In 1986, Eddie Murphy was 25 years old, riding high off Beverly Hills Cop and Saturday Night Live, when he signed up for a wild fantasy comedy called The Golden Child. The setup sounded like a fever dream. Murphy’s Chandler Jarrell, a fast-talking Los Angeles social worker, gets recruited by the priestess Kee Nang, played by Charlotte Lewis, to trek to Tibet and rescue a mystical child from the clutches of Sardo Numspa, a silk-robed menace brought to life by Charles Dance. That “boy” at the center of it all? Not a boy.
Six-year-old Jasmine Reate shaved her head, stepped in front of the camera, and got credited as J.L. Reate to keep the illusion alive. Hollywood magic, 1980s edition. On screen, she barely spoke, radiated calm, and somehow held her own opposite one of the biggest comedy stars on the planet. Off screen, she was just a kid doing her job.
Critics were not kind. The film, directed by Michael Ritchie of Fletch fame, got hammered on release. Murphy himself didn’t sugarcoat it. He once told Rolling Stone, “No matter how I feel, for instance, about The Golden Child – which was a piece of s*** – the movie made more than $100 million. So who am I to say it sucks?”
And yet audiences showed up. The movie pulled in nearly $80 million in the US alone and crossed the $100 million mark worldwide. Not bad for something its own star trashed in print.
Here’s where it gets better. Thirty-three years after saving her from demonic doom, Murphy ran into Reate again at the Toronto International Film Festival. He was there promoting Dolemite Is My Name. She was there as the executive director of events for the festival. Yes, that festival. The kid with the shaved head now helps steer one of the most respected film events in the world.
“He was just as kind as I remembered him when I was 6,” Reate said after the reunion.
Forty years later, the Golden Child doesn’t need rescuing. She’s running the show. On Instagram, her profile reads: “Organization perfected. By Jasmin L. Reate, the bespoke professional organizer. LA, NY, Carmel & beyond. #jrcapproved #organizationperfected”
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