Neil Hope grew up in the 1980s before an audience of millions as a star in a pair of gritty Canadian television dramas, “Degrassi Junior High” and its sequel, “Degrassi High.” The shows were cultural touchstones in Canada and cult favorites in the United States, where they anticipated teenage docudramas like MTV’s “Real World” and soaps like “Beverly Hills, 90210.”

Mr. Hope had few secrets left after his five years in the role of the troubled teenage character Derek (Wheels) Wheeler. The show’s producers admitted all along that the story of Wheels, a boy who stumbles through misfortunes before drifting into alcoholism, drew broadly on the life of Mr. Hope, who never had formal acting training.

When the series ended in 1991, he spoke openly about the wages of alcoholism in a kind of public-service documentary, revealing that he was the child of alcoholics who had virtually abandoned him and had fed their drinking on his TV earnings. He said he wanted to convey a message to other teenagers whose parents were substance abusers: “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Because it’s not your fault.”

He was 19.

There is no map through the territory Mr. Hope navigated from that moment of heartfelt communication to the final moment of his life, when he had become so isolated that it would take four years before his own family learned that he had died. He was found dead on Nov. 25, 2007, in a room in a Hamilton, Ontario, boarding house. Neither the police, who concluded that no foul play had been involved, nor the coroner’s officials who removed the body recognized the name or the face of the deceased. He was 35.