Brad Renfro Biography
Born: July 25, 1982
Died: January 15, 2008
One of the hottest teen idols of the mid- to late '90s, talented dramatic actor Brad Renfro also garnered adult fans for building an impressive filmography that includes performances opposite some of Hollywood's most respected actors. A native of Knoxville, TN, Renfro was raised by his grandmother following his parents' divorce. He broke into movies at age ten, when he impressed an audience member during a D.A.R.E. (a national anti-drug organization promoted by local police departments) skit (he was playing a drug dealer). This unknown person recommended Renfro to a talent scout who was holding a national open casting call for a young man to play a traumatized boy who finds himself in the midst of a deadly homicide case in Joel_Schumacher's The_Client (1994). Renfro, who had no training and no real acting experience, won the part and found himself working opposite such heavy hitters as Tommy_Lee_Jones, Susan_Sarandon, Ossie_Davis, and Mary-Louise Parker. Though such stellar company may have been daunting to others, Renfro held his own and earned positive reviews for his performance. He next played a new kid in town who befriends and decides to find a cure for an AIDS-afflicted boy (veteran child actor Joseph Mazzello) in Peter_Horton's heart-tugging The Cure (1995). In 1996, Renfro played Huck Finn to Jonathan_Taylor_Thomas' Tom Sawyer in Disney's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and then essayed an abused boy (Brad_Pitt played him as a vengeful adult) in Sleepers (1996). In 1998, he starred opposite Ian McKellen as a high school student morbidly fascinated by Nazi atrocities who finds himself drawn to an elderly, sinister war criminal in Bryan Singer's sophomore film Apt_Pupil. Renfro was found dead at age 25 in January 2008. Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Browse More Actors:
