants me to be. I’d still be purging or restricting or binging or some combination of the three and she’d still be endorsing it. I’d still be forcing myself to act, miserably going through the motions of performing on shiny sitcoms … There’s a good chance I would’ve had a complete and public mental breakdown by this point. I’d still be deeply unhappy and severely mentally unhealthy.”
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