Former child star Lee Aaker, star of The Adventures Of Rin Tin Tin, dies indigent at 77

Famous child star Lee Aaker has died at the age of 77.

His death was announced by former Donna Reed Show star Paul Petersen in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

Petersen said Aaker passed away in Arizona on April 1 after suffering a heart attack and shared that he had been indigent at the time of his death. 

Aaker is best known for having starred alongside a German Shepherd in the ABC TV series The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin for five seasons from 1954 to 1959.

Aaker also appeared in the 1952 film The Atomic City, with Barbara Stanwyck in the 1953 film Jeopardy and with John Wayne in the 1953 movie Hondo.

Petersen, a child actor turned advocate for child stars, posted a photo on Facebook of Aaker in Rin Tin Tin and wrote: ‘Saying Goodbye to Lee Aaker. You have to be a certain age to remember Rin Tin Tin.

‘Lee Aaker passed away in Arizona on April 1st, alone and unclaimed…listed as an “indigent decedent.” As an Air Force veteran Lee is entitled to burial benefits. I am working on that.’

Petersen added: ‘God knows when a sparrow falls.’ 

Hit show: Aaker is best known for having starred alongside a German Shepherd and actor James Brown in ABC TV series The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin for five seasons from 1954 to 1959

Aaker also appeared in the 1952 film The Atomic City, with Barbara Stanwyck in the 1953 film Jeopardy and with John Wayne in the 1953 movie Hondo (pictured)

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Aaker was born on September 25, 1943, in Inglewood, California. 

His mother owned a dancing school and he and his brother had a song-and-dance act.

THR.com said that the director Fred Zinnemann spotted Aaker on a live KTLA program one Saturday night and cast him as the title character in the Oscar-winning short Benjy in 1951.

In 1952, Aaker appeared in uncredited roles in Zinnemann’s High Noon, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth and Charles Vidor’s Hans Christian Andersen and was billed above Marilyn Monroe in O. Henry’s Full House.

His credits also included the films Arena (1953), Mister Scoutmaster (1953), Ricochet Romance (1954) and Destry (1954) and the TV series The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and The Lone Ranger. 

Tragic: ‘Lee Aaker passed away in Arizona on April 1st, alone and unclaimed…listed as an “indigent decedent”, Paul Petersen shared. ‘God knows when a sparrow falls’

After Rin Tin Tin, he guest-starred on The Donna Reed Show, Route 66 and The Magical World of Disney and appeared in Bye Bye Birdie (1963) as acting jobs increasingly became scarce.

‘I began doing guest shots, I realized that something had changed. I wasn’t the center of attention any more,’ Aaker recalled. 

‘My folks had always told me that my career might not last, but when it happened, it was still a hard thing for me to adjust to,’ he said.

He left Hollywood before he was 20, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and worked as a carpenter.

He also taught skiing to underprivileged children and people with disabilities at Mammoth Mountain in California while living on his $1,500-a-month pension from the Screen Actors Guild.  

‘My folks had always told me that my career might not last, but when it happened, it was still a hard thing for me to adjust to,’ Aaker once recalled. His Hollywood career was over by age 20