It's not easy for child prodigies

The curse of the child prodigy is living long enough to become your own ghost.

So it was with Michael Jackson in the quarter-century slide that followed his epoch-defining, still-brilliant "Thriller." Of course, hits came after that, along with the extenuating circumstances of his child-abuse trial that no doubt caused his creative silence in recent years. But such circumstances often dog ex-prodigies in lives that most of us can barely imagine.

Consider what's normal for too many prodigies: relentlessly pushy, impossible-to-please parents, worshipful public acclaim and handlers who encourage whatever makes the kid feel good. It's amazing that more aren't like Tatum O'Neal, who won an Oscar at 10, but has been in and out of drug rehab much of her life. Yet things could still turn around for her, which shows how loosely survival must be defined here.

The idea that the post-"Thriller" Jackson was a child prodigy in decline has been around for years. He is right in line with composers from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 18th century to Erich Wolfgang Korngold in the 20th. Both were brilliant child talents who transformed their worlds, Mozart on the opera stage and Korngold with lush 1930s and '40s scores to films such as "Captain Blood." But Mozart's public abandoned him amid economic recession, and Korngold became so outdated that he was laughed out of post-World War II music circles.

Career visibility can be a booby prize, and few earthlings are the subject of more intense focus than child prodigies. Consider the scorecards for generations of film and pop-music stars: Shirley Temple, Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Elizabeth Taylor, Ron Howard, Jodie Foster, Brooke Shields, Diane Lane, Christina Ricci, Britney Spears. Some have enjoyed stable ground, some not.

The survivors have an inner durability from the beginning. Temple wasn't just charming but efficient, accomplishing the most complicated musical numbers in a single "take." Intelligence (as opposed to instinct) works: Foster and Shields temporarily quit their celebrity to attend Yale and Princeton, respectively.

They're like most survivors, who take an extended intermission that opens up options beyond their early lives. Temple ultimately spent her adult life as a diplomat, for example.

There's also artistic survival vs. personal survival. One case history: Durbin and Garland got their start in the same 1936 movie, "Every Sunday"; both had amazing adult voices and ways of using them that seemed far beyond their ages (15 and 14). Although Durbin saved Universal Pictures from bankruptcy, she opted not to hang on. Success diminished and, after 1950, she left Hollywood to have a family. Now 87, she lives in France.

Garland, on the other hand, was dead at 47 after a history of brilliant ups, embarrassing downs and lots of drugs. Sound like somebody more recently deceased?