Lost Boys star Corey Haim dies at 38 after years of heavy drug abuse

• Picture: AFP

Haim, whose career was blighted by drug abuse, had flu-like symptoms before he died and was getting over-the-counter and prescription medications, police in Los Angeles said.

"He could have succumbed to whatever (illness] he had or it could have been drugs. Who knows?" a spokesman said. "He has had a drug problem in the past."

Haim acknowledged his struggle with drug abuse in 2004. "I was working on Lost Boys when I smoked my first joint," he said. "I did cocaine for about a year and a half, then it led to crack."

Haim said he went into rehabilitation and was put on prescription drugs. He took both stimulants and sedatives.

"I started on the downers, which were a hell of a lot better than the uppers because I was a nervous wreck," he said. "But one led to two, two led to four, four led to eight, until at the end it was about 85 a day."

In 2007, he told US TV show Nightline: "I feel like I ruined myself, to the point where I wasn't functional enough to work for anybody, even myself. I wasn't working."

Born in Toronto, Canada, Haim got his start in television adverts at ten and earned a good reputation for his work in such films as 1985's Murphy's Romance and his portrayal of Liza Minelli's dying son in a 1985 television film, A Time to Live.

His career peaked and he became a heartthrob with his roles in the 1986 movie Lucas, and The Lost Boys, in which he battled gangs of vampires.

In recent years, he appeared in the US reality TV show The Two Coreys with his friend Corey Feldman. It was cancelled in 2008 after two seasons.

Feldman later said Haim's drug abuse had strained their working and personal relationships.