I've had more than my share of ups and downs in my twenty-four years on this planet. After the life I've led, I'm sure you can imagine how happy I was to get a regular gig writing for a well-known respected news source. Then those dildos at Entertainment Weekly bounced my ass back into the street. My luck always turns its nose down, given enough time. But you know the old saying, every time God farts he opens a window, and things are steadying for me again as the folks at the commune have brought me aboard to publish my column Child Star.

For anyone who doesn't know me, I'll spend this column on the long version of the introduction.

The name, for those of you who can't read bold print, is Clarissa Coleman, and as I mentioned, this column is called Child Star. I plan it to be about the perils of being raised "in the business" as those of us in the business describe it—shit, how you like that? I used the phrase while describing what it means. But picking up where I left off, this column will cover everything from my rise as a child star (see column title) to my plummet to where I'm at now. And if there's any justice, it will also chronicle current happenings as I again rise to some middling degree of sanity or something. Warzy, eh?

I may not look immediately familiar, but be assured, at one time my little dimpled face was like a machine that printed its own money in Hollywood. I first gained national attention as the little girl in the Germanhäus baked potato commercials. Does "I gots butter on my tummy!" ring any bells? I thought so.

From there, of course, I went on to play baby Alfie on everybody's favorite soap opera of 1983, Search For An Exit. They only gave me one line a week to start, but soon I had more lines than that one disagreeable kid played by three triplets. The whole soap thing was never too serious, just a springboard to other things. Just as planned, it helped me get a sweet sitcom deal when I became the starring kid on Who's Your Daddy? with beloved actor Brad Van Danner. As you might guess, it was the gravy train from then on. Until it wasn't, which is where I'm at now and why I'm writing this column to make ends meet.

Well, eventually, even the biggest hit show can only run so long. We were canceled two years later, a year and a half if you subtract the long hiatus while the network was trying to decide to bring back the show or not. "Washed up at 9," the headlines all read about me. Or at least that's what my mom said, I wasn't literate at the time and couldn't read the headlines.

Naturally I descended into depression, booze, and drugs, though never all at the same time. All the tabloids you read about me? Some true. Some not. Most true. Some not. I'm sure I'll get the chance to explain everything through the span of this column, assuming of course the folks at the commune aren't as cancel-happy as some dildos at ABC.

I want to say, too, that I'll be dedicating this column to someone special in my life. Someone who's worked harder than anyone I know, struggled uphill through countless battles and always comes back for some reason I'll never guess. Of course I'm talking about me. My column, for me, I damn well deserve it at this point.

Thanks for reading and piss off if you didn't.

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