Rusty Hamer

Rusty Hamer (born February 15, 1947 in Tenafly , New Jersey , † January 18, 1990 in DeRidder , Beauregard Parish , Louisiana ) was an American film actor .

Life

Childhood and career

Rusty Hamer was born the son of the silent film actress Dorothy Chretin and a camera technician whose name is unknown. Due to the early death of his father in 1953 - Hamer was only six years old - the boy now had to act as a “breadwinner” in the family, and in the same year he took on his first minor role at the Western Fort Ti . After a handful of other roles, including the 1956 film classic Tolle Jungs im Einsatz ( Dance with Me Henry ) alongside Abbott and Costello , he was offered the role in 1953 with which he is still best known today. In the future, he was to play the charming freckled boy Rusty Williams at the side of Danny Thomas in the sitcom Make Room for Daddy . The series ran for twelve years, between 1953 and 1965, and was a complete success. In 1970, the producers ventured into a spin-off called Make Room for Granddaddy , but this series was a flop, so it was discontinued in 1971 after only 13 episodes.

Next life

The end of the series also meant the end of his career as an actor for the then 24-year-old. The producers had lost interest in him. He had made a lot of money from his film career, but not enough to finance a college education. Together with his brother and his wife, Hamer moved from California to Louisiana, where he bought several acres of land in Allen Parish on Bundick Lake to cultivate it. But Hamer did not have the necessary agricultural knowledge, so that he had to give up the venture after a few years. His attempt to work in an oil field in east Texas in 1981 was also crowned with failure . Since he did not have the mechanical knowledge, he was released after only one year, in 1982.

death

Rusty Hamer then managed to survive financially with odd jobs, most recently in 1989 as an assistant cook in his brother's small restaurant. He was becoming increasingly depressed and had increasing problems with alcohol . Most recently he lived in a trailer southeast of the small town of DeRidder. On January 18, 1990, the 42-year-old Hamer picked up his .357 Magnum gun and put an end to his life with a shot in the head.

He was never married and never had any children.

Today a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame commemorates the former child star.

Web links

• Rusty Hamer in the Internet Movie Database (English)