My mum was a theatrical agent and she got me and my brother into the Barbara Speake Stage School where we got put into a production based on Oliver Twist and when the role came up in the film production, I auditioned for the role of Oliver but got offered the Artful Dodger instead.
Following the release of Oliver!, i got offered TV roles but due to my youthful face and short stature, i kept getting offered to play young boys so i packed in the acting and tried a career as a singer and had some success at that and at 20 i was a millionaire, wore hand-made suits, ate at best restaurants and hired a Chauffeur to drive me around and then the worst possible thing happened, i started to look older.
No more child star or teen heartthrob the TV industry passed me over and spent more and more time unemployed which gave me more time for my new hobby, drinking.
Being so rich at a young age hadn’t prepared me very well and the money soon went and i registered for unemployment benefits and spent that on booze also which earned me acute pancreatitis and a warning i would die if i carried on drinking i'd be dead by 30.
Three heart attacks and a diagnose of diabetes didn't help my mental state and i became paranoid people were trying to kill me and was committed to a hospital under the Mental Health Act.
I did make a bit of a comeback, acting alongside Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and i got a few roles in the Theatre and just as things looked on the up, fate smashed me around the head with mouth cancer so surgery took my tongue and my voice box so now i could only do non-speaking parts.
I know i messed up and one of the last things i did was write to Daniel Radcliffe, who had just got the role of Harry Potter and congratulated the young star and emphatically warned Radcliffe of making the same mistakes as me which was to get older.
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