O'Rourke, Heather

Family

Heather, having Danish, German, English and Irish roots, was born on December 27, 1975 in San Diego in California and was the second daughter of Kathleen and Michael O'Rourke. Mother worked as a seamstress, father - a builder. Heather had an older sister, Tammy (born 1971). In the third month of pregnancy, her mother had a miscarriage, due to which Heather lost her twin brother. In 1981, Kathleen and Michael divorced, and in 1984 Kathleen married trucker James E. Peel. After the divorce of his parents, Heather rarely saw his father, so in the end she began to call her father's stepfather.

Initially, the family lived in a trailer park in Anaheim . Then, when Heather began her acting career, her fees allowed her family to buy a separate house in Big Bear Lake, where Heather attended Big Bear Elementary School and was the president of her class. At the time of her death, Heather and her family lived in Lakeside.

Career

Heather from early childhood began to demonstrate artistic abilities and already at 3 years old with her sister performed with dance numbers on local theater stages. From the age of 4, Heather began working as a model for advertising images of toys and acting in commercials, and at 5, before school, she made her first acting debut in an episode of the television series " Fantasy Island ". Heather received the role of Carol Ann Freeling , which brought her fame in the summer of 1981, when Tammy starred in MGM in the dance of “ Pennies from the Sky ”. When Heather and his mother and sister dined in the inner cafeteria during the break, they were noticed by Stephen Spielberg , who immediately liked Heather. Spielberg later admitted that he was somewhat frightened by the fact that Heather was only five years old, while he wanted to take on the role of Carol Ann a girl no younger than six (at the same time, his godmother Drew Barrymore tried on this role).

In the trilogy, O'Rourke was played by Carol Ann Freeling , a little girl who becomes the adapter and target for supernatural beings. The New York Times noted that she played a rather key role in the films, and commented: “With her wide eyes, long blonde hair and a soft voice, she is so amazing that the sequels benefit only from her presence” ^[4] . Her phrases “ They are here! "( Eng. They're here ) ( in the first film ) and" They're back! "( Eng. They are back! ) ( In the second film in which this phrase became a slogan).

After working for Poltergeist in 1982, O'Rourke played in two of his sequels, which were unsuccessful, but the whole trilogy ultimately brought her fees from 35 to 100 thousand dollars. " Poltergeist " became her only prominent and main movie role, but for the rest she continued to act in commercials, often appearing in various shows and playing secondary or single-part roles in various TV shows.

Death

The first signs of the disease in Heather became noticeable back in early 1987. The California Kaiser Permanent medical center in San Diego, in which Heather was observed from birth, mistakenly believed that she had Crohn’s disease , and she was prescribed medications that could cause Heather’s swelling in her cheeks in Poltergeist 3

Heather finished work on the third part in July 1987. On the morning of Friday, January 29, 1988, Heather casually told her sister Tammy that she did not want to go to school, but did not explain why. Perhaps she already felt unwell, but Heather never complained to anyone if she was unwell, and so she went to school. On January 31, Heather began to vomit in the morning, which she could not suppress, and she spent most of the day in bed. Based on external signs, the parents decided that the girl had the flu . The next day, Monday, February 1, during breakfast, Heather told her mother that she was well and ready to go to school, but Kathleen noticed that the girl looked very bad and tried to discuss with her the opportunity to stay at home that day. However, noting that Heather was eating through force and his behavior resembles a patient with lethargy (when she touched her hands, she found that they were cold and her fingers had a bluish tint), Kathleen still called the local hospital, where she was ordered immediately bring Heather there. Mother told her daughter to dress, but when Heather got up from the table, she fell sharply to the floor, and then an ambulance was called to the house. Arrived paramedics tried to put an oxygen mask on Heather, but the girl began to resist, claiming that she did not need it. When asked how she feels now, Heather answered that she was only a little unwell, but assured everyone that she was fine, but she was still taken to the hospital. On the way there, she unexpectedly lost consciousness, but in the Heather hospital itself, thanks to the efforts of doctors notified in advance, it came to a stable state for a short time. After which she was transported by air by helicopter to the San Diego Children's Hospital, where she, once again in critical condition, was immediately sent to the operating room. There at 14:43 her heart stopped .

Speaking to reporters, Heather manager David Wardlow initially announced that he thought the girl died of the flu . However, hospital representative Vincent Bond announced that Heather died during the operation when they tried to eliminate the intestinal obstruction of congenital origin ( intestinal stenosis ), complicated by septic shock ; On February 3, this message was confirmed by the office of the San Diego County Coroner. Later reports have changed the main cause of death: myocardial infarction caused by septic shock due to intestinal stenosis .

On February 4, 1988, a farewell to Heather was held at Lakeside Chapel, attended by all of her relatives. She was buried on February 5 at the Westwood Memorial Cemetery in Los Angeles , where in 1982 her on-screen Poltergeist sister Dominic Dunn was buried.

The death of O'Rourke complicated the marketing of MGM for her latest work, Poltergeist 3 , for fear of exploiting her death. First of all, “MGM” demanded to re-shoot a number of final scenes to meet the specified PG-13 rating. Re-filming began in December 1987 and was interrupted for a while due to the death of Heather, and then again resumed in March 1988. The strange end of the film, where Carol Ann’s faces are not shown at all, was directed by Harry Sherman by the fact that he was shot after Heather’s death, and therefore an understudy was involved. Nevertheless, six people employed in the film claimed that such an ending was shot with Heather herself before her death, and the recapture generally only included previous scenes. Tom Skerritt and Nancy Allen , Heather’s partners in the film, refused any interviews about the film to avoid questions about O'Rourke’s death.

Court

On May 25, 1988, Sanford M. Gage, an O'Rourke family attorney, began a lawsuit against the Kaiser Permanent, accusing him of failing to properly diagnose her bowel stenosis. In response to this, the representative of Kaiser-Permanent, Janis Sabe replied: “We examined the case in detail and believe that the diagnosis and action plan undertaken by our doctors were completely consistent. "This is a very serious case, complicated by many factors and not giving any simple answers ." As a result, the case fell into arbitration and was submitted to the settlement for an undisclosed amount.