Poor Alfalfa

Carl Switzer in a different role some years later.

I turned on this movie called The Great Mike, a B movie made by PRC, the most impoverished of the poverty row studios.

A kid has a horse named Mike. He and his friend played by Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, use him to deliver newspapers. But the kid is convinced Mike would make a great racehorse.

Alfalfa appeared to have reached his full adult height. You know how former child actors don't always modify their acting styles as they get older? Well, it looked like Alfalfa did update his acting but went in the wrong direction. The poor guy was just awful.

Alfalfa died in 1959 at age 31. He was a mean kid playing a nice kid in the Little Rascals. He had a bad temper. He had become a hunting guide. He borrowed a guy's hunting dogs. One got lost and he offered a $50 reward for the dog's return. He got the dog back and paid the reward, but some time later, after a few drinks, he decided that the dog's owner owed him $50 so he and a friend went to his house and forced their way in to collect the debt. The guy had a gun. He and Alfalfa wrestled over it until they fired a shot into the ceiling. Alfalfa stopped then and decided to leave and that was when the guy shot and killed him.

His older brother, Harold Switzer, had also been a child actor. He later operated a franchise installing and servicing commercial washing machines. He killed a customer in a dispute then drove into the desert and killed himself in 1967 at age 41.

Alfalfa vs James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life.