Child actors who became adult stars

"Tap dancing from age three, she also modeled during her elementary school and began appearing on such TV shows as Captain Midnight (1954) and Annie Oakley (1954) (the latter a recurring role). At age 12, she made her professional film debut in the Rock Hudson/Cornell Borchers tearjerker Never Say Goodbye (1956) as Hudson's daughter, and went on to play kid sister roles in the rock 'n' roll-themed Rock, Pretty Baby! (1956) and its sequel Summer Love (1958) both starring John Saxon.

Teen-idol status came with her coming-of-age role as the ever-wholesome daughter "Mary Stone" on The Donna Reed Show (1958), a part she played for five seasons before embarking on a more grown-up film career. more here

Kurt Russell:

Peter Lawford acted in several movies as a child, though he wasn’t a child star. 

Lord Jeff (1938) with Freddie Bartholomew. 





Someone should do TV series on Lawford. He had a very unusual, event filled life. He was the illegitimate son of a British WWI hero and KBE and a social climbing minor aristocrat. They later married, but disgraced from British proper society, so the family travelled as ne’er do-wells between the wars, until finally landing in West Palm Beach when the money and friends’ largess ran out. 



Peter parked cars in Palm Beach to support the family and he was already being pimped out to his mother’s society friends and continue the practice in Florida. When he was spotted by a customer eating lunch with his Black co-workers, it’s alleged the customer complained to his supervisor about letting a white boy fraternize with them. That man was Joseph P Kennedy. 

Due to his time in Hollywood when his mother was pushing him as a child star, a producer or actor recognized and got him an introduction with MGM. He was hired and worked steadily as a young leading man during WWII due a childhood injury to his right arm giving him a 4F status, even briefly becoming the top box office star. 



At MGM, he became best friends with Frank Sinatra until both men dated Eva Gardner. Frank hated Peter until he married Pat Kennedy and became brother-in-law to JFK. Then Peter was invited back into Frank’s rat pack. 



Lawford introduced Marilyn Monroe the Kennedy’s and was on the phone with her the night she killed herself. And when Bobby Kennedy put the kabosh on the President staying at Sinatra’s Palm Springs house due to his connections to a man RFK was investigating, Lawford delivered the bad news to Frank. It didn’t go well. 





Frank never spoke to him again except a month after the assassination when Frank Jr was kidnapped and he ask Lawford to contact RFK who was still the attorney general. Lawford plugged on with his career, he was actually a good actor, well liked in Hollywood, and had impeccable manners, a true gentleman. 



But the years of alcohol, studio induced drug addiction, and jetset living took him down and died broke. His friends said he never recovered from JFK’s death as the two men had become very close. Lawford delivered a lot of star power for his campaign. He was somewhat the orchestrator of the Camelot mystic. 

Remarkably, he kept his good looks until old age. 



He was the poor man’s Cary Grant. 

Reese Witherspoon


The Man in the Moon




Legally Blonde