Brad Renfro Snubbed From Oscars
February 26, 2008

Fans of Brad Renfro, the recently deceased star of The Client and Apt Pupil, were expecting a final curtain call when the "In Memoriam" segment aired on The Oscars Sunday night. Renfro fans were stunned when the former child star was absent from the montage.

Brad Renfro died of an accidental heroin overdose on January 15th at the age of 25 and his career was largely overshadowed by a series of battles related to drug abuse. The Academy has already issued a statement to make it clear that there was no intended judgment about the life of Renfro in his omission from the show. The montage featured 43 actors, filmmakers, writers, insiders, studio executives, and more, including several who were not widely known to even the most hardcore movie fan, but no Renfro. The montage ended with a photo of Heath Ledger and a moment of silence. Ledger died of an accidental prescription drug overdose exactly a week after Renfro and many found it odd to include Ledger and not Renfro.

TMZ first reported that people close to Brad Renfro were hurt by the omission of their friend or family member. But Academy publicist Leslie Unger made it clear to E! that there was never any intent to leave the former star out of the mix. Unger also mentioned that dozens of celebrities die every year and only so many can be included (although one could argue that in a four hour show it wouldn't be hard to include at least an image of everyone who passed.) Unger told E!, "In any given year, we are not able to include everyone who has past away, and because we very much want to include people who worked in all aspects of filmmaking, not just actors and actresses, this means that sometimes well-known individuals are not included."

Brad Renfro was discovered in Knoxville, Tennessee at the age of 10 and cast in The Client with Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. Renfro received a lot of acclaim for his debut and went on to star in Tom and Huck, Sleepers, Apt Pupil, Ghost World, and The Jacket. He guest starred on Law & Order: Criminal Intent recently and had finished shooting the very high-profile The Informers, which many hoped would help spur a comeback for the actor who had dealt with many of the demons related to drug use. That film is due to hit theatres later this year and will, sadly, be Renfro's last.

Before Roy Scheider fans get in an uproar, the recently deceased star of Jaws, All That Jazz and The French Connection was also absent from the Oscar montage, but that's because the Oscar window technically runs from 2/1 to 1/31. One can assume that he'll be included in next year's montage.

(Source: E!)

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