Others suspect there might not be quite enough there there. A Hollywood executive who has locked horns with Kit says gleefully of Macaulay's career: "Over! He has no talent, and no box-office appeal at this moment." Macaulay, says an agent who represents another child actor, "did one thing that was cute for a while. Winona Ryder, River Phoenix, Leonard di Caprio--they're actors ." Adds the director of the children's division of a Los Angeles talent agency: "Children have such a different appeal than adults. [Macaulay] had innocence andattitude. In a child, that's adorable, but in a teen, it's [just] attitude." And then there's the trouble with dad. "Everything came at the same time: the bad publicity with his father and the transition [to adolescence]," she says. "They're definitely not beneficial at the same time."
Trouble in the House THAT Mac Built : A Custody Battle for Macaulay Culkin by His Parent-Managers Offers a Glimpse Into What Can Happen in Hollywood When a Son Is Also a Star.
The teen actor who is most frequently mentioned in the same breath as Macaulay is his "Good Son" co-star, Elijah Wood. The comparison is rarely beneficial to Mac. "I never thought of Macaulay as brilliant, not in the league of Leonardo or Elijah" says Suzi Smith of TGI/Bloom. Producers, she says, "would almost rather look for another kid than take all those problems. He's almost a last resort now. They're going with other kids."
Which may be just fine with Macaulay. "I don't know what [Macaulay] wants to do with the rest of his life," says Mary Lynn Supino, a family friend for the past six years, "but he'd probably like to have a normal life. I don't think the money is real to him--it's Monopoly money, it's all on paper. I think he'd like to be liked for who he is. But he has an intensity and sincerity that's remarkable. I have a lot of admiration for him, as I do for all the kids. It's a good family. That's why this is so sad."
As for the Culkin family fortunes, they may now hinge on Kieran and his siblings. "Patty told me that she was going to auditions with the little ones," says Brentrup attorney Lois Liberman. Indeed, while Macaulay has no film projects currently scheduled, Kieran's new film, "Father of the Bride 2," is scheduled to be released TK. But Hollywood may not be eagerly waiting for the seemingly inexhaustible supply of little Culkins. As one producer who has worked with the family puts it: "Just knowing you have to work with Kit is enough reason not to hire Kieran if you can get somebody else." Even Stan Lotwin says: "If I were a producer or a director and I have a choice of two children, I'll opt for the one whose parents aren't monsters."
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IRENE BRAFSTEIN HAS TUTORED young actors in Los Angeles since 1979. She taught Jodie Foster on the sets of "Carny" and "Foxes," Winona Ryder on "Beetlejuice," and an 8-year-old Kieran Culkin on "Father of the Bride."
Brafstein, who is now a grandmother, sees the issues of career and family as intertwined, although in her view there is an inverse relationship between family pressure and later professional success.
"The ones who made it big weren't pressured by their families," Brafstein says. "Jodie Foster was a perfect example: Jodie's mother wanted her to be a professor. Noni [Winona Ryder] was a 15-year-old with hundred-dollar bills flying out her blue jeans, but her parents didn't care, and they didn't take any."
And the Culkins? "The Culkins were nothing like that," Brafstein says. "There was definite pressure in the Culkin household ... the job was the almighty thing.
"It's so easy to get your head twisted off backward with this," Brafstein adds. "I've seen 5-year-olds where the mother has a beeper and is always checking in with the agent. But this [acting] is an extra added bonus to life--this isn't life."
