Still Growing: An Autobiography (11 page)

I had enough money to do as I wished, but not enough life skills to relate to people in a healthy way or to perform ordinary tasks such as managing my time, balancing a checkbook or creating and following a schedule.

I didn’t like unfamiliar people or surroundings. I felt very off-kilter, shy and uncertain—the irony being that my career depended on my ability to talk to unfamiliar people in unfamiliar surroundings. One of the most private kids around was one of the most recognizable people in America.

It probably would have shocked my fans to find out how self-conscious I was at the height of my idol-dom. On August 1, 1987, I forced myself to create a self-confidence project, hoping to increase my self-esteem, by listing my positive traits as I saw them.

I am a healthy person. I am very sensitive to others’ problems. I am an honest person, I am a good actor, I am an affectionate person, and I like to be open to suggestions and ready for a change if needed.

I was embarrassed by how I looked—you already know about my zits. My paranoia grew when I discovered “Cameron” literally means “crooked nose.” I went straight to the mirror, examined my nose from every angle and realized with horror that my nose didn’t go straight down between my eyes—it went diagonally.

All I could think about was my stupid crooked nose.

I fretted over how ugly I was and wondered why anyone would want to be around someone so gross. Trying to be helpful, Dad said, “You’re on the cover of 14 magazines this month. Obviously somebody doesn’t think you’re ugly.”

When a normal person runs into other normal people, both people ignore common defects in each other—it’s common courtesy. If a woman has a curling iron burn on her forehead, you don’t bluntly ask, “Is that a hickey on your brow?” If a guy has a bump on his lip, you don’t point at it and say, “Is that a cold sore on your lip? Whose face have you been kissin’?”

But as a celebrity, my looks were open for discussion. Strangers loved to point out anything on my face that seemed awry: zits, blackheads, freckles, pimples and that stuff that forms in the corner of your eyes when you’re asleep. All of it was pointed out to me—and did nothing for my self-confidence.

I used to tell my parents how awful I felt about myself and they would say, “Every teenager feels that way. It’s no big deal.” The most I got was a trip to a dermatologist to get tetracycline.

I became kind of a loner and somewhat depressed. I didn’t go out with my friends. I desperately wanted to, but it was too hard to come home from work where people did
not
make fun of me, to kids who were ruthless as only teenagers can be. I also felt like I was living in a fishbowl, that everyone was whispering, “Boy, he’s so different in person . . . and his skin is so much worse than it looks on TV.”

I installed red light bulbs in my dressing room and dimmed them. The red light canceled out the red marks on my face. Talk about looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses . . .

At one point I brought make-up home from the set so I could camouflage my facial glitches and look more like Mike Seaver if I absolutely
had to go out. One day Mom gently said, “Uh, Kirk, honey . . . guys don’t wear makeup off-camera. I think you should draw the line at Clearasil.”

Hanging in my bedroom alone was easier than going out and keeping up an image.

January 23, 1988

I ate at The Good Earth. I had to get ready for the Golden Globe Awards. I went with Mom, Dad and Iris. I was nominated for the first time!!! For a supporting role in a series. I didn’t win though . . .

I was a quirky one. I loved eating at my favorite restaurant, The Good Earth, every chance I got.

No one could believe it when I chose to go on the Pritikin diet as a young teenager. (At least it gave
BOP
magazine something new to write about.) The reason I started the diet was that my greatest fear in the world was getting arteriosclerosis. The moment I heard about this horrible disease, I could feel my arteries hardening to plastic. I figured I’d keel over and die at any moment. To delay my impending death (and also to help my mom lose weight by supporting her), I went on the Pritikin diet and became a vegetarian. I ate only the whites of eggs and the staple of my diet was tofu.

Combined with the healthy diet thing, I was a germaphobe. I would
never
eat something off of somebody else’s plate. If my dad ever took a bite of my food off my plate, I’d push my plate away, disgusted—and done. I also never drank from someone else’s glass. I kept picturing all that backwash.

I was naturally skinny. Because of that embarrassment, and because of my zeal to be healthy, I was obsessed with going to the gym. Every day I worked out for two hours after school or work.

No matter how much I tried to bulk up, I was always the skinniest guy at the gym. I thought,
I’m skinny and I have horrible skin. Who will ever want to go out with me?
Malcolm Jamal-Warner from
The Cosby Show
didn’t seem to share my affliction.

When I turned 16, I began to confide in the man who had cut my hair since I was 9, the stylist Fran Rich had recommended. Rick Eichhorn became my closest friend for several years. I think one of the reasons I appreciated Rick was that he never once mentioned anything about my skin or my scrawny build. He was just a friend. I felt very comfortable hanging out with him and talking with him about anything. I didn’t have to hide from him. Rick was my best friend at a time when I really needed someone to confide in.

When I was little, my hair was blonde and as straight as uncooked spaghetti noodles.

One day in my early teen years I was at the beach, using baby oil to get a deep, dark tan. (I may have feared arteriosclerosis, but I thought nothing of skin cancer.) When I got home from the beach, I looked in the mirror to discover curly hair atop my head, as if I had gotten a perm. I chalked it up to it being sticky from the baby oil, salt, sand and air.

After a quick shower, however, my hair remained curly. Forget Malcolm Jamal-Warner—my hair started to look like Lisa Bonet’s!

Not for that reason, but I kind of liked it. Mom wasn’t so sure. She hovered over me—making me feel like the mama’s boy I was—blow-drying the heck out of my hair. She wanted it straight for interviews and auditions.

One day I finally said, “Mom, no more blow-drying. I want to leave it like this.”

I went to Rick and said, “Do something with this mop-top.” He cut and messed with it until I had a loose, curly mullet thing going on—short on the sides, long in the front, long in the back. (Hey, don’t laugh. Mullets
made
Billy Ray Cyrus—and now he’s got his own little teen star, Miley, to deal with.)

March 19, 1987

It’s really weird that out of all the people in the world, I, Kirk Cameron, don’t have a girlfriend. Everyone seems to think that I’m
sooooo
lucky and could have any girl I want. But the problem is, I haven’t found anyone yet. I just want someone to love and to love me back. I feel like I’m really missing something in my life. Someday, though, I’ll find her. I just can’t help but ask myself, “Why me?”

My nephew loves to cover his body in bling. He impresses chicks with his sports car. His dream is to be in the shoes I was in at 16. He recently asked, “What was it like, Kirk? I mean,
dude
! You coulda done
anything
. Tell me you took advantage of this somehow. Give me the juicy details. This is, like, my dream.”

I guess in the eyes of many, I blew it. I didn’t go out with all the babes. Contrary to
National Enquirer
, I did not buy my home in Simi Valley to line the walls with women. Maybe I had a smorgasbord of women to choose from, but I was never a playboy. My friends couldn’t believe how I didn’t take advantage of all that female energy rushing in my direction.

I went to Tracey Gold’s prom with her—as friends. I had escorts to movie openings or awards ceremonies—as friends. Sure, I had a crush on Alyssa Milano from
Who’s the Boss?
. What teenage guy didn’t? But crushes were the safe way out. You could have feelings for someone and still keep your distance.

My heart wasn’t where Mike Seaver’s was—or the bulk of the male population’s. I never got a DUI because I didn’t drink. The only thing I ever smoked was a ham for Thanksgiving. Maybe I would have had more free time to get into trouble with girls if I wasn’t so busy killing rats to feed my snakes. All I wanted was to find
one
girl and be with her for life.

July 25, 1987

I really wish that I will meet someone that is so special, and wants to be with me as much as I want to be with her and who will be excited for me about my career and will not be interested in Kirk Cameron the actor, star of Growing Pains. I’m looking for someone who could be my best friend. Someone who is not the least bit phony but who is just so honest and open about her feelings and who genuinely cares about mine and wants to share her feelings with me.

Not too long after I wrote that journal entry, I met a girl on the set. She came in for a quick guest role, and we began seeing each other off set. I grew very fond of her and her family—especially her father, who later became very instrumental in answering my questions about God.

Within a year, my immaturity had made a royal mess of that relationship and left that sweet girl heartbroken and confused. She was the last girl I went out with until the most breathtaking woman in the world entered my life.

I never knew how much money I made during my early teenage years. I sensed I wasn’t workin’ for minimum wage, though. My job didn’t involve cleaning the deep fryer or wearing a cone-shaped paper hat. I knew I could make in weeks what my father made in a year—which seemed insane considering how hard he worked.

My parents handled all my money. Some of my income paid for the high expenses of being in the business—incidentals such as headshots, taxes, agent fees, manager fees, lawyer fees, insurances and union dues. Much of it went into a trust account guided by a law that required parents to put a certain percentage away for their children. Dad increased that mandatory percentage and upped the age when I could get my hands on it, and he invested my money in a variety of places.

Sure, I would have enjoyed buying that private fantasy island. Yes, I would have enjoyed legally changing my first name to Gilligan and starting my own perfect civilization on that uncharted desert isle—but Mom and Dad knew better. They had foresight to realize I would handle my money better once I was older.

Mom became my manager when it was clear we couldn’t afford the costs related to acting unless she got a full-time job. Someone needed to take me to the studio daily and stay there, because it was required by law that every underage kid have a parent or legal guardian around all day. It seemed silly to pay someone else to do that, so she took the job.

Mom was great on the set. Everyone loved her. She was never considered a “stage mom” and I liked that about her. Much like Mike Seaver had an attractive, likable mom in Maggie, I had the same in my real mom. Everyone loved Barbara Cameron.

She didn’t shackle me or smother me with her love. Mom stayed in the background and made friends with the crew. She baked hundreds of dozens of her famous chocolate-chip cookies for all. She broke through the Hollywood games with her down-to-earth simplicity.

In the beginning, I didn’t look at it as a career for myself. I looked at it as a potential opportunity for my kids, whatever that panned out to be. I just wanted them to be happy. There was never anyone in our family who was involved in the business prior to our kids and so I was pretty green at what a parent’s role was, other than to drive them to auditions and if they were lucky enough to book, then I would sit on the set and make sure that they were not abused or treated poorly.

Eventually my parents started giving me an allowance more substantial than most kids had, based on my income. I usually took that cash to my bank (conveniently located next to Foster’s Freeze) and stashed it away in my savings account. I kept my little red bank account book in a safe place, occasionally opening it to glance at the total. I couldn’t believe how much money I had!

That $132 balance was my treasure, my loot, my booty. I was a squirrel whose nuts overfloweth’d.

Despite my desire to mastermind my own private island civilization, in truth, I was never a big spender. In most practical cases, I was a very frugal kid. When I finally purchased a sports car, I bought a Honda Prelude. It was a sweet ride, but not exactly the price of a Rolls or a Bentley or a Jag.

From ages 14 to 21, I was in a strange position of power, which made for a warped adolescence. A huge load of responsibility was dropped onto my shoulders when
Growing Pains
took off. Never having done it before, I didn’t know how to be a kid and live like a responsible adult at the same time. I didn’t know how to do all that was required of me and
still be like a regular teenage kid. All I really wanted was to be normal. My way of dealing with the pressure of the business was to compartmentalize, so I didn’t talk about business when I was home.