The musical Annie and the shattered lives in its wake

There've been a few documentaries about Annie. Even the ones that are pro-Annie reveal the dark underbelly of this grotesque musical.

Annie has left a trail of shattered lives, lost childhoods and broken homes.

First of all, they fire children right and left. One girl had the lead in Annie, she got bronchitis. She wanted to keep performing anyway, but the doctor told her mother he would call Child Protective Services if she did. It turns out the girl was right to be worried. She stayed home from work. Became suspicious when she learned that her understudy wasn't the one taking her place. And a fax arrived in the middle of the night. (This may have been before email was in general use.) The rotten bastards fired her by fax.

They would bring the girls out every week and weigh them and measure them. If they grew or gained weight, they were fired.

There were the broken families. One parent had to go on tour with the roadshow production of the play. This meant that parents were separated for long periods. There were several cases where this ended in divorce.

In one case, a mother was sleeping around while on the road. Another mother had to help her secure an abortion.

In another case, a girl from a single-parent home was in the production. Her mother traveled with her, meaning her brother had to be left with his aunt. The brother was essentially turned into an orphan so that his sister could play an orphan on stage.

There was a girl fired from the production. Her mother told her the news. She was fired for having grown a couple of inches. The girl threw an 8 x 10 glossy of herself on the floor, began stomping on it yelling, "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" at her own picture.

You watch video of the children working hard, rehearsing over and over as they sing about being forced to work.

But, of course, it's those of us who can't stand crap like Annie who are denounced for being cold-hearted and cynical.

The most hideously exploited child star in the movies or television is at least treated as a recognizable individual. With this disgusting musical, they just bring out another girl, put the wig on her, and the rubes in the audience don't know the difference.

Gary Coleman

Years ago, some friends came over. They wanted to annoy me. They did that now and then. They would come up with some plan, something they thought would get my goat. Then they'd come over and started talking to me, telling me something that was supposed to bother me.

On this occasion, they came over and told me that Gary Coleman was more successful than me even though I was five years older than him.

"Pretty much everybody is more successful that me," I said. "He was more successful than me when he was six."

They hung around for a while and then went away disappointed. I don't know why they thought that would bother me.

And today I heard the news that Gary Coleman had died at age 42.

I can't think of a child star who was exploited worse than he was. He said he wouldn't wish the first fifteen years of his life on his worse enemy. The last twenty-seven years were no picnic either.

He had health problems all his life. He was cruelly exploited by everyone involved in his career, including his own parents who had adopted him as a baby. They would lecture him----he was spending too much on his model trains----while they lived off his labor.

The first time I saw him on TV that I remember was on Fernwood Tonight. A lot of people appeared on that show who went on to bigger things. Robin Williams, Jim Varney. Even the children. There was Gary Coleman playing Martin Mull's son. There was Corey Feldman and Noah Hathaway. Coleman was at ease on the show. Completely natural. He sat on Martin Mull's lap, and Mull made a quip about how the audience couldn't see him.

"You want me to move?" Coleman said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86X3usshQBA

Well, that's a shame. He deserved so much better than he got.