Blake Garrett, a former child actor best known for his role in the 2006 family comedy How to Eat Fried Worms, has died at the age of 33.
His mother, Carol Garrett, told TMZ that Garrett died Sunday, February 8, and the family is awaiting autopsy results to determine an official cause of death.
She told the publication that Blake went to the emergency room in Oklahoma last week after experiencing intense pain and was later diagnosed with shingles, a viral infection that causes a painful rash.
His mother said that Blake may have self-medicated to deal with the pain, and suspected his death may have been a tragic accident.
Born in Austin, Texas, Garrett began performing at eight years old in local productions, including a lead role as the magician in Aladdin and his Magical Lamp and as Charlie Brown in Peanuts: A Charlie Brown Tribute. His additional theatre credits include The Wizard of Oz, Annie and Grease, according to Deadline.
At 10, he joined the touring production of Barney's Colorful World, which traveled across the country and played in arenas between 2003 and 2004.
For How to Eat Fried Worms, which follows a boy named Billy (Luke Benward) who joins a new school and is forced to eat 10 worms a day by his bully, Garrett won a Young Artist Award for Best Young Ensemble in a Feature Film alongside his castmates in 2007.
Garrett portrayed Plug, one of the henchmen to the main school bully, Joe Guire (played by Adam Hicks).
The film is based on Thomas Rockwell’s 1973 children’s book of the same name, and also starred James Rebhorn, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, and Tom Cavanagh.
Aged 13, Garrett told local paper The Oklahoman that he learnt new skills while shooting How to Eat Fried Worms, including being taught how to do a 360-degree move on a bicycle by a stuntman.
Accompanied by his mother at the time, he told the paper: “There were rows of bicycles, and they let me have first pick.”
“There was one scene where we were riding on a gravel road and got to slide to a stop. The guys who could ride worked on that scene. They had a camera on the ground, and in one scene I slid and gravel hit the camera. They really liked that shot, and that’s the one they used in the movie,” he said.
Despite early career success, Garrett doesn’t appear to have continued his acting career into adulthood. TMZ reports his mother said he had been “living a really good life” over the last few years in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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