Adam Rich, Child Actor Who Starred on ‘Eight Is Enough,' Dead at 54



By Daniel Kreps

Adam Rich, the babe histrion who starred successful the overdue Nineteen Seventies postulation Eight Is Enough, has died connected the property of 54.

Rich’s rep Danny Deraney confirmed his purchaser’s decease Saturday connected societal media. An authoritative origin of nonaccomplishment of beingness is pending a scheduled autopsy, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office advised NBC News.

“Adam became surely a astonishing man,” Deraney tweeted. “He was type, generous and a warrior wrong the combat towards intelligence contamination. Adam did present not person an ounce of ego. He became unselfish and usually seemed retired for those helium cared approximately, that's wherefore galore individuals who grew up with him consciousness similar portion of their aboriginal beingness agelong gone, and bittersweet today. He genuinely was America’s small brother.”

Rich changed into prime known gambling the pageboy-haired Nicholas Bradford astatine the Dick Van Patten-starring bid Eight Is Enough; Rich — with conscionable a fewer performing recognition beneath his loop — turned into conscionable 8 years aged erstwhile helium changed into formed due to the fact that the youngest of 8 Bradford siblings, a presumption that earned him the nickname “America’s Little Brother.”

Following Eight Is Enough’s 5-season run, Rich persisted to find performing enactment successful his teens with one-off appearances similar CHiPs, The Love Boat and Silver Spoons, successful summation to a brace of overdue-Eighties Eight Is Enough reunion specials.

However, Rich’s adjacent vocation by nary means matched his fulfillment of the display, and helium faced the identical idiosyncratic problems that plague galore babe actors of the era: Rich struggled with substance problems — helium astir died from a Valium overdose successful 1989 — and run-ins with the regulation, which includes an apprehension for breaking close into a pharmacy successful 1991.