Joey Cramer is one of those child actors who did not continue and acting career as an adult. He got his start in the 1984 Tom Selleck science fiction robot movie Runaway, but he is best remembered as the lead character of the Disney film Flight of the Navigator. Unfortunately, he will now be remembered in connection with a bank robbery in British Columbia.
According to the South China Morning Post, Deleriyes Joe Cramer was arrested earlier this week after a man dressed in disguise left a bank with an undisclosed amount of money. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) says that a man wearing a wig of scraggly hair, bandanna, sunglasses, and a dark jacket entered a bank in Sechelt, British Columbia on April 28th. This man demanded money and then fled on foot.
Cramer then drove off and was approached by officers in the community northwest of Vancouver. Apparently, the suspect was identified by RCMP officers, who had apparently dealt with Cramer on some unrelated matter. He was charged with robbery, disguise with intent to commit an indictable offence, as well as failing to stop for a peace officer and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.
For those that don't remember Cramer, Flight of the Navigator was a Disney film about a boy from the 70's who goes missing for ten years. When he is discovered in 1986 (the year that Flight of the Navigator came out) he has not aged a day. He soon discovers that he was part of an experiment by a sentient spaceship, which leads to a big chase scene.
Many look back on their childhood and remember Flight of the Navigator as a film that they grew up with. In fact, there was talk about remaking the film years ago with director Colin Trevorrow, who at the time was most famous for the independent film Safety Not Guaranteed. After Trevorrow got the job directing Jurassic World, he stated that the Flight of the Navigator remake had "moved on." Apparently, Trevorrow wrote a script with Derek Connolly, but Trevorrow stated that "I'm not sure where they are with that one."
Of course, it seems like everything is getting remade these days, and Flight of the Navigator has the nostalgia factor working for it. Generally, projects like these feature cameos by the actors involved in the first, so it would be interesting seeing Joey Cramer make a cameo as an adult in the Flight of the Navigator remake. The actor's last role was an uncredited party guest in It's My Party, according to IMDB.
It is sad to see Cramer involved in a robbery, but sadly, he is not the first child actor to do so in what has become a "child star" cliché. In 1991, Dana Plato, who is most famous for playing Kimberly on Diff'rent Strokes, also committed robbery.
