It breaks my heart to hear about Rusty and his life after high school. It's not true that he went off the stage school at age 17 because I went to school with him at Corpus Christi Catholic School in Pacific Palisades. And we were both around 13 years old and in the 8th grade, with the boys and girls being in separate rooms. Rusty was a very good and decent person as I remember him.
My little memory story of Rusty Hamer is about him going up to another 8th grade boy, extending his hand to shake and congratulate him for graduating from the 8th grade and the boy being really mean and nasty to him. He was so nasty that, as shy as I was, I went up to this boy and reprimanded him for doing that because Rusty had looked so hurt. And years later when I had heard that Rusty had committed suicide I wrote a letter to the head priest of Corpus Christi School to tell Rusty's story and ask that they put anti-bullying policies in their educational programming. I never got an anwer to that letter, which should give parents in Pacific Palisades a good reason for not sending their children there.
Rusty spent his most socially formative parts of his life in a stage school before he came to us. He got his lessons with either no other kids being present or just one or two others there. The methods and tools were also different because of this. So he came to Corpus Christi School thinking that it was okay to bring his typewriter along just as he did in Hollywood. And he probably got immediately labeled as "different" because of it. Then once that label was applied it was probably all down hill from there. Public school kids can make life miserable for newcomers, especially ones that they may be jealous of unless they have a life coach or someone that shows them the ropes.
Meanwhile, I absolutely feel that Rusty Hamer deserves his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and not because of how sadly his life turned out. He deserves it because of what Danny Thomas said, which was that Rusty Hamer was the best young boy actor around. He had a great memory for lines and could easily ab lib when the dialog took an unexpected turn. That is a sign of a really good, professional actor. Too bad that he didn't get paid like one. Shame. Shame on Hollywood. And shame on Corpus Christi School and the bullies there.