Celebrity Biographies
Billy Chapin
He had enormous relevance as a child actor, especially for his role as an orphan in “The Night of the Hunter.” Billy Chapin died at the age of 72 on December 2, 2016 “after a long illness,” according to the actress Lauren Chapin, his sister, revealed. “Billy was a wonderful brother to us. He made us proud with all the great movies of his…he will be sorely missed.”
Born on December 28, 1943, in Los Angeles, William McClellan Chapin was the second of the three children of Roy Chapin, director of a bank branch, and Marguerite Alice, who became manager of their offspring, as they all tried Fortune in Hollywood.
This one lacked time to present the newcomer to castings, since he debuted when he was weeks old playing a baby, paradoxically a girl, in Casanova Brown , starring Gary Cooper . Several similar apparitions followed. At the age of 8, she was already on the Broadway stage in “Three Wishes Jamie”, which was a great success. At 10 he starred in the sports drama The Kid From Left Field , in which he was a baseball wunderkind, son of Anne Bancroft . Later he appeared with Marilyn Monroe in Footlights and with Victor Mature in Tragic Saturday .
When Charles Laughton was preparing his debut feature, The Night of the Hunter , he was recommended to meet with Billy Chapin , considered in the film world to be a correct professional in children’s acting. He summoned her to his house, where he was pleasantly impressed. “It’s exactly what I want.” Although for years it was said that the veteran had a lot of trouble directing the boy and Sally Jane Bruce, who played her sister in the film about the two children persecuted by a false preacher who is looking for the fortune stolen by their deceased father. But a series of documents discovered later reveal that she was quite good at it. The film was a resounding critical and public failure, so Laughton never directed again. But today it is considered a great classic.
They stopped calling the boy for the big screen. He for several years he appeared in numerous television series, until when he turned 13 he retired completely. Hardly anything is known about the rest of his life, already totally private. His sister, Lauren Chapin, published her autobiography, in which she claims that Billy overcame a series of alcohol problems when he was 30 years old.