In a book on child actors in Bollywood, a reminder of the price of fame at a very young age

Jackie Coogan was one of the first child stars of Hollywood. Audiences and critics equally appreciated his role as the protagonist in Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid when he was only seven years old. Coogan-themed merchandise like stationery, whistles, records, coins and the works were everywhere, and he was probably the highest-paid child actor in Hollywood at the time. It was believed that his earnings stood between $3 million to $4 million dollars.

When work dwindled and he turned twenty-one in October of 1935, he requested his mother and stepfather to give him his fortune. They refused, and he had a rude awakening – all his wealth had been squandered away.

There was no law at that time giving Coogan the right to the money he had made as a child. The law of California State at that time was that the earnings of a minor belonged to the parent. Coogan moved the court, and after a long legal battle, was awarded only $1,26,000 out of the approximately $4 million he had made as a child artist.

Coogan was not alone. Many other child actors had lost their earnings in a similar manner: LeAnn Rimes (singer–songwriter), Gary Coleman (Different Strokes), Macaulay Culkin (Home Alone) and even Shirley Temple, the darling of America, to name a few.

Many child actors in the Indian film industry have faced a fate like Coogan’s. After working day and night, they come of age, only to f ind that their earnings had been blown away. Many of the popular child actors have been exploited and abused in one way or the other, including Sarika, Khushbu, Daisy Irani, Baby Naaz or Ravi Valecha.

Financial problems are one of the most visible issues faced by child actors. Mismanaged funds, money squandered away by parents and guardians, the pressures of being the sole breadwinners of the family – the list goes on.

In earlier days, parents were also exploited by the industry. A lack of exposure and awareness meant that producers could easily convince those desperate to put their children to work to sign a contract for practically no fee or for a very low amount. In other cases, it was also easier to coerce or overwork the child actor without due compensation.

However, parents soon caught on and began to understand what was at stake. This caused issues of a different nature. They began to demand escalated fees, causing the child to lose work. Where the demands were accepted, most of them did not know how to manage the influx of earnings, leading to mistaken investments.

Of course, in the end, it was the child actors who suffered the most.

With increasing media as well as social media scrutiny and the progress in laws, it might be a bit more difficult today to rob child actors of their earnings, but have become bigger issues for the child actors. Newer, more intangible problems.

They are robbed of their basic rights: the right to be a child, the right to education and schooling, the right to have friends their age, the right to play and have free time. If their education is not prioritised, these children remain under-qualified and unsuitable for normal employment opportunities after the natural ebb of their time in the limelight. The nature of the work and the fact that they are surrounded by adults for most of their day forces them to grow up before their time.

At the same time, as children, they are not mentally and emotionally prepared to handle the pressures of a life in the spotlight – at times the heady success leads to a sense of bloated self-importance; at its worst, this pressure is so intense that they are often forced to cope through substances, leading to addictions – sometimes, they are pushed over the edge towards self harm or suicide.

Then there is the abusive behaviour by the parents or guardians themselves. Forcing their children into the industry for the money is one side of it. Sarika’s mother had a reputation for ill-treating her daughter, and the abuse was not limited to the sets. She was offensive outside the sets as well, sometimes physically assaulting and abusing Sarika in front of her fans. Her daughter never objected – and if she did, no one knew of it.

Sarika is not an exception. According to Daisy Irani, if the shot required the child actor to cry, her mother would hit or pinch her and her sister Honey Irani so that they would cry... Daisy was also raped when she was six years old, by a guardian who had accompanied her to the set of the film Panchhi Ek Dal Ke in Madras.

The advent of television, OTT platforms and reality shows has also opened up another can of worms. There are many popular reality shows dedicated to children as contestants. These come with long hours of practice, staying away from home, sudden fame, pressure to perform and fear of rejection – it is all too much for children to handle. Not to mention the criticism and negative comments on their performance, that too on national television. All too often, the content or allusions are inappropriate for children.

In 2017, Sony channel introduced a show called Pehredaar Piya Ki in a prime-time slot. The show followed the lives of a nine-year-old Rajput prince and an eighteen-year old princess who is forced to marry him, after their wedding. In the show, the couple go on a honeymoon to London – while the boy was still studying in primary school. The show, unsurprisingly, received massive criticism on social media… This controversial show, thus, came to an end on 28 August 2017, almost a month after it first premiered.

It is a fact that cinema or the entertainment industry wouldn’t have been the same without child actors. But it is equally important to protect their innocence and rights, and allow them the liberty to remain kids. It becomes the duty of all the adults surrounding them to ensure that they remain children and that acting is a secondary activity. Along with the employers and the parents, the government too needs to adopt a proactive approach – remaining vigilant and stepping in with the law if their advice is not followed, with severe penalties and punishments drafted in case of violations.

Excerpted with permission from Behind the Big Screen: The Untold Stories of Bollywood’s Child Actors, Sunanda Mehta and Suchitra Iyer, Bloomsbury India.