Death
On January 18, 1990, Hamer died at the age of forty-two of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in DeRidder, the seat of Beauregard Parish in southwestern Louisiana. Hamer's suicide raised awareness of the potential mental fragility of child performers. It inspired fellow child actor, Paul Petersen, formerly of ABC's The Donna Reed Show, to establish the support group "A Minor Consideration," which seeks to improve working conditions for young actors and assists former child stars in making the transition from past fame to adult life.
For his contribution to television Hamer has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6323 Hollywood Boulevard.
Read more about this topic: Rusty Hamer
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“And anyone is free to condemn me to death
If he leaves it to nature to carry out the sentence.
I shall will to the common stock of air my breath
And pay a death tax of fairly polite repentance.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Could any death be so horrible as birth? Or any decrepitude so awful as childhood in a happy united God-fearing family?”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)