He made it big as kid on the silver screen but faded into minor parts and relative B-movie obscurity when the leading Tinseltown roles vanished as he grew older.

Now Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin has been granted belated recognition with his own star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

An unashamedly emotional Culkin, now 43, thanked his actress fiancee Brenda Song for giving him “all my purpose” during the ceremony honouring a four-decade acting career.

“I feel such esteem from this whole thing,” he said as he received his star as guests including Paris Jackson, Catherine O’Hara, Natasha Lyonne, and his siblings Quinn and Rory gathered around.

Culkin began his stage career at the age of four in Rocket Gibraltar playing the grandson of Burt Lancaster, before rising to stardom in John Hughes’ Home Alone playing Kevin McCallister which won him a Golden Globe nomination.

“There’s so many people that I love and to feel that love back is just amazing,” he said.

He continued: “I’d like to thank Brenda, you’re absolutely everything. You’re my champion, you’re the only person happier for me today than I am.

“You’re not only the best one I’ve ever known, you’re the best person I’ve ever known.

“You’ve given me just all my purpose, you’ve given me family and after the birth of our two boys, you’ve become one of my three favourite people.”

A big boy now, Macauley Culkin, 43, finally gets his star on the Walk of Fame. Photo: AP

Culkin ended his speech referencing a beloved quote from Home Alone: “To wrap things up in the spirit of the holiday season, I just want to say ‘Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!'”

O’Hara, who played Culkin’s onscreen mother in the Home Alone franchise, said “I am so proud of you” when taking to the stage to honour the former child star.

She said: “The reason families all over the world can’t let a year go by without watching and loving Home Alone together, is because of Macaulay Culkin.

“It is Macaulay’s perfect performance as Kevin McCallister that gave us that little every boy on an extraordinary adventure.

“I know you worked really hard but you made acting look like the most natural thing in the world to do, it really was as if we had ambushed the home of this real little boy named Kevin to make a movie and he just went along with it for the fun of it.”

While Orange Is The New Black star Lyonne, who met Culkin during filming Party Monster in the early 2000s, said “There’s a very rare unspoken language that happens between child actors who make it out alive”.

“And so we find each other, and we instinctively register what a miracle that survival is.

“The true beauty though, is seeing the adult you’ve become, the loving patriarch you are to your beautiful siblings, and now the deep and loving father and husband that you are.”

-AAP