A Loss That Still Brings Me Pain

When I was growing up, I was told that my maternal grandfather, Courtland Hamer, and my Great Aunt, Ruth Hamer Mayall, had a brother, Russell Hamer, who died in the Spanish flu pandemic that hit the United States in 1918. My grandfather died before I was born and my great aunt and I were very close until her death in 1984. When we were cleaning her house after her death, I stumbled upon a collection of letters from her correspondence with her brother Russell and found that he had not died as I had been told. Instead, he had become an actor and to avoid the “shame” on the family of his being an actor, the family had declared him “dead” and had even put a fake death notice in the Philadelphia, PA newspapers.

After doing a lot of digging, I was able to learn that my great uncle had a grandson, Russell Craig Hamer, who became known to film and television watchers as “Rusty” Hamer. Rusty was best known for playing Danny Thomas’ son on “Make Room For Daddy”, “The Danny Thomas Show” and “Make Room For Granddaddy”. 

(This also explained, in some way, why my maternal grandmother would not allow my brother and I to watch “Make Room For Daddy” when we were children – and why she demanded that every acting job I did from 1960 to 1969, I had to do under different stage names, still believing that if it were known that I was an actor, it would somehow bring “shame” on our family.)

I never was able to connect with him, except for a few letters, because I was serving in the U.S. Army in Europe during the next 6 years. 

With no skills or training other than being an actor, and few roles because most fans would not accept him as anything other than Danny Thomas’ TV “son”, Rusty committed suicide on January 18, 1990. 

His suicide raised awareness of the potential mental fragility of child performers and inspired fellow former child actor Paul Peterson II, formerly of ABC's The Donna Reed Show, to establish the support group A Minor Consideration. The group seeks to improve working conditions for young actors and assists former child entertainers in making the transition from past fame to adult life.

Rusty - I so wish I had really gotten the chance to know you all the years we were growing up. You were only a year older than my brother and only 4 years older than me. We could have been friends.

http://aminorconsideration.org/