Melissa Gilbert.
Photo: Valery Hache/AFP via Getty Images
Actress Melissa Gilbert mourned former child actress Daveigh Chase’s death in a new Instagram post in which she cautioned the parents of child actors against pursuing fame via their children. “Many child actors grow up just fine, whether they stay in ‘the business’ or not,” Gilbert wrote alongside a photo of a young Chase. “That is 100% due to really solid, wise parenting. Child stardom, in itself, is not a guarantee of dysfunction. However, when a parent or parents lose sight of who THEY are, of what their true responsibility is, and their lives revolve solely around their little star child, well, that’s where the trouble begins. It takes strong parenting to handle all that comes with it.” She added, “Today, reading the circumstances of Daveigh’s death, I’m truly heartbroken. I certainly understand substance addiction disorder but this sweet girl’s death is so much more.”
Chase was best known for voicing the iconic Lilo in the original Lilo & Stitch movies. As an adult, she struggled with substance abuse and ultimately died this month of AIDS. She worked with Gilbert on an unaired pilot alongside Jack Coleman (Heroes) and Kevin Zegers (Air Bud). “I only worked with Daveigh a couple of days but I could see she was bright both in countenance and in mind,” Gilbert remembered. “She was bubbly, sweet and professional. But there was something else there, a push or need to perform … for her parents.”
Gilbert ended her message by addressing parents directly. “If I had the chance to speak to any parents who were thinking about getting their children in the industry I would tell them to please, please make sure that they are doing it for the right reasons,” she wrote. “That they will take the child to an accountant regularly so that he or she knows exactly what he or she is making, and where it is going. To be sure it’s something the child really wants. To be sure that that child has a life outside of the industry that is thriving and full of friends and responsibilities and ‘normal’ things. I would also ask that these parents memorize this sweet girl’s face and her story so that it never happens again.”
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