his peers at school. He was addicted to alcohol, cocaine, uppers, downers, and "any other drugs he could buy" for the next 17 years. During that time, he was "in and out of hospitals and arrested three times", including in 1980, for impersonating a doctor in Aspen, Colorado in order to purchase prescription medication. The charges were later dropped when Lawford completed his probation. In 2000, Lawford was diagnosed with hepatitis C, which he contracted due to his years of drug use. Lawford briefly attended Fordham Law School, but dropped out after a few months due to his dependency on heroin. In April 1984, the same year his father Peter Lawford died at the age of 61, after years of alcohol and drug abuse, Lawford's cousin and best friend David Kennedy, and third oldest son of Robert Kennedy, who also battled substance abuse issues, died of a drug overdose at the age of 28. David's death prompted Lawford to seek professional help for his issues. In 1986, at the age of 30, Lawford entered rehab and got treatment for his drug addiction, and remained clean and sober until his death in 2018. Career Acting Lawford chose to become, like his father, an actor in the mid-1980s, after realizing that a law career would not suit him. He performed in commercials in Boston for two years, and then he and his wife moved to Southern California in 1988 so that he could pursue an acting career. He worked in film and television for over 20 years. His acting credits included the sitcom Frasier and the drama The O.C. . In 2003, he had a brief stint on the soap opera General Hospital, but was best known for playing Philip “Charlie” Brent, Jr. on All My Children from 1992 to 1995. Lawford had small roles in films such as The Russia House, a 1990 spy thriller co-starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Sean Connery, and the 1991 rock-music film The Doors, which was directed by Oliver Stone. Lawford played a Navy officer in the 2000 film Thirteen Days, a drama about the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1997, Lawford had a role in the independent comedy Kiss Me Guido as the gay lover of the main character. He also had a small role in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, who directed Lawford in a 1990 episode of the HBO anthology