Maybe AI can be an instrument of good if only it will become how children are portrayed in the future on TV or in movies.
While no official cause has been announced, news Monday of the death of Hayden Panettiere within days of her 37th birthday seems linked to her constant life before cameras. While still learning to crawl, thanks to her mother, she was doing TV commercials. At four, Hayden was embarking on a five year run on the soap opera One Life to Live. Before she was ten, she worked 45 episodes of The Guiding Light.
One of her first IMDb TV series credits came in 1997 in the Married…with Children clone Unhappily Ever After. The log line: “A not-so-happy family is divided further when the father gets a schizophrenic disorder.”
Juvenille roles on Ally McBeal and Law & Order: Special Victim’s Unit followed. So did speaking parts on animated series such as Robot Chicken and Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King.
Her big break came at 17 in NBC’s Heroes, one of the last of the viral hits on broadcast television. The Tim Kring series, about ordinary people discovering that they have extraordinary powers, was an instant smash. “Save the cheerleader,” referring to Panettiere’s character, was a rallying call quickly embraced at places such as Fan Expos and Comicon, where Heroes obtained Star Trek-like status.
In addition to playing one of the leads Panettiere sang on the soundtracks to several of her projects, winning a Grammy in 1999 for “A Bug’s Life.” Her feature film career later took off in a series of popular “Scream” movies.
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It all had to be a dizzying ascent for Panettiere, who left traditional classroom schooling after Grade Eight and was either homeschooled or taught on sets throughout her high school years.
The New York native, who had earlier appeared at a Television Critics Association press tour for the launch of Heroes, returned in 2012 to help promote the country music primetime soap Nashville (2012-2018). There she and co-star Connie Britton said all the right promotional things. The series called upon her singing abilities, with spinoff concerts and recordings all part of the deal. Around this same time, she piled on personal appearances supporting everything from political causes to marine-life advocacy.
Young and beautiful, she was a popular target of the taloids. At 18 she was reported dating Heroes costar Milo Ventimiglia. She later met towering World Heavyweight Boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko at a book launch. The relationship was on-and off- with Panettiere giving birth to their daughter in December of 2014. A later relationship found the actress on the recieving end of physical abuse.
Panettiere was candid about her struggles with postpartum depression. That, coupled with a difficult relationship with her mother, as well as drug and alcohol dependancy, led to a 2020 stint in rehab. Another blow: the sudden death of her younger brother Jansen Panettiere in 2023 at 28.
The actress tried to process it all in her memoir released in May of this year, “This is Me: A Reckoning.”
I may have been in on a press scrum but I don’t recall ever speaking with Panettiere one-on-one. My daughter Katie is about the same age, and I do have a paternal interest in how young stars deal with fame. I once gave a bit of a dad talk to another very well known young actress, back when she was 17 or 18. I concluded our phoner by suggesting that it seemed tough enough just to be in high school in 2007, and that she should give herself a hug for all she had already accomplished. It does sound corny as I type this, but that young lady — the same age as Panettiere and under the same crushing early pressures, started to quietly sob on the other end of the phone.
That story has a happy ending. She’s doing very, very well now.
Panettiere’s death comes the same week I post a podcast about an actress who had a similar trajectory as a child star albeit back in the ’50s and ’60s — Kathy Garver of Family Affair fame. Garver was one of the lucky ones. She somehow navigated past the pressures that consumed many of her peers, including the two younger stars of her series. Did she have more stability at home? Was completing a university education a key to her successful transition, carrying her through to a showbiz career still thriving in her eighth decade? How exceptional was Garver’s long and happy marriage to David Travis (who passed away one year ago)?
Life is hard enough for heroes and cheerleaders, real or imagined. Parents, publishers, producers, be kind. Not everyone is lucky, or protected, or has the skin for this. We all have to work to save the next cheerleader.
Condolences to Panettiere’s family, friends and many fans.
