Oh, Ilan!

I'm still not done with Chapter 2, but I will not be defeated. It's a complicated chapter. Lotta ins, lotta outs. I'm just now starting the last section of the chapter which deals with Keith Gordon's adaptation of the Robert Cormier novel The Chocolate War.

The movie stars Ilan Mitchell-Smith as Jerry Renault. Ilan was in a smattering of movies in the '80s, including one of the six movies in John Hughes' teen oeuvre, Weird Science.

Ilan pretty much gave up acting, and took up academia. Here is his faculty profile at Angelo State University (that's in Texas), where he is now Professor Mitchell-Smith. He is an English professor, go figure, and he looks just about the same as he did in The Chocolate War, except perhaps appropriately swollen.

I read a story about him in People Magazine a while back that I like to share whenever I get the opportunity. Apparently, after giving up fame and fortune as a minor child star he completely forget about acting and started living a "normal life". When he met the woman who would later become his wife he didn't even tell her about his past success on the big screen. They had been dating for quite some time before conversation finally found its way to all things Hollywood. The future Mrs. Ilan Mitchell-Smith confessed that when she was a kid she really liked this movie called The Chocolate War because she had such a crush on the kid that played Jerry Renault!

True story. True story? I dunno. It's a good one, though.