Adam Rich Former Child Star of Eight is Enough Dead at 54

Adam Rich, the child actor with a pageboy mop-top who captivated television audiences as “America’s little brother” on “Eight is Enough,” has died. He was 54.

Adam Rich died Saturday at his home in Los Angeles’ in a Brentwood neighborhood, according to Lt. Aimee Earl of the Los Angeles County Medical-Examiner Coroner’s office. The cause of death was being investigated, but it was not thought to be suspicious.

Rich had a limited acting career after appearing as Nicholas Bradford, the youngest of eight children, on the ABC hit drama from 1977 to 1981 when he was eight years old.

Betty Buckley, who played his stepmother on the show, posted on Instagram that she was shocked to learn of his death on Sunday and described Rich as a “light,” her “young pal” on set, and friend ever since.

“I adored him and loved working with him,” Buckley said, posting photos from the show of the two of them on a swing set, horseback, and with her arm around him while he slept. “He was so sweet, funny, young, and genuine. He made everyone on the show and our viewers very happy.”

Rich’s post-stardom public life was similar to that of other child actors whose promising careers were derailed by drugs and alcohol, as well as run-ins with the law.

Adam Rich Arrested

He was arrested for DUI in 2002 after nearly colliding with a parked California Highway Patrol cruiser in a freeway lane closed for maintenance. In April 1991, he was arrested for attempting to break into a pharmacy, and in October of that year, he was arrested for allegedly stealing a drug-filled syringe at a hospital where he was being treated for a dislocated shoulder.

Rich suffered from a type of depression that defied treatment, and he had tried to remove the stigma associated with discussing mental illness, according to publicist Danny Deraney. Over the years, he tried various experimental cures without success.

Deraney said he and others close to Rich were concerned when they couldn’t reach him in recent weeks.

“He was just a very kind, generous, loving soul,” Deraney said of his father. “Being a famous actor was not necessarily what he desired. He didn’t have an ounce of ego.”

Adam Rich opened up about his mental health on Twitter and revealed that he’d been sober for seven years in October. He admitted that he wasn’t perfect, citing arrests, multiple stints in rehab, multiple overdoses, and “countless detoxes (and) relapses,” and urged his nearly 19,000 followers to never give up.

“Human beings were not designed to suffer from mental illness,” Rich said on Twitter in September. “The mere fact that some people regard those as weak or lacking in willpower is completely laughable… because it’s the exact opposite! Fighting such illnesses requires a very strong person… a warrior, if you will.”

A modern day Mickey Rooney

Adam Rich shared an old photo of himself with one-time child star Mickey Rooney.

“Everyone used to tell me, ‘You are the modern-day Mickey Rooney,'” he said on Twitter. “However, when Mickey Rooney told me that himself, it meant a lot more to me!”

Adam Rich took part in a hoax created by Might magazine nearly 27 years ago about the actor being killed in a robbery outside a Los Angeles nightclub in 1996. The article was meant to be a satire of America’s celebrity obsession, but it fizzled when the spoof was revealed.

“I believe we were too subtle. “People didn’t get the joke,” Rich later explained to the Chicago Tribune. “I don’t want to die.”

Rich played the mop-top son of a newspaper columnist played by Dick Van Patten, who has to raise eight children alone after his wife in the show — and the actress who played her — died during the first season’s filming.

According to IMDB.com, Adam Rich starred in “Code Red” from 1981 to 1982 and voiced Presto the Magician on “Dungeons & Dragons” from 1983 to 1985. In two “Eight is Enough” TV movie reunions, he reprised his most well-known role.

The majority of his acting career, however, was spent in single-episode roles on some of the most popular TV shows of the time, including “The Love Boat,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “Silver Spoons,” and “Baywatch.” His most recent IMDB credit was as Crocodile Dundee in “Reel Comedy” in 2003.