Brad Everett Young, actor, celebrity photographer, and campaigner for arts education, died on Sunday after being struck by a wrong-way driver on a Los Angeles freeway. He was 46.
His death was confirmed in a statement by his publicist Paul Christensen, who said that Young was driving alone on the 134 Freeway late on a Sunday night after attending a film screening when another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction collided with his car, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Young was pronounced dead at the scene and the other driver was taken to hospital.
“Brad was a fixture at Hollywood events, red carpets, premieres, galas, industry parties, and charity functions. He had an eye that could capture both the glitz of celebrity and the quiet humanity behind the flash,” Christensen told NBC News.
“To see him working – greeting subjects, arranging light, or simply moving through the crowd with camera in hand – was to witness someone who belonged there, not merely as a documentarian, but as part of the tapestry of those nights.”
Young began acting in the 1990s and accumulated a steady list of small television and film credits, appearing in shows like Boy Meets World, Charmed, and Grey’s Anatomy, and in films including Charlie’s Angels and Jurassic Park III.
Brad Everett Young died on Sunday after being struck by a wrong-way driver on a Los Angeles freeway (Getty)
Born on 24 July 1979 in Danville, Virginia, Young grew up the middle child in a family of three children. While at school, he served as editor-in-chief of both his high school newspaper and his college news magazine.
Originally, Young moved to Los Angeles with intentions of studying medicine, but fell in love with acting after booking an audition and joined the Screen Actors Guild.
“LA was just the place where I could make those decisions with all the job opportunities the town offered,” he told Hollywood Life in 2015. “In the first month here, I went out on my first audition for a TV series, booked it, joined the Screen Actors Guild, and the rest was history. I absolutely fell in love with everything in this business and the journey and strength it takes to accomplish what you want in it.”
Over the next few decades he accumulated a string of small roles in television shows such as Boy Meets World, Felicity, Charmed, Beverly Hills, 90210, Numb3rs, and appeared in the 90210 reboot. In Grey’s Anatomy (2008) he played an appendectomy patient.
His film credits included Love & Basketball (2000), Charlie’s Angels (2000), Jurassic Park III (2001), I Love You, Man (2009), The Artist (2011), and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2017).
As time went on, Young built a reputation as a celebrity photographer, shooting red-carpet events and portraits of stars including Stranger Things star David Harbour, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seth Green, and The Summer I Turned Pretty star Gavin Casalegno.
Sarah Michelle Gellar and Brad Everett Young at the ‘Wolf Pack’ screening in Beverly Hills; Young built a reputation as a celebrity photographer, shooting red-carpet events and portraits of stars (Getty)
In 2014 he founded Dream Loud Official, a grassroots initiative aimed at restoring music and arts programmes in schools across the US. “Art & Music programs in schools ultimately changed my life,” he said in an interview with Carolyn Topol Talk. “I couldn’t even imagine not having those programs growing up.”
“Brad’s passion for both the arts and the people behind them was unmatched,” Christensen said. “He lived his mission of keeping creativity alive, and his legacy will continue through Dream Loud Official.”
General Hospital actor Chris McKenna said he was in “complete shock” after hearing the news of Young’s death.
“I’m in complete shock. We just did a shoot a couple weeks ago and we texted this weekend. Brad was such a talented, funny, warm, caring guy,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “He donated his time, his talent, he raised money for underserved schools and the world is darker today without his light. Rest easy, bud.”
General Hospital alum Jen Lilley shared a tribute to Young on her Instagram, describing him as “so much more than everyone’s fave celebrity photographer”.
Young is survived by a brother, Chris.
