Yesterday we heard about the turbulent early life of child actress Laura Lee Mickle.

She was starting to become a star in the 1940s, but then a judge decided

Laura Lee should move back to Texas with her adoptive parents and end her acting career for good.

But what happened to her next?

I'm Gustavo Riano.

You're listening to The Times, Daily News from the LA Times.

It's Wednesday, July 13, 2022.

Today, we continue our story about a Hollywood child star

who went from working alongside screen legends like

Humphrey Bogart and Gary Cooper at the age of seven to leaving Tinseltown altogether,

then ending up in prison, then eventually disappearing. It's a story that reveals the dark

underbelly of Hollywood's golden age and the peril still facing child actors today. If you haven't

listened to Part 1, you should go back and do that first.

My L.A. Times colleague, Stacey Perman,

worked for more than a year to find out what happened to the former child star.

Stacey, welcome back.

Great to be here.

Laura Lee was adopted by the Mickels when she was about five years old in 1945.

A year later, she's in Hollywood, get some fame, and then two trials about whether her parents abused her and who should have custody of her happen.

And all of this happened in 1950.

So that's barely five years from when her name was changed to now she's going back home.

Yes. I mean, this was sort of a lightning fast period of time

...