Adam Rich
Adam Rich was such a cute little boy and my favorite part of the TV show Eight is Enough. He had that funky mop top bowl hair cut that reminded me of my sister Lisa. Unfortunately, like many child actors, his life started going downhill early on.
Sweet Adam Rich was born in Brooklyn, New York on October 12, 1968 which means he just turned 50. He got the role of Nicholas Bradford on Eight is Enough when he was only nine. The following year began his destruction into drugs and drinking. He started smoking pot when he was ten and things only got worse from there.
Adam Rich has been arrested many times since 1983 for drugs, breaking and entering, and shoplifting. He smashed a pharmacy window in 1991 in an attempt to steal drugs. His TV dad, Dick Van Patten, bailed him out. What a nice guy! Unfortunately, Adam was almost immediately arrested again for shoplifting. He was also charged in 2003 for DUI after almost hitting a police car on a closed-off section of I-10 in Los Angeles. I haven’t heard of any illegal activity on his part since 2003 which means he’s either cleaned up his act or the media just doesn’t care anymore.
Unable to shake his cute Nicolas Bradford image, Adam has done a lot of voiceover work and also tried his hand at directing. His lawyers say part of his problem is that he’s all grown up but people still think he’s seven years old. All grown up? At 5’3″ (some sources say 5’5”) he’s barely taller than when he was seven.
Adam Rich Trivia
- Might magazine ran a spoof on dead celebrities in 1996 and listed Adam as one of the deceased. Many people believed he was dead. Didn’t that happen with Jerry Mathers (the Beav) also? FYI, the article in Might was published with Adam Rich’s consent.
- Adam once said, “I am an actor, not a celebrity. I have always wanted to be an actor. I never wanted to be a celebrity.” Yeah, I totally get that – I hate when people recognize me in the store.
- The last acting credit IMDB shows was in 2003 which was when Adam Rich played himself in the movie Dickie Roberts.
- He was arrested for breaking into a hospital in search of Demoral.
- Adam Rich acted in another series after Eight is Enough called Code Red which starred Lorne Greene and Andrew Stevens.
- He threw himself down a flight of stairs in order to get painkillers.
- Adam appeared in an episode of CHiPs in 1982.
- He also appeared in a 1986 episode of Silver Spoons with Ricky Schroder.
Adam Rich isn’t the only Eight is Enough actor to have problems. I wrote a blog earlier about the curse of Eight is Enough. Other bad things to come from that show: Diana Hyland (John Travolta’s girlfriend at the time) died of cancer shortly after the show debuted, Connie Newton had ovarian cancer, Willie Aames attempted suicide, Lani O’Grady died from an overdose of Vicodin and Prozac, and Susan Richardson became addicted to cocaine and morphine. Click here if you’d like to read my Eight is Enough curse blog post.
Since the media is a bunch of whores who never give people a break, I think it’s a good sign that we haven’t heard anything about Adam Rich in years. I hope this means he’s out of trouble and clean. I hope he’s healthy and living a great life.