Corey Feldman Biography

Corey Scott was the second of five children. His mother Sheila was a cocktail waitress, who once took a turn as a Playboy bunny and his father Bob a producer and musician.

Following in their parent’s footsteps, the theme in the Feldman family seemed to be fame and entertainment and Feldman’s sister Mindy had the honour of being the youngest member of the Mickey Mouse Club in the 1970s at age six.

It wasn’t long before Feldman followed in his big sister’s footsteps and by the mere age of three, he was appearing in an advert for the McDonald’s food chain. In no time, the offers came flooding in for work and Corey was soon the main breadwinner in the family, before reaching puberty!

A turn in the short-lived TV series The Bad News Bears (1979-80) helped propel his career further and in the same year the series was coming to an end, Feldman earned his first film role in Time After Time. Big screen hits would follow in the form of Gremlins (1984), The Goonies (1985) - thanks to Steven Spielberg being so impressed by Feldman’s turn in Friday 13th: Final Chapter (1984) - and in Stand By Me (1986).

Meeting Corey Haim on the set of The Lost Boys in 1987 would ignite a partnership that would see the pair dubbed ‘the two Coreys' and secure an acting friendship that led to the duo starring in several films together, including Dream a Little Dream in 1989.

The beginning of a new decade spelled a different kind of career high for Feldman when his private battle with drugs became public knowledge, following the end of a brief relationship with actress Drew Barrymore. In March 1990, he was arrested while driving in a dubious area of Los Angeles and was found to have heroin and cocaine on his person.

Eager to clean up his act, Feldman went straight into rehab and won a community service spell for his arrest rather than imprisonment.

By 1992 he was working again, having convinced Hollywood of his rehabilitation. He married actress Vanessa Marcil that year, only to divorce soon after in 1993. Marcil is said to be so embarrassed by their brief relationship that she denies ever marrying Feldman.

Feldman was determined to fight back from the negative press surrounding his drugs controversy and made an effort to re-establish his career by taking parts in small films and even releasing a music album in 1993 called ‘Love Left’. Unfortunately the album didn't sell very well, although it did feature a moderately successful single ‘Honesty’.

An on-screen reconciliation with Corey Haim in 1992’s Blown Away did not reach the same level of enthusiasm that the pair once would have received, but Feldman continued to work steadily and by the late 1990s, he had released a second album ‘Still Searching for Soul’ with his band, Corey Feldman’s Truth Movement.

Despite his lack of success in the music world, Feldman persisted and he released ‘Former Child Star’ in 2002, which was also a critical and commercial failure.

In the same year, after touring with the album, Feldman appeared in the reality show, The Surreal Life. The concept of the programme involved a number of celebrities living together in a Big Brother-esque environment. The show did little to invigorate Feldman’s fan base due to the general consensus that he seemed to moan and whine in diva fashion the entire time. In the final episode of the show he was married to his then fiancé Susi Sprague by another star-from-the-past, rapper MC Hammer. The couple remain together and their son Zen was born in August 2004.

In 2005, Feldman made his stage debut in the off-Broadway play Fatal Attraction, a parody of the seminal 1987 film classic. The play was well-received by critics and led to a call from the A&E network about a new TV show.

Back on form with old chum Corey Haim, The Two Coreys aired in 2007 under the premise of both Coreys playing fictional versions of themselves. The show went down well in the states and production started on a second season early in 2008.

Throughout Feldman’s life and career, he has experienced the atypical Hollywood peaks and troughs, but can be acknowledged as bouncing back from it all with a resilience that many other stars could learn a thing or two from. Expect to see him on TV, the big screen or even just your local DVD shelf for a long while to come.