Reply #9: I read Leonard Maltin's book about the "Our Gang" clan.

[HughBeaumont]

It was called Our Gang: The Life and Times of the Little Rascals.

There was no joy or luck in that club, fer sure. They either died broke, accidentally, homicided or diseased. All before their times. Weezer was killed during a flying exercise. Chubby died of heart failure (due to a glandular ailment that fluctuated his weight from 300 to 140 pounds) at the age of 18. Stymie was a heroin addict. Switzer was a gambler with a taste for alcohol before he was murdered. Froggie got hit by a truck delivering papers at the age of 16 and died. Waldo was killed in a hit-and-run accident in 2002.

It's just like Danny Bonaduce said - "Most child actors were lucky enough to get the part in the first place. They cry and complain that now they are no longer little and cute Hollywood has no use for them. What we often fail to appreciate is that being little and cute may have been their only skill. Now that we are not so little anymore, and certainly not cute, some of us may have to face reality, stop whining, and get real jobs."

Our Gang really did set the trend for the Hollywood practice of chewing up and spitting out it's young in droves.