Bobby Buntrock was only 21 years old when he died in a car crash on April 7, 1974. His vehicle plunged into Battle Creek in South Dakota while crossing a bridge under construction, and he drowned. He was buried in Keystone Cemetery in Keystone, South Dakota. Buntrock had been a familiar face on American television in the early 1960s.
Born on August 4, 1952, in Denver, Colorado, he moved to California as a young child after neighbors suggested his parents consider acting for him. He landed his first role at age seven on the western Wagon Train in 1959 and also appeared on Mr. Ed, The Donna Reed Show, and in commercials for Rockem Sockem Robots. In 1961, he was cast as Harold “Sport” Baxter on the sitcom Hazel, starring Shirley Booth.
The show ran for five seasons, moving from NBC to CBS for its final year in 1965–66, when the cast was reformatted. After Hazel ended in 1966, Buntrock appeared in just two episodes of The Virginian in 1967 and never acted professionally again. He later graduated from Sturgis Brown High School in South Dakota in 1970. Brandon deWilde is best remembered for his Oscar-nominated role as young Joey Starrett in the 1953 film Shane.
Born Andre Brandon deWilde in Brooklyn to Dutch immigrant parents, he began his career on Broadway at age seven in The Member of the Wedding. Unlike many child stars, deWilde managed a smoother transition into adult roles. His notable films included All Fall Down, Hud, Those Calloways, and In Harm’s Way. He also appeared in television series such as Wagon Train, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.
His final film was Wild in the Sky in 1972. On July 6, 1972, while in Denver, Colorado, performing in the play Butterflies Are Free, deWilde was driving a camper van that went off the road and struck a guardrail and a parked truck. He was not wearing a seat belt. The van rolled onto its side and trapped him.
He died at St. Anthony Hospital from multiple injuries, including a broken back, neck, and leg. He was 30 years old. Jack Wild became a global star as the Artful Dodger in the 1968 film Oliver!
, earning Academy Award, Golden Globe, and BAFTA nominations. Born on September 30, 1952, in Royton, England, he was discovered while playing football in a park by theatrical agent June Collins, mother of future pop star Phil Collins. Wild also played Jimmy in the children’s series H. R.
Pufnstuf in 1969 and the follow-up film in 1970. He was 17 when he played the 11-year-old lead. By the early 1970s, he was a teen heartthrob alongside David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman and recorded several albums. By age 21, however, Wild was struggling with alcoholism and diabetes.
His drinking caused three cardiac arrests, numerous hospital stays, and the breakdown of his marriage to Gainner Jones, who left him in 1985. He stopped drinking in 1989 after joining the Christian support group Alcoholics Victorious. In 2000, he was diagnosed with oral cancer, which he blamed on his drinking and smoking. Treatment removed part of his tongue and both vocal cords, leaving him unable to speak.
He died on March 1, 2006, at age 53. Anissa Jones became famous at age eight as Buffy on the CBS sitcom Family Affair, which ran from 1966 to 1971. Born on March 11, 1958, in West Lafayette, Indiana, she made her television debut in a commercial at age six and later appeared alongside Elvis Presley in The Trouble with Girls in 1969. She ended her acting career at age 12 when Family Affair concluded.
In a 1993 interview, actress Kathy Garver said Jones had turned down the lead role in The Exorcist. After the show ended, Brian Keith, who played her on-screen uncle, offered her a part in his new series The Little People, but she declined, saying she no longer wanted to act. On August 28, 1976, Jones was found dead in a bedroom of a house in Oceanside, California, after a night of partying with friends. The coroner ruled her death accidental, caused by a drug overdose combining cocaine, angel dust, Quaaludes, and Seconal.
The San Diego County coroner described it as one of the most severe overdose cases he had encountered in the county. She was 18 years old. Her ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean. Dr.
Don Carlos Moss, who had prescribed Seconal to Jones, was arrested six days after her death and charged with illegally prescribing drugs. An envelope found at the scene contained his business address and details about the drug and its recipient. He was charged with 11 offenses but died four months later from complications related to hepatitis, diabetes, high blood pressure, and senility. Jones’s family filed a lawsuit against his estate seeking $400,000; in 1979, a verdict found Moss 30 percent liable and Jones 70 percent responsible, resulting in a judgment of $79,500.
In 1984, her brother Paul also died of a drug overdose at age 24. Jackie Coogan was one of the first major child stars, appearing with Charlie Chaplin in The Kid in 1921 and later in Oliver Twist. Born John Leslie Coogan on October 26, 1914, in Los Angeles, he earned as much as $4 million a year as a child, including income from merchandising his image on everything from peanut butter to records. When he came of age, Coogan discovered that nearly his entire fortune had been spent by his mother and stepfather, Arthur Bernstein.
He sued his mother and received only $126,000. The legal battle led to the California Child Actor’s Bill, commonly known as the Coogan Act, which protects child actors’ earnings and working conditions. After serving in the Army Air Forces during World War II, Coogan took character roles on television and became widely known for playing Uncle Fester on The Addams Family from 1964 to 1966. He was married four times, including a brief marriage to Betty Grable from 1937 to 1939.
He suffered several strokes in the 1980s and died of cardiac arrest on March 1, 1984, at age 69. Bobby Driscoll was one of Disney’s most popular child actors in the 1940s and early 1950s. Born on March 3, 1937, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he won roles in films such as The Fighting Sullivans, Song of the South, So Dear to My Heart, and Treasure Island. He also voiced the title role in Disney’s animated Peter Pan in 1953 and received an Academy Juvenile Award in 1950.
His career declined as he reached adolescence, and he struggled with drug addiction. Disney fired him from his contract in 1953. In the 1960s, he became homeless and was arrested several times for petty crimes. He moved to New York in 1965, hoping to revive his career on Broadway, but was unsuccessful.
On March 30, 1968, two boys playing in an abandoned East Village tenement found his body. A post-mortem determined he had died of heart failure caused by drug abuse. He was 31. With no identification on his body, he was buried in an unmarked mass grave on Hart Island, New York City’s Potter’s Field.
His mother later sought help from Disney officials to contact him for a reunion with his dying father, which led to a fingerprint match confirming his burial on Hart Island. His remains were never moved. He was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2008. Dana Plato became a household name as Kimberly Drummond on the hit sitcom Diff’rent Strokes, which debuted in 1978.
Born on November 7, 1964, in Maywood, California, she was adopted as an infant and appeared in more than 100 television commercials as a child. After giving birth to her son Tyler in July 1984, Plato was dismissed from Diff’rent Strokes, reportedly due to her pregnancy and struggles with substance abuse. Her later years were marked by financial troubles, a custody loss, and legal problems. In February 1991, she robbed a video store of $164 using a pellet weapon; after the clerk told police she was “the girl who played Kimberly on Diff’rent Strokes,” she was arrested.
Wayne Newton posted her bail. She received five years’ probation and later served 30 days in jail for forging a prescription. On May 8, 1999, while on a Mother’s Day visit in Moore, Oklahoma, Plato died in her sleep inside a motor home. She was 34.
Her death was attributed to an overdose of painkillers and a muscle relaxant, according to the medical examiner’s official report. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean. On May 6, 2010, two days before the 11th anniversary of her death, her son Tyler took his own life at age 26. Gary Coleman became one of television’s most recognizable child stars as Arnold Jackson on Diff’rent Strokes.
Born on February 8, 1968, in Zion, Illinois, he was adopted and grew to only 4 feet 8 inches tall due to a congenital kidney disease and the medication used to treat it. He had two unsuccessful kidney transplants and required frequent dialysis. Coleman earned a reported $100,000 per episode during the show’s eight-season run, but later said he was left with little money after paying his parents, taxes, lawyers, and advisers. Like Jackie Coogan, he sued his parents and former advisers, winning a $1.
3 million settlement in 1993. He filed for bankruptcy in 1999, partly due to medical expenses. Coleman’s final years included health struggles and a brief, turbulent marriage to Shannon Price. On May 26, 2010, he was admitted to a Utah hospital in critical condition after falling down the stairs at home and hitting his head, possibly after a seizure.
He died on May 28, 2010, at age 42. Johnny Sheffield starred as Boy in the Tarzan films opposite Johnny Weissmuller and later headlined his own jungle adventure series as Bomba the Jungle Boy. Born on April 11, 1931, in Pasadena, California, he was chosen for the Tarzan role over more than 300 other boys after his father saw a casting notice in the Hollywood Reporter. His first film was Tarzan Finds a Son!
in 1939. He played Boy in three Tarzan films at MGM and five more after production moved to RKO. He then appeared as Bomba in 12 films between 1949 and 1955. At age 24, he retired from show business to study business at UCLA and later worked in real estate, farming, and construction.
On October 15, 2010, Sheffield fell from a ladder while pruning a palm tree. His injuries were not considered life-threatening, but he died of a heart attack four hours later in Chula Vista, California. He was 79. Annette Funicello became a Disney icon as one of the original Mouseketeers in 1955.
Born on October 22, 1942, in Utica, New York, she was discovered by Walt Disney himself. She appeared in a series of popular beach movies in the early 1960s, often co-starring with Frankie Avalon, and also recorded several albums. In 1987, during the filming of Back to the Beach with Avalon, she began experiencing symptoms of what was later diagnosed as multiple sclerosis. She disclosed her condition publicly in 1992, and by 1993 she could no longer walk.
In 2011, her Los Angeles home burned down, and she and her husband were hospitalized with smoke inhalation. She died on April 8, 2013, from complications of MS. She was 70. Anton Yelchin was born on March 11, 1989, in Leningrad, in what was then the Soviet Union.
His parents were pair figure skaters with the Leningrad Ice Ballet who had been prevented from competing in the 1972 Winter Olympics because they were Jewish. The family later emigrated to the United States. Yelchin built a respected career in film and television, appearing in Along Came a Spider, Hearts in Atlantis, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. He was best known for playing Pavel Chekov in the Star Trek reboot films in 2009, 2013, and 2016, and for playing a young Kyle Reese in Terminator Salvation in 2009.
On June 18, 2016, Yelchin died in a freak accident in the driveway of his Studio City home. He had stepped out of his Jeep Grand Cherokee to check his mail when the vehicle rolled backward down the steep driveway, pinning him against a brick pillar and gate. He was found near midnight by friends and pronounced dead at the scene. He was 27.
The Los Angeles County Coroner identified the cause of death as blunt traumatic asphyxia and found no suspicious circumstances. His family later settled a lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler out of court. Matthew Garber is remembered for playing young Michael Banks in Mary Poppins. Born on March 25, 1956, in London, he was the son of stage performers and was recommended to Disney Studios by Shakespearean actor Roy Dotrice, father of his future co-star Karen Dotrice.
He made his screen debut at age seven in The Three Lives of Thomasina in 1963. He co-starred with Karen Dotrice again in Mary Poppins in 1964 and in The Gnome-Mobile in 1967. He stepped away from acting in his teenage years. In 1976–77, while in India, he contracted hepatitis.
He returned to London for treatment in June 1977, but the disease had already infected his pancreas. He died on June 13, 1977, of hemorrhagic necrotizing pancreatitis. He was 21.
Garber was posthumously named a Disney Legend in 2004.