Before There Was Daveigh Chase, There Was Bobby Driscoll
The Disney child star pipeline has always been tragic, and this was the start
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The death of Lilo & Stitch actress Daveigh Chase at the age of 35 has stuck with me a lot longer than I anticipated. Like most millennials, I grew up with the one-two punch of Chase making me love her as the voice of the precocious Lilo in Disney's 2002 family adventure, and then scaring the crap out of me as well dweller Samara in Gore Verbinski's The Ring (2003). After that, I saw Chase pop up in other movies – I had a big Donnie Darko phase, as did most teens I grew up with – and then figured she'd moved on with her life. The awkward teen years are never good for a female child star, especially.
But hearing about her passing on June 16 of bacterial meningitis (the LA county coroner officially labeled her cause of death as AIDS related yesterday), enhanced by malnutrition was shocking. How could this happen? Almost immediately "concerned" family members and friends started popping out of the woodwork, giving us snatches of Chase's life that included addiction, homelessness, and eventually living a life on the street that ended with her death.
