Somehow, I was the only one who missed I Love Lucy as a staple of my childhood. Happy Days—sure. The Brady Bunch—couldn’t get enough. But Lucy must have run during my snake-feeding or sister-torturing sessions.
Looking back, my lack of TV history knowledge at that stage in my career is really embarrassing—especially because acting is my profession. I was making a lot of money from an industry with no appreciation of its pioneers.
Bob Hope invited me to be a part of a few of his TV specials. I only knew him as “the old dude who entertained the troops.” At the taping of the first special, I found myself in my trailer, getting mic’d (the awkward part before any live performance, when a complete stranger runs his cold hand inside your clothes and burrows a wireless microphone in any crevice he can find). I was nervous about the show, trying to remember what Bob wanted me to do. My mom sat across from me in a recliner, eating a snack and reminding me of the lyrics to the song I would perform.
A guy poked his head through the door. “Mr. Cameron, Lucille Ball would like to meet you.”
I didn’t even know who this Lucille was. Another crazed girl? Give me my peace! I mumbled to myself. I couldn’t believe someone would interrupt me during my prep time.
“I’m sorry, I’m busy right now,” I shot back. “I’ll get to her when I can.”
My mother spit up a little of the caramel corn she was working on. “Kirk! You can’t do that! You need to drop everything right now and go meet her!”
Moments later, another knock.
“Mr. Cameron, Miss Ball is here to see you.”
Annoyed, I stepped outside to meet a wrinkly old lady. She wore a scary orange wig, the hue of a setting sun. “Hi, I’m Lucille Ball,” she said in throaty voice that had taken a beating from tobacco.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Kirk,” I said, shaking her hand.
I had no idea that this woman, along with her husband, Desi Arnaz, had pioneered the art of shooting a sitcom with three cameras (instead of one film camera). “Desilu” meant nothing to this teenage brain. If asked, I would have guessed it was a dance craze. The Foxtrot. The Macarena. The Desilu. But the star of the most successful comedy in TV history? Didn’t ring a bell. I figured the broad was some old friend of Bob’s—he must have felt sorry for her and booked her on the show to lift her spirits.
During the show, Lucy did a magic trick that involved pulling many strange objects out of the trunk. With her inimitably expressive eyes, she reacted to each item as she yanked it out. Finally, she pulled me out of the trunk.
Man, I was an idiot.
I missed the opportunity of a lifetime. Lucy was ready to have a casual conversation with me! I could have asked for tips. I could have kissed the feet of the sitcom queen—the same feet that stomped grapes to get a role in an Italian movie. I could have gotten advice from the lips that downed Vita-meata-vega-min, and inspiration from the woman whose nose was set on fire in front of William Holden . . . but instead, I was totally clueless.
I vaguely remember the rest of the conversation with Lucy. After she introduced herself, she said something like, “I’ve seen your work and you’re very good.”
“Thank you,” I said smugly—just as I had a thousand times before to every other grandmother who thought I was adorable. I didn’t offer any compliments in return because I didn’t know who she was. Rather, I thanked her for her kind words and excused myself to go back into my trailer so I could take a nap.
My mom looked like she had seen a ghost. Her countenance froze like a freshly Botoxed face. Her son’s profound ignorance had left her in shock.
That particular Bob Hope special included Brooke Shields, Phyllis Diller, Don Johnson and President Ronald Regan. If I didn’t have a picture of me shaking hands with the President, I wouldn’t have remembered he was there. I was more excited about meeting Brooke Shields than anyone else on the show. Ah, the priorities of a teenager.
Not too long after, Lucille Ball died. Bob Hope invited me to join him and others in a tribute show—all the greats of comedy were there. At the end of the night, I stood on stage, holding hands with some skinny old dude named Jimmy Stewart as the entire cast sang a song.
Afterward, Bob invited me to his home for dinner. I said to Mom, “Do I have to go?”
“Yes!” She and Dad looked at me as if I’d been lobotomized.
I climbed into a car with another old guy named Danny Thomas. He shouldn’t have been behind the wheel. On the way to Bob’s house, he opened his glove compartment to show me his gun. I wasn’t sure why he did that, but it unnerved me a little. I had no problem “making room for Daddy” while this dude was sportin’ a heater.
Inside Bob’s house was an original Norman Rockwell painting of a much younger Bob, complete with his trademark ski-slope nose. His wife, Deloris, seated us around the table: Bob, Danny, Jimmy, Phyllis Diller, George Burns and me. I sat there, bored, thinking to myself, If I wanted to spend time with seniors, I could’ve visited a convalescent home, entertaining them with my latex glove turkey trick.
There was a lot of cackling, coughing and flapping dentures that night. I vaguely remember something about George Burns not being able to get a cat out from under his house. Phyllis Diller’s laugh frightened me a little.
I think I did a total of three Bob Hope specials. When I look back on them now and remember myself in a sailor suit dancing like a monkey while Bob sang “One Hot Tamale,” I wonder why such an honor was wasted on a knucklehead like me.
Some of the events and shows I participated in gave me life experiences I otherwise would never have had.
Though planes made me nervous, I always enjoyed the privilege of bringing along any friend I wanted—that was always part of the deal. It was a blast traveling with a buddy, seeing the world through bachelor eyes.
I usually flew commercial airlines, but there were a few flights in private Lear jets, which look exactly like they do in movies: luxurious living rooms in the sky. No matter how I got where I was going, if it was business related, the travel was all-expenses paid.
There were so many exciting trips, they started to blend together.
In Vancouver, Canada, there was a week-long celebrity-filled event to benefit composer David Foster’s charities. Tracey Gold was one of the others from the cast who flew in a private jet with me.
Several times I was asked to play at a celebrity tennis tournament at Las Hadas, an opulent resort in Mexico.
Probably the most memorable jaunt was when a friend and I traveled to England and France for a celebrity tennis tour to benefit charities sponsored by Fergie and Prince Albert for the Princess Grace Foundation in Monte Carlo. French Open champion Arancha Sanchez and I defeated Prince Albert and French Open champion Michael Chang in a knock-down, drag-out doubles tournament. (Not that I take much credit for the win.)
It was amazing to stay in palatial accommodations without paying a dime for them. In Monte Carlo, the view from my hotel room wasn’t bad for a 17-year-old boy: directly over the bikini-clad French Riviera. My friend and I agreed that someone must have rounded up the most beautiful girls in Europe and placed them all on that beach.
We hobnobbed with the Prince at a gala, followed by a near allnighter at a dance club. The gorgeous women in their 20s left me immobilized. I would have liked to dance, but . . . again . . . I was immobilized.
After the tournament and related events, we spent some time touring Italy and Switzerland.
The magical words for actors are “on location.” Who doesn’t want to work and vacation at the same time, all on someone else’s dime?
Growing Pains was such a success that the network spent extra money to send us all to exotic locations. The costs for such undertakings were astronomical, considering the trips included the entire crew, as well as equipment. We did an episode on a cruise ship to Mexico and went to Hawaii twice. I enjoyed Hawaii so much that I went back two times on hiatus with friends.
The network then did something extremely unusual: They agreed to send the entire cast and crew to Paris and Barcelona for a two-part show.
The Gulf War had just begun and the President had restricted air travel for Americans in some parts of the world. Although Barcelona and Paris were not on the list, I was still very uneasy. I was concerned that our plane might be shot out of the sky by some crazy, American-hating terrorist. Under the circumstances, I didn’t think it was wise to go on the trip.
I wished I wasn’t such an integral part of the script so that they could write me out of the episode. I didn’t want my apprehensions to affect so many people. I told the producers they should go on without me.
They, understandably, didn’t want the Seaver family going on vacation without their son Mike. I was informed that the producers had spent $100,000 on pre-production trips already, spending tremendous time and effort finding the locations, hiring people, and so on. They’d even had special hats made that read “Barcelona or Bust.” I didn’t know what to do.
Finally, they sat me down and asked me point blank, “Are you going to get on the airplane and go to Barcelona? Yes or no?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and said, “I don’t think I can.”
The producers looked at each other and said, “We’re done.” And everyone got up and left.
The whole thing was called off. One of the studio execs approached me and said, “Warner Bros. would never, ever put you in harm’s way. If we didn’t believe it was 100-percent safe, we wouldn’t even suggest it.”
I had put brakes on a freight train, bringing it to a screeching halt. I felt terrible. Have I made the wrong decision here? Am I overreacting?
All I knew was that our country was at war. It felt like we were an international target. Traveling on an American passenger plane over the Atlantic seemed not unlike riding atop an old mangy horse and trotting past a glue factory. It had nothing to do with a power play.
The producers didn’t outwardly express anger, but I knew they were incredibly frustrated with me. I had shattered the excitement of a hundred people who wanted to work in a dream location.
Warner Bros. moved the episode to Catalina Island just off the coast of California, and did their best to make it look like Spain. It was a beautiful spot—but definitely not Paris or Barcelona.
My difficult choice reverberated through the industry. I was perceived as a big-headed little punk who thought he could tell the studio what they could and could not do.
Industry Events
I didn’t like most industry events. I couldn’t stand that kiss-kiss-hug-hug phoniness. Regardless, some shmoozing was mandatory—it came with the job. Promotion and publicity were essentials to the gig of celebrity, but they often made me feel like a zoo exhibit.
It wasn’t so bad if I was in control of the environment, but if it meant wearing a suit and tie, hopping on a plane and showing up at some red carpet event with pretentious people, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I was uneasy surrounded by people I didn’t know. In general, I was incredibly shy and didn’t like hanging out with strangers. Of course, certain people and circumstances could pull me out of my shell, but most of the time I could be found checking my watch to see when I could make my earliest escape.
I loathed Hollywood award shows like the Oscars, Grammys and Emmys—except for the time Chelsea and I went to the Emmy Awards in a limo and I did a pratfall on the red carpet, tumbling down the stairs in front of the paparazzi. While bystanders gasped in concern, Chelsea howled uncontrollably. (She swore it was one of the funniest things she’d ever seen.) Twenty minutes into the party, we were so much more interested in each other than in the award-show boast-fest that we snuck out the back door and had our driver take us to The Ivy, an irresistibly romantic restaurant in Beverly Hills.
Mom suggested we throw a huge birthday bash for my sixteenth birthday, per the standard for child actors in the industry. That was the world we lived in back in the ’80s. (Now, of course, Hollywood parents host blowouts for their children before they’ve even exited the womb.)
I chose a colorless theme. Everyone was instructed to wear black, white and silver. I dressed in the sparkliest silver outfit I could find—my wardrobe guy probably dug it out of a trunk marked “Garish”—and donned zebra-printed socks and fruity silver Tinkerbell slippers. The room was decorated with black, white and silver banners, balloons, linens and table decorations. A big ice sculpture sat on the cake table. A DJ spun Prince, George Michael and the Jacksons—Michael and Janet.
Mom was then on her umpteenth diet, and we decided the party would honor the culinary needs of everyone. We had food stations set up: Pritikin health food, Asian cuisine, spicy Mexican options and cheese-loaded Italian food. As an added joke, my dad set up exercise bicycles near the Pritikin corner.
The invitation list included everyone: junior high school friends, the cast of Growing Pains and their families, the crew and all of my relatives. Michael J. Fox came to toast me and give me some “big celebrity brother” advice. Photographers were invited as well. (Hey, if we were spending that kind of dough, we figured we’d take advantage of the photo op. It wasn’t often that Mike Seaver and Alex P. Keaton were in the same space.)
The party went on late into the night. Maybe it was the positive energy or maybe I was on a sugar high, but I finally let my mullet down and got out on the dance floor. Someone snapped a photo while I was mid-Electric Slide, totally into it, fully enjoying myself.
Car Shows
I traveled all over the country making appearances at car shows. I guess the logic went that young girls would beg their dads to bring them and the promoters would get the sale of two admissions instead of one.
I’d show up in Salem, North Carolina, or Wichita, Kansas, or Wooster, Pennsylvania, along with 100,000 people and booths, food, games and rebuilt cars from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. “Through the long dark winters, it gives these guys something to do,” Dad explained. (Being a California boy, I never fully understood long winters. In L.A., it’s cold when you have to throw on a hoodie.)
I agreed to do these shows because I didn’t see any reason to say no, and they usually paid me good money. One time a promoter didn’t have the cash, so he asked if he could give me a car as payment. I declined, since I’d recently bought my beloved, white Honda Prelude.
The line of girls was beyond unbelievable. I spent 10 seconds—max—with each girl saying, “Hi, how are you? How are you doing?” as I scribbled my name on a photo. I could sit for three hours straight signing autographs and there would still be a line as far as my eye could see.
Because we often took the red-eye flight after the car show in order to be at a mall opening by morning, we could get pretty tired. Once, Alan Thicke fell asleep in the middle of signing his name. Alan Thiiiiii . . .
Playboy Mansion
I received an invitation to the Playboy Mansion to attend a party that promised to be loaded with stars and hopping with bunnies (pun intended). At the time, Dad was beside himself. “Go, Kirk. You’ll never get a chance to do this again! It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
Mom shot Dad a dirty look and said, “Kirk, I don’t want you to go. I don’t think it’s a good idea. It wouldn’t be good for you to go, or for your career. If anybody takes a picture of you while you’re there, even something very innocent is going to reflect badly on you.” And then she started to cry.
Dad waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry. Go. You’ll have a great time.”
“Kirk,” Mom said. “I’d be hurt if you went. But make your own decision. If you aren’t home by 6:00 after work, then I’ll know you went.” She turned on her heel and went to her room.
Dad winked. “Go, Baby Buck. Go for the both of us.”
I had been thinking about the invitation before I brought it up to my parents. I, like my dad, figured it was a pretty amazing opportunity. But a part of me was intimidated. I was afraid of what might happen to me there. I knew I was young and naïve. What would I be getting myself into?
I trusted my mom as my manager enough to know that if she thought it was a bad idea, it probably was. And I trusted her as my mother.
Deep down inside, I didn’t want to go. Really, I was in search of an excuse to bow out. So in typical teenage mode, I put it on her: “Well, if it means that much to you, then I won’t go. Fine, Mom. Rob me of my fun.”
I was home by 6:00, safe and sound.
Punk’d
I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 17. I was just too busy to take driving lessons and to put in the practice hours. When I was finally legal, I bought a car. I loved my brand-new white Honda Prelude. I loved it the way a woman loves her firstborn.
One day on the way to work, I dropped it off at the shop to get a tune-up. Midway through the day’s rehearsals, Mom ran up to me and said, “Kirk, you need to take this phone call.” Her face looked not unlike it had when I told her about the invite to Hefner’s party. I took the phone from her.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Cameron, but someone stole your car off the lot,” a voice said. “You know, we just put it out there for a few minutes with the keys in it while we were shifting cars around. And it’s gone. We’ve already notified the police.”
I tried to pull it together. “Thank you for letting me know,” I muttered.
A few hours later I got a call from the police. “Mr. Cameron, good news. We’ve gotten your car back. If you’d like to come pick it up . . .”
Mom took me over right away. I couldn’t get my hands on my baby fast enough. The officer slowed my momentum by first asking for my autograph. Give me a break! You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought as I scratched Best Wishes—Kirk Cameron on the back side of a blank traffic ticket. Even law enforcement wanted a piece of me.
Outside the garage sat another guy, wearing grease-covered overalls.
“I’m Kirk Cameron. I’m here to pick up my car.”
“Which one is it?”
“Hey, guys!” he shouted into the darkness of the garage. “Haul out the Prelude.”
A tow truck appeared through the garage door, carting what was left of my car. It had been stripped down to nothing but the frame. My stomach churned. I was horrified.
I began to walk around my shell of a car. One of the drivers handed me a tennis shoe that had been in my trunk. “This yours?”
I nodded numbly and took it from him.
As I inspected the car, I noticed something off, and went to whisper to my mom. “This isn’t my car.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“It’s not my VIN number.” How I knew my VIN number by heart is another mystery. I’ve said it before—I was an odd kid. It probably had something to do with learning to memorize things quickly for my acting career.
Just then, another car drove up: mine. Hanging out the windows were my dad and sisters. “You’re on TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes!” they yelled.
In today’s terms, I had been punk’d. I’m just glad I didn’t pull a Timberlake and break down in tears.
Fan Club
Right after Growing Pains premiered, I started getting fan mail. Eventually I was getting 10,000 fan letters a week, which added up to 120,000 letters every three months—almost a half million letters a year. (See? I know basic math.)
The mail truck showed up at our house and began unloading bins filled with the letters. At first, I read and answered each one—but that quickly became impossible. Then for a stretch of time, Mom took over the job. She read each letter and responded with a picture postcard.
But Mom already had a job as my manager. She enlisted the help of Grandma Jeanne and some church ladies to take on the Herculean task. Occasionally those sweet women came across blunt letters from men in prison, but mostly they received notes from young girls. Many included photos and other little gifts for me. A lot of packages arrived with stuffed animals. Grandma Jeanne donated these to the Children’s Hospital. More than once, a pair of panties fell out of an envelope. Those were donated to the dumpster out back.
There were great letters about how much the girls loved Mike Seaver—or the entire Seaver family. Every so often a fan confused me with Todd Bridges from Diff’rent Strokes, but I appreciated the compliment on my beautiful ebony skin.
Some wrote sad stories about their struggles of being in abusive families and living very difficult lives. Many wrote of their dreams and wishes.
Mom wanted to be sure each received something in return, but eventually it was too costly, so she started a fan club. Kids could get a bunch of things for 10 bucks. (This was during the aforementioned Kirk Cameron Pillowcase heyday.)
For years, the ladies faithfully took care of the letters. Grandma Jeanne even became long-term friends with one of the girls when she felt a desire to respond to her letter. We relied on those ladies so much. Grandma Jeanne says it was a joy, but it still involved a lot of hard work, for which we were very grateful.
Celebrity Friends
This paragraph is pitifully short. Most of my friends were non-industry people. I vaguely knew Michael J. Fox and, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio got his start on our show—but we didn’t hang very often. Sorry to disappoint you.
The Darker Side
There is a darker side to the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Making a lot of money puts you at risk of people taking advantage. I and some other cast members fell victim to such a scheme. My business manager stole over one-third of my total earnings.
I started out with a professional showbiz management firm. An employee named Walter was the go-to guy, a business advisor for my parents. When I got old enough, I stayed with him. He was a sweet man whom we trusted completely.
Walter wasn’t qualified to invest money in the stock market, so he suggested I hire a firm that could handle investments. This firm charged several thousand dollars a month to manage my account, which seemed to be an awful lot of money for what they were doing.
Walter contacted me one day and said, “These guys are ripping you off. The truth is, you don’t need their services. I’m basically doing all the work anyway. These guys are just collecting a check. Dump ’em.”
I was so appreciative of his advice that I gave Walter a raise.
He slowly set up a system that gave him check writing authority on my account. We neglected to set up any kind of checks and balances with him—certainly no one suspected that our trusted advisor would do anything shady.
Walter bought diamonds, furs and watches for his boyfriend. They took extravagant trips to Hawaii.
The party ended one day when Walter’s secretary saw a cancelled check in the trashcan and turned it over to me. “I think you need to check on this,” she said graciously.
How can this be? This is Walter, our family friend. We trusted him with everything. In hindsight, it was obvious that the guy had problems, that he was on the edge. He was skittish, filled with anxiety and ready to jump. He got to the point where he wouldn’t look me in the eye, often resembling a cornered squirrel.
When we saw him we’d say, “Wow! Business must be really good for you. You wear Italian-made suits. Your boyfriend wears a black mink coat, Rolex watches and silk jumpsuits. You must be great with money.”
He was great, all right. Great at snowing me.
I took the check to a man named Gavin de Becker, the authority on celebrity protection. “How do I get this money back?” I asked.
Gavin, as usual, asked a lot of probing questions. He felt Walter might be at high risk for fleeing the country. He said we needed to find a way to corner Walter away from his home, without arousing suspicion.
It would have been a highly intense situation for anyone—let alone a teenager. Gavin’s plan made me nervous. I was emotionally rattled and could barely make the phone call to Walter. “Walter, I’m having some problems on the set and I really need to talk to someone. My parents are on that Alaska cruise with everyone. I’m here by myself and I need to talk to a friend. I’m hanging out at this hotel, can you meet me here?”
He agreed and I met him in the lobby. “Walter,” I said, “I decided I needed to get away and rented a room. We can go there to talk privately.”
He agreed. We got on the elevator and I noticed how fidgety he looked. That made two of us. When we got to the room and opened the door, Gavin and three of his henchmen were there with open black briefcases filled with written and photographic evidence.
Walter’s face fell. He turned to look at me and said, “I protected you from everyone except myself.” And then he confessed.
Later he told me that when he heard my voice on the phone he knew what was up. “I knew I was walking to my own demise, walking into a trap. I felt so horrible that I was doing this to you. I was sick and I couldn’t stop myself. I needed someone to stop me.”
He did protect me from everyone else. He was always trying to protect me from people who tried to take my money in other areas, people who wanted me to invest in their businesses or ventures. He saved me pennies while costing me millions.
Because of Walter’s confession, the trial was quick. He went to prison.
My Crib
Most young people work for years to build up enough of a nest egg to buy a home. One of the lifestyle perks was that I bought my own house when I was 18 years old.
I found this really cool house in Simi Valley, California, in a hippie-biker area called Santa Susanna Knolls. The place was rustic and unconventional and, as legend had it, built with drug money. An eight-foot barbed-wire fence surrounded the property and the windows were set high in the stone walls so that outsiders couldn’t see in. It had a bell tower that housed an old school bell with a rope that hung into the kitchen—probably to signal when police or shipments arrived.
I lived in my own Swiss Family Robinson digs, built on seven levels against a steep hillside. It was so in sync with nature. It had patios resting on boulders on the hillside. It had wood burning stoves in the bedroom and one in the den.
The top level above the main house was a guest quarters with a little loft bed, wood-burning stove, sink, toilet and a smokin’ view of Simi Valley. Outside the guest quarters was a big bathtub. Yes, a white porcelain bathtub plumbed up with hot water, perched outside on the rocks to take baths in the breeze. There was nothing like it.
I didn’t live there long because I met and married a girl who preferred a quaint condo by the lake. Sadly, my cool mountain cabin burned down not long after I moved out.