Deraney also shared memories<\/a> of Rich on Twitter, writing “Adam and I would chat on the phone talking baseball. We both loved the Yankees, but he loved the Dodgers a smidgen more … Something you did not know…He was in NYC in Dec 1980 and met John Lennon the day John died.”<\/p>\nRich discussed his mental health on Twitter and noted in October that he’d been sober for seven years. He said he wasn’t perfect \u2014 referring to arrests, many stints in rehab, several overdoses and “countless detoxes (and) relapses” \u2014 and urged his nearly 19,000 followers to never give up.<\/p>\n
“Human beings weren’t built to endure mental illness,” Rich tweeted in September. “The mere fact that some people consider those to be weak, or have a lack of will is totally laughable \u2026 because it’s the total opposite! It’s takes a very, very strong person \u2026 a warrior if you will \u2026 to battle such diseases.”<\/p>\n
Rich posted a picture of himself from his heyday with one-time child star Mickey Rooney.<\/p>\n
“Everyone used to say to me, ‘You are the modern day Mickey Rooney,'” he tweeted. “But when Mickey Rooney told me that he himself, it meant a helluva a lot more to me!”<\/p>\n
Nearly 27 years ago, Rich participated in a hoax that Might magazine published about the actor getting killed in a robbery outside a Los Angeles nightclub in 1996. The article in the little-known magazine was intended as a satire of America’s celebrity obsession but fizzled when the spoof was revealed.<\/p>\n
“I think we were a little too subtle. People were not getting the joke,” Rich later told the Chicago Tribune. “I don’t want to be dead.”<\/p>\n
Rich was the little brother to a generation of TV viewers as 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 \u2014 and the actress who played her \u2014 died during filming of the first season.<\/p>\n
Rich starred in the series “Code Red” from 1981-82 and voiced the character of Presto the Magician on “Dungeons & Dragons” from 1983-85, according to the IMDB.com. He reprized his best-known role in two “Eight is Enough” TV movie reunions.<\/p>\n
But the balance of his acting career was in single-episode appearances on some of the most popular TV shows of the time: “The Love Boat,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “Silver Spoons,” and “Baywatch.” His most recent credit listed on IMDB was playing Crocodile Dundee on “Reel Comedy” in 2003. <\/p>\n
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