Free Coreyography: A Memoir by Corey Feldman

southern L.A., urging you to become “part of the experience.” Reese’s Pieces was everyone’s new favorite snack (and in fact, sales of the candies tripled within two weeks of the film’s debut). When my mother and I finally managed to snag tickets to a showing at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood—nearly a month after E.T. premiered—there was still a line of people snaked around the building.
    I was old enough by then to understand the movie business, that things changed and it wasn’t anyone’s fault, that Steven hadn’t cut the character because he didn’t like me, that he certainly didn’t have to break the news by calling me at home. But I was still crushed. It didn’t help that—while driving back and forth to auditions—my mother felt the need to point out every single billboard along Sunset Boulevard, as well as the prostitutes loitering below. My mother thought it was cute for her eleven-year-old son to stick his head out the window and yell, “How much?” as we drove by.
    *   *   *
    Like any true Southern California kid, I have never seen snow. So I know the first day of filming is going to be magical. We’re shooting in Courthouse Square, a backlot at Universal Studios, the same set that would become Hill Valley’s quaint town square in Back to the Future . Today, it’s been transformed into the fictional setting of Kingston Falls—and it’s beautiful, a perfect representation of small town suburbia, an idyllic depiction of Anywhere, U.S.A., at Christmastime, awash in a sea of twinkling lights. As soon as I step foot on set, however, I realize that the “snow” is nothing more than acrylic paint chips mixed with bits of Styrofoam.
    “Where’s the real stuff?” I ask a grip, kicking the fake snow with the toe of my shoe.
    “This is how we do it in movie world,” he tells me.
    But I know that can’t be right. I quickly rattle off a list of movies in which the main characters go sledding, or make snowmen, or throw snowballs at one another—there’s no way anybody can make a snowball out of this stuff.
    “Sometimes we use Styrofoam,” he says. “Sometimes we use salt. If we’re shooting on a closed set, we might be able to make it. And if we’re filming on location, we might even use the real thing. But when you’re shooting outside in L.A. in the middle of summer, kid, this is how it works.”
    I felt like I was three years old again, discovering that Santa was just a guy in a glove.
    *   *   *
    True to his word, Steven does cast me in the next one, which turns out to be a film called Gremlins. Joe Dante, an up-and-coming science fiction director, will helm the project; Spielberg will executive produce. The film—about a strange creature called mogwai, and the evil, destructive little monsters it eventually spawns—will become the first to feature the official logo of Amblin Entertainment, a silhouette of Elliott’s bike flying across the face of the moon.
    “How ya doin, Corey?” Joe Dante said, hustling over to me just moments after I had discovered the fake, movie-set snow. “You’re gonna be great! Now, we just have to get you in this Christmas tree.”
    “ What? ” I choked out, probably a little too loudly. I had read the scene, of course—it’s the first of the movie, it comes immediately after the opening credits—but I always imagined that I’d be standing behind the tree. I didn’t think I’d actually be in one.
    “Oh, no,” he explained. “We built this costume for you. You’re going to be wearing it.”
    He seemed way too excited about this, in my opinion, because that costume was itchy, scratchy, and weighed a ton. Actually, it sort of sucked.
    The scene is a small one, but it takes nearly two full days to shoot. Sheriff Frank saunters up to the town Christmas tree tent—as “Christmas tree Pete,” I have apparently donned the tree costume as some sort of sales tactic—and accidentally ruffles my branches, not realizing that I’m