5 Feet of Fury

Jim Goad on Corey Feldman and the Hollywood “casting crib”

In a bit of a counterpoint to David Cole’s column last week, here’s Jim Goad:

That one creepy moment of eye contact—plus the fact that everything he’s done as an adult is so absolutely mental that I don’t know whether to mock him or feel sorry for him—makes me believe all his allegations of being tossed around as a pedo plaything during his movie days are 100% true.

On Friday, Feldman—considered by many to be Hollywood’s top male teen movie star of the 1980s—was allegedly arrested on suspicion of marijuana possession before a show at a bar in Louisiana. (…)

Not mentioned in the film is Jason James Murphy, an aspiring actor who at age 19 dressed as a woman and kidnapped an eight-year-old boy from a local elementary school. The manhunt for Murphy was featured on America’s Most Wanted, and after his capture he served a five-year sentence. But after getting out, he moved to Hollywood and was permitted to work on films such as Super 8, School of Rock, and Cheaper By The Dozen 2.

Like a lot of people, including members of my own family, Goad says that if anyone ever molested his son, he’d kill them.

Most of those people are liars.

Goad is one of maybe two — none of whom are related to me, need I add — who I believe would actually pull it off.