Anissa Jones and Mrs. Beasley on "Family Affair." My Facebook feed alerted me to fact that August 28th, 2013, is the 37th anniversary of the death of Anissa Jones, the young actress who played Buffy on the CBS sitcom "Family Affair." She was just 18 when she died of what coroner Robert Creason characterized as "one of the most severe cases of drug overdose ever seen in San Diego County." It reminded me of the time back in the early '90s when I was working on a cover story for Film Threat about child stars and I put in a public records request for her autopsy report (below).
(Click on image for enlarged view.)
Jones as a teenager. Dr. Don Carlos Moshos, a physician linked with her death, was charged with 11 felony counts of illegally prescribing powerful drugs. He pled guilty to 2 counts of illegally prescribing codeine, but died of cancer brought on by acute viral hepatitis before he could be sentenced.
In 1984, her younger brother, John Paul Jones, Jr., also died of a drug overdose.
In 1984, her younger brother, John Paul Jones, Jr., also died of a drug overdose.
Johnny Whitaker, who played Jones' twin brother Jody on "Family Affair" and later starred in Sid & Marty Kroft's Saturday morning show "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters," seemed like a good kid who survived child stardom unscathed. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in communications and spent two years on a Mormon mission in Portugal. But after his four-year marriage fell apart in 1988, Whitaker went to "the dark side," he says, and spent the next decade abusing drugs, mostly cocaine. "I made a conscious decision that being a goody two-shoes had gotten me nowhere," he told the L.A. Daily News in 2011.Clean and sober since 1997, Whitaker currently works as an anti-substance abuse professional and advocate, teaches acting and makes regular appearances at TV nostalgia conventions. He's the founder of Paso Por Paso, a non-profit organization that helps Spanish speaking addicts and their families find treatment and support.
Writer David Kulczyk provides a brief-but-brutal blow-by-blow of Jones' short, sad life on his web page. If you want to dive in deep and see how all-too-typical her story is, check out my "100 Years of Child Stars" timeline that runs the length of the Film Threat article, documenting everything from the anonymous junkie's death and pauper's grave burial of Bobby Driscoll (star of 1950's "Treasure Island" and voice of Disney's "Peter Pan") to former "Patridge Family" star Danny Bonaduce's 1990 bust for buying $20 worth of crack in a Florida housing project.
The Film Threat child stars issue also features my sadly prophetic "An Open Letter to Macaulay Culkin" (below).
The Film Threat child stars issue also features my sadly prophetic "An Open Letter to Macaulay Culkin" (below).
(Click on image for enlarged view.)
My favorite part is the five-step guide I wrote succinctly summing up the devastating effect stardom has on kids, "I Want to Turn My Child into a Raving Lunatic."
(Click on image for enlarged view.)
For all of my child star-related articles, including a 2010 feature for The Hollywood Reporter ("Why the Business of Child Actors Isn't Child's Play"), go to this page.
With all the research I've done on this subject, I can safely say that if you think someone has survived child stardom unscathed, you probably don't know the whole story.
With all the research I've done on this subject, I can safely say that if you think someone has survived child stardom unscathed, you probably don't know the whole story.
RSS Feed
