Young “Chronicles of Narnia” Producer Found Dead
I am a bit of an outlier in that the Chronicles of Narnia series of children’s books has never been a top favorite of mine. That’s why I was so happily surprised when I ended up really enjoying the movie versions of the books. I agree with the critics who have said that the Narnia movies have been among the best family films in recent memory.
So I was especially sad to read this morning that Perry Moore, the young (age 39) producer behind the wildly successful Narnia film franchise was found dead in his NYC apartment yesterday, apparently the victim of an oxycontin overdose. Making the tragic death even worse, Moore was found by his partner, Hunter Hill.
If it is determined that it was, in fact, a prescription pill overdose that killed Perry Moore, he will join the tragic ranks of the tens of thousands of Americans who now die each year as a result of pill overdoses, a number that also includes my own teenage son, Henry who died last May 31 as the result of a brain injury caused by drug overdose. Prescription pill overdoses now kill more Americans than guns or alcohol, and in a growing number of states, overdoses top even auto accidents as the leading cause of death. By any measure, America is in the grip of an escalating public health emergency related to prescription pill overdoses.
To Perry Moore’s family, however, his death is much more personal, even if it is part of a national epidemic. As Moore’s father said this morning, “Parents are not meant to bury their children.”
READ MORE OF KATIE’S BLOGGING
![Giggles from Home [video]](http://cdn4.www.babble.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Screen-shot-2011-08-04-at-8.11.49-PM-100x100.png "Giggles from Home [video]")
Every time I read one of these stories my heart breaks. Being a parent and seeing your child in pain and not being able to help them and then to lose them is more than any parent should ever have to face.
I have no sympathy for him. I am tierd of people abuses prescriptions. He was an adult he threw his life away. People have to stop playing the victoms. I feel sorry for the people murdered or killed by drug addicts. I feel bad for the kids who have to watch parents get drunk of high. The kids who grow up seeing parents pop pills and can not get through life without taking some kind of pill. The poor kids born addicted because of crappy mothers. People justify taking pills when they are pregnant drinking when they are pregnant. Then wonder why kids start doing drugs.
@Kathy – it’s an interesting argument you make, that he threw his life away himself, but then you go on to blame “crappy mothers.” Although those two explanations don’t coexist very well, I think the contradiction reflects the frustration so many of us have at watching this epidemic of drug abuse claiming good, loved and loving people. Any solutions will have to take both parenting and personal choice into account, but hopefully we can get past anger and blame in order to find those clear-headed solutions… not an easy task with a problem that evokes so many emotions. So many angry people. Such an overwhelmingly tragic problem.
A friend of mine just entered treatment for alcoholism and told me that everyone, absolutely everyone in the center (besides him) is there for opiate addiction. I can’t believe how fast this epidemic has swept thru this country. So sad.
Kathy… You should have sympathy for him. Perhaps his addiction was generational as you described. Maybe he simply got addicted to pain killers after a surgery and couldn’t stop. Nobody wants to die from addiction. Nobody wants to hurt their loved ones, and those people would stop if they could… but they really can’t without serious, long term help. They aren’t being lazy or mean, they have a real addiction.