Child Actor Brad Renfro; Discovered in 'The Client'

Brad Renfro was a street-smart Tennessee schoolboy plucked from obscurity in 1993 to play the title role in the movie "The Client."

The success of the film brought him instant stardom, but struggles with drugs and alcohol dogged his career. On Tuesday, he was found dead at his home in Los Angeles. He was 25.

The cause of death was not immediately determined, said Craig Harvey, chief investigator for the Los Angeles County coroner's office. An autopsy was planned.

In "The Client," based on a John Grisham bestseller, Mr. Renfro played a youngster who witnesses a suicide and gets caught up in a mob investigation. Susan Sarandon was nominated for an Oscar for her role as a lawyer the boy hires to help protect him.

Director Joel Schumacher wanted an unknown for the role of the boy. "I didn't want to use one of those pretty kid faces the audience would be instantly familiar with," the director said when the film came out. Schumacher said he wanted "a kid who nobody would know."

A Knoxville police officer who worked to educate children about drugs told a casting director about Mr. Renfro, whom he had seen in an anti-drug skit. That led to an audition, and Renfro got the part.

"I'm definitely going to film school," the boy said when "The Client" came out. "I want to be like Joel."

Mr. Renfro followed up with major parts in the 1995 AIDS drama "The Cure" and in "Sleepers" and "Telling Lies in America," both in 1997. More recent credits included "Ghost World," 2001; "Deuces Wild," 2002; and "The Jacket," 2005.

He was arrested numerous times over the past decade.

The actor served 10 days in jail in 2006 after he pleaded no contest to driving while intoxicated and pleaded guilty to attempted possession of heroin. The latter charge stemmed from an arrest in Los Angeles's Skid Row area when he attempted to buy the drug from an undercover officer.

Other run-ins with the law included a 1998 charge of cocaine and marijuana possession, for which he avoided jail time in a plea deal. He was also placed on probation and ordered to pay $4,000 for repairs to a 45-foot yacht that he and a friend tried to steal in Florida in 2000.

The next year, he was charged with underage drinking and violating the terms of his probation. He was ordered into alcohol rehabilitation.

After one court appearance, Mr. Renfro talked to reporters about rehabilitation, saying that it had "definitely been an eye-opener" and that he was eager to get clean.

Mr. Renfro recently completed a role in "The Informers," a film adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis novel with Winona Ryder, Brandon Routh and Billy Bob Thornton.