Jack Wild is the kid who, at age fifteen, played the Artful Dodger in the movie of Oliver and stole, not only people's purses but the movie, as well. Shortly after that, he became the human star of the popular Saturday morning series, H.R. Pufnstuf. After that, he has a brief moment of glory as a pop star and after that…
Well, "after that" was not kind to Jack Wild. He had problems with alcohol and tobacco and life in general. Sid and Marty Krofft, who'd produced H.R. Pufnstuf, became like surrogate uncles to Jack. When I worked for them, he'd occasionally visit the office or turn up at a party and I always enjoyed talking to Jack. A lot of folks felt sorry for him but I never got that he felt sorry for himself…not even the last time I ran into him. It was about three years ago and most of his voice was gone due to cancer of the mouth, one of the nastier things that can happen to a human being. Jack had a little card he'd show to people to explain why he couldn't talk and we had an odd, sad conversation with him responding mostly in mime and little grunts. He was proud that in spite of everything, he was still doing occasional acting jobs.
Jack died on Wednesday. He was 53. Here's a link to an obit.
Lennie Weinrib, who was the voice of H.R. Pufnstuf, just phoned me from Chile, where he now lives. He said, "Tell the world that Jack Wild was the nicest, most talented kid I ever met in all my years in show business, and that we're all just devastated at the news." I can't put it any better than that.