33 Facts About Brad Renfro

Brad Renfro made his film debut at age 11 with a starring role in The Client.

Brad Renfro soon attracted a large fanbase as he continued to star in films such as The Cure, Tom and Huck, Sleepers, Apt Pupil, Bully and Ghost World.

Brad Renfro died at age 25 of acute heroin and morphine intoxication.

Brad Renfro was born on July 25,1982, in Knoxville, Tennessee, the son of Angela Denise Olsen and Mark Brad Renfro, a factory worker.

Brad Renfro was raised from the age of five by his paternal grandmother, Joanne Renfro, a church secretary, after his parents divorced.

At the age of 10, Brad Renfro was discovered by Mali Finn, a casting director for Joel Schumacher.

Brad Renfro had no prior acting experience or training at the time.

Finn had contacted various agencies that worked with youth; she was looking to cast a "tough" kid and settled on Brad Renfro after looking at 5,000 such boys all over the United States.

At the time, Brad Renfro had been living in a trailer park outside Knoxville with his grandmother.

Brad Renfro was cast by Finn in the lead role of Mark Sway in Schumacher's The Client.

Brad Renfro's casting was announced in May 1993, and the movie was filmed in the summer of that year.

Brad Renfro won a second "Young Star" award, as well as a "Young Artist" award, for his performance in The Cure.

In 1996, Brad Renfro appeared in Sleepers, which was based on the novel of the same name by Lorenzo Carcaterra.

The several films Brad Renfro starred in that followed gained little attention, with the majority going straight to video.

Brad Renfro played Leon S Kennedy in a live-action ad for Resident Evil 2 directed by George A Romero, which aired in Japan.

Brad Renfro went on to act in other films, including 2001's Ghost World, Bully, Happy Campers, Tart; 2002's American Girl; and 2005's The Jacket.

Brad Renfro appeared in the first version of the music video for the 10 Years song "Wasteland"; his cousin, Jesse Hasek, is the band's lead singer.

Brad Renfro had a son, who was born in Japan in 2003 and was raised there by his mother, a Japanese citizen.

Brad Renfro was carrying two small bags of cocaine in a cigarette box and a bag of marijuana in his sock.

Brad Renfro entered into a plea bargain in which he agreed to random drug tests.

Brad Renfro was charged with grand theft and criminal mischief; in January 2001, he was sentenced to two years' probation and ordered to pay investigative costs and yacht repair costs.

Brad Renfro violated his probation in May 2001 when he was arrested for underage drinking.

Brad Renfro was placed into a three-month substance abuse treatment program as a result.

On November 24,2005, Brad Renfro was arrested in Los Angeles and charged with a misdemeanor count of driving under the influence and two counts of driving with a suspended license, leading to 10 days in jail and 18 months of alcohol education classes.

Brad Renfro was arrested by LAPD officers on December 22,2005, during an undercover drug sweep of Skid Row.

Brad Renfro admitted to a detective that he was using heroin and methadone.

Brad Renfro pleaded guilty, was sentenced to three years' probation, and was fined $450.

In June 2007, Brad Renfro was found to have violated his probation by failing to enroll in a long-term drug treatment program.

Brad Renfro was found dead on January 15,2008, in his Los Angeles apartment, at the age of 25.

Brad Renfro's body was returned to Tennessee, where he was buried on January 22,2008, at Red House Cemetery in the small town of Blaine, Tennessee.

Brad Renfro was omitted from the "In Memoriam" tribute montage at the 80th Academy Awards in the year following his death.

Gemma Jackson, production designer on Tom and Huck, remembered Brad Renfro as being 15 or 16 years of age during filming when he was actually 13.

Jackson recounted to BuzzFeed that during production, Brad Renfro had a girlfriend who was several years his senior.