Still Growing: An Autobiography (8 page)

Alan

When I heard Alan Thicke would play Jason Seaver, I was excited. I knew he’d been a Canadian talk show host so I presumed he would be the star of our show. He was
the
name that would sell the show. (Though he had just experienced a disaster as host of
Thicke of the Night
, a late-night chat-fest that was supposed to take on Johnny Carson.)

I liked Alan immediately. He was funny, smart and witty—three traits that make it easy to comically play off someone else. Playing opposite someone as gifted as Alan made it easier for me to become Mike Seaver.

Alan was always extremely generous with his compliments about fellow cast members. Once in an interview he said, “Successful family shows need someone with that magic—the look that has the chance to take the country by storm. Michael J. Fox did that. Kirk seemed to have that. I thought,
This is a good rocket to hitch my star to
.”
¹

Joanna

Joanna Kerns became my second mom.
TV Guide
once had a cover shot of me, my mom and Joanna (who resembles my mom a lot) with the caption, “My Two Moms.” They were holding flowers and I was the proud son.

I looked up to Joanna from the start. She was an experienced actress who had been in many movies. And she was pretty—though as a teen, you’re really not supposed to think that of your “mother.” When we met, she turned to my real mom and said, “Is it okay if I hug him? Can you hug a 14-year-old?” And so she did.

Like any proud mama would, Joanna also showered me with encouraging compliments. In the early years Joanna gushed, “Besides being just adorable, Kirk was a naturally gifted comedian. He didn’t need to know what his ‘motivation’ was. He just did it. I thought he was really special.”
²

Tracey

I was really glad when my former crush, Tracey, joined the show. She looked a lot like my sisters and it wasn’t long before I started treating her like one.

She was always smiling, innocent—kind of sheltered and naïve to a lot of worldly things. Because she’d been working since she was a toddler, she was actually the most experienced actor in the cast.

The girl could cry on cue, which was very impressive and hard to do. Witness the dramatic fourth season episode when Mike tells Carol her boyfriend just died. It was a magnum opus on-screen breakdown. I’m sure those scenes are what got Tracey all that dramatic work in TV movies after
Growing Pains
.

One of the funniest and most endearing things about Tracey was that she was so gullible. If you told her the word “gullible” wasn’t in the dictionary, she would believe you. (We tried it once and it worked.)

Jeremy

For so long on the show, Jeremy Miller (who played Mike and Carol’s little brother, Ben) was just a little tiny squirt. With his chubby cheeks and squinty eyes, he was our on-set chipmunk.

He loved a good practical joke as much as I did, and we loved conspiring together. When I needed an accomplice, he was right by my side. We were pals. He was the fun little brother I never had. He loved being on the show so much, he cried before each hiatus, not wanting to leave his second family.

“Mike”

I thought my character was the most fun to play, but he was also exhausting. I developed a way of coping with the high energy it took to play Mike Seaver. All the times I had shut down in the car on the way to and from auditions taught me how I could go into a quiet space in the midst of chaos. During short moments between takes or rehearsals, I sat in my chair, closed my eyes and zoned out. For a while people thought I was depressed and asked my parents about it, until they learned it was my way of recharging my Energizers.

On Day 1 of a typical week, 50-some people gathered in an old house near the set. Coffee breath hovered in noxious vapors. Muffins, donuts
and croissants were clutched in napkins. Idle chatter rattled and echoed in the room before the executive producers arrived.

Some hardworking P.A. (production assistant) had positioned 10 tables into a giant rectangle. Alongside other cast members, I pulled up a chair to begin our first read-through.

Another exhausted P.A. had driven through the night, all around town, to toss new scripts on the doorsteps of our houses. This was to give us time to read the script and prep ourselves for the table read. (I, however, was notorious for not reading the script beforehand. The writers began writing quips along the way: “Since Cameron hasn’t read this yet . . .”)

As the cast read through the script, the writers always looked a bit angst-ridden, eager for laughs. Who can blame them? This material was the baby they’d worked hard to push out. They really wanted the rest of us to love the baby, too. It wouldn’t be enough to call their baby “cute”; they wanted to hear the words “hilarious” and “sidesplitting.”

After the read-through, everyone gave notes to the writers—suggestions on scenes, things we felt could be better. I’m sure the writers valued each and every note us actors gave them (or not).

On Day 2, a skeleton crew drifted onto the set sometime around 10
A.M
. New scripts—printed on a different colored paper so we could tell which version we were on—were stacked on the Seaver living room coffee table. After a quick flip through the changes, we did a quick read-through before walking it out on the set. The director’s job was to decide where the characters needed to stand and move—to figure out what looked most natural.

Tracey, Jeremy and I had to put in our three hours of school throughout the day, so stand-ins played our parts while we hit the books. The stand-ins took notes on each change the director made, then relayed those to us later.

At the end of the day, the writers and executive team returned to watch us put on the revised play, after which there was another note session. The writers, much less battered than the day before, once again trudged off to their room to incorporate the latest changes.

On Day 3 there were again new scripts delivered in a new shade of pastel. Lunch was often ordered in from our favorite restaurants and sometimes we all went out to lunch—either splitting up or going as a group if we could agree on the same place. (I was game for anything, as long as it wasn’t raw oysters or loose flan.)

Day 4 found us “blocking” and taping the show. With our final script in hand, today was about rehearsing for the technical crew—lighting, camera and sound. Oftentimes, we performed the scene only once for the techs, then hit the schoolbooks. Stand-ins worked overtime on these days, performing the scenes over and over because that kind of rehearsal tends to exhaust the material for actors. No one wanted us to lose our “freshness of delivery.”

This was by far the most tedious day, so the jokes started flying and pranks happened. Poking fun at others helped the day go faster.

On shoot day, Day 5, we rolled in around noon. Excitement was in the atmosphere. This was it, the big proving ground. Either we had it or didn’t.

We rehearsed the entire show as many times as possible between noon and 4:00
P.M
., shooting two takes on camera without an audience. Those versions were saved in case things went terribly wrong with the audience. A laugh track could always be used if a joke fell flat.

After a delicious four-course catered dinner, we lined up for makeup re-touching, hair re-dos and wardrobe refinements. No one wanted a lint-covered, frizzy-haired actor on camera.

Outside, several hundred people lined up, waiting to watch their favorite show being filmed. Executive producer Mike Sullivan remembers, “The tape nights were a mini-version of Beatle-mania; girls jumping up and down screaming . . .”

It was embarrassing. Well, just a tad. It
could
be really fun to walk out by the line and greet people. This really stirred up the fans and made ’em nuts.

When the doors opened, the audience was ushered into bleacher seats. A warm-up comic told jokes and did silly things to loosen everyone up. “How many folks drove over 50 miles to come see us?” he’d ask
before hurling Tootsie Rolls at the crowd. Sugar never hurts comedy.

The audience got to see the show twice—including all the mistakes and re-takes. The best mistakes were saved for the gag reel at the end of the season. I, naturally, never made one mistake in all seven years. [Clears throat.]

Around 10
P.M
., we wrapped the show and headed home.

The next day a car or jet would escort us away to a car show, mall, parade or other publicity event somewhere around the country. People imagine that being on a show is so glamorous, when mostly it’s a lot of repetitive, tedious work. Fortunately, we had a great cast and crew who really got along and cared about each other. For me, it was never boring. There was a routine, but something different to do every day—a new scene, a new take on a joke, a new way to make something funnier. I had so much fun. The people I enjoyed most—my friends—were there.

To the outside world, it may have seemed that I was in some kind of “teen idol showdown” with the likes of Michael J. Fox. Which one of us commanded the most fan letters? Who had more lunch pails with his face on them? How many times had each of us graced the cover of
BOP
magazine?

Those had nothing to do with the real competition between Michael and me.

Michael and I had this one-upmanship thing: who could incorporate the most 360s in a show. We’d have to walk onto a set and somehow do a complete, 360-degree turnaround. But we had to spin so naturally it was undetectable to our directors. We had to find a reason for our characters to do a 360. And it only counted if it made the final cut of the show.

Since our shows taped on different days of the week, some of the
Growing Pains
crew worked simultaneously on
Family Ties
. A cameraman would come to the set on blocking day and say, “Cameron, Fox did
two
yesterday.”

“That’s nothing,” I’d scoff. “I can top it.” I had to think of places to sneak them in. It was a fun challenge.

Sometimes the cameraman would go to the other set and say, “Fox, you’re slacking. Cameron did four this week.”

I think four was the record—but I’m not sure who set it. (Now that you know the real competition, look for our masterful 360s in re-runs.)

Another great Michael memory was the day he showed up in his hot convertible and somehow got me out of class. We tooled around town, pulling up next to cars filled with girls. Flashing our dual heartthrob smiles, those babes got a two-for-one special.

The average American seems to think that all stars know each other and hang out together. A day like that really played to
that
misconception.

From almost the beginning, the Seavers seemed like a real family. We teased, laughed and played pranks on each other. When the producers called “Cut” and the boom mic was still running, they’d listen to our banter in the control room. It sounded exactly like the conversation you’d hear in a real family.

“Jeremy, stop eating that. It’s a
prop
.”

“I can do what I want, Tracey.”

“Jeremy likes to taste anything that’s not nailed down,” I quipped.

“Leave him alone, you two,” Joanna instructed, just like any good mother. She was a hugger—my favorites were the times she embraced me with a motherly sympathy, like when I delivered a line badly and the entire crew was falling down with laughter.

Alan could regularly be found sitting on the living room sofa, eating the crunchy tops off the muffins from the Craft Services table. He was kind enough to leave the nasty, half-eaten bottoms for the rest of us. He loved to scan the reviews for the show or relay bits of show business gossip. “Hey, Joanna,” he’d say. “I was watching
Entertainment Tonight
last night and they were profiling fabulous actresses who are also mothers. How come you weren’t on there?” A comment like that would ignite a
playful exchange—their real-life flirtation really strengthened the dynamic of their on-screen marriage.

The family relationships were not confined to the cast of five, but reached out to include everyone on the crew. Our director, John Tracy, told so many funny stories from his life in Brooklyn. He often started his stories with, “Our neighborhood was so tough . . .” and concluded with something I’d never experienced in my safe, suburban upbringing.

Alan and Joanna were both newly divorced single parents, and the set was always filled with their kids, my sisters and Tracey’s and Jeremy’s siblings. It was an army of noise whenever anyone had a birthday party, or during a seasonal party like Halloween or Christmas.

Every tape day, the cast and crew waited eagerly for my mom’s special chocolate-chip cookies. They melted in your mouth—they were “like buttah” (which makes sense, as that was a main ingredient). Mom made dozens and dozens of them to make sure there were always enough to go around. I think she made 38 dozen a week as a thank-you for all the hard work the crew did.