Passages: Brad Renfro started promising acting career with ‘Client’

LOS ANGELES — Actor Brad Renfro, whose career began promisingly with a childhood role in “The Client” but rapidly faded as he struggled with drugs and alcohol, was found dead Tuesday in his home. He was 25.

Paramedics pronounced him dead at 9 a.m., said Craig Harvey, chief investigator for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. The cause of death was not immediately determined, Harvey said, but an autopsy could be conducted as early as today.

Renfro had reportedly been drinking with friends the evening before his death, Harvey said.

Renfro’s lawyer, Richard Kap­lan, said he did not know whether the death was connected to any problems with addiction.

“He was working hard on his sobriety,” Kaplan said. “He was doing well. He was a nice person.”

Renfro recently completed a role in “The Informers,” a film adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis novel.

The actor served 10 days in jail in May 2006 after pleading no contest to driving while intoxicated and guilty to attempted possession of heroin.

Other run-ins with the law included a 1998 charge of cocaine and marijuana possession, for which he avoided jail time in a plea deal. He was also placed on probation in January 2001 and ordered to pay $4,000 for repairs to a 45-foot yacht he and a friend tried to steal in Florida in August 2000.

He was arrested again in May 2001 and charged with underage drinking, violating the terms of his probation, and was ordered into alcohol rehabilitation the following March.

Renfro’s film career began when he was 12, acting opposite Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones in “The Client.” His other credits included “Sleepers,” “Deuces Wild,” “Apt Pupil” and “The Jacket.”

Judah Folkman found cure for cancer in mice

BOSTON — Dr. Judah Folkman, a groundbreaking cancer researcher whose work cured the disease in mice and gave hope for a cure in humans, has died. He was 74.

Folkman died late Monday, said Elizabeth Andrews, a spokeswoman at Children’s Hospital Boston, where Folkman was director of the vascular biology program.

Folkman’s research focused on cutting off the blood supply that cancer cells need to grow, called angiogenesis, and cured mice of the disease. Although that success has not carried over into humans, his work opened the door to a new line of treatment that has slowed the growth of cancer in humans and shown success in treating a variety of other diseases.