Three's Company

Three's Company (1977-84) premiered at the height of the disco era, when sex was on everyone's mind,  so of course it was about people having sex.  Or, rather, about people thinking that other people were having sex:

Janet eavesdrops on Jack, the cooking student, talking to a girl in the kitchen.  "Ok, take it out, slowly...that's it...careful...work your hands more..." 

They're having sex right on the kitchen table!  Disgusting!  Outraged, Janet bursts through the door, to find Jack and his classmate...cooking.

No one actually had sex at any time during the eight year run, not even long-married apartment complex managers, Mr. and Mrs. Roper: joke after joke branded him impotent.  Nor, when they left, self-designated ladies' man Ralph Furley (Don Knotts of The Andy Griffith Show).

Certainly not the two single girls who occupied the apartment near the beach in Santa Monica: plain-jane Janet (Joyce DeWitt, right, next-door neighbor to one of my friends in West Hollywood) and dumb-blond Chrissy (Suzanne Somers, left, who was eventually replaced by two other blondes).

Or their roommate, Jack Tripper (John Ritter, who would later star on Eight Simple Rules with Martin Spanjers).

Wait -- a guy with two girls?  Mr. Roper/Mr. Furley is horrified.  This is the 1970s -- it's impossible for a man and a woman to be alone together without sex happening.  Jack can't live here!

Jack hits on a novel solution: he'll pretend to be gay!  Whenever Mr. Roper or Mr. Furley are around, he'll sashay about, limp-wristed and lisping, and maybe bat his eyes at them.   He'll have to hide his girlfriends, of course, or explain them as drag queens.

What could possibly go wrong?

Not much.  Most episodes ignored the pretending-to-be-gay angle in favor of "thinking someone is having sex" gags and heartwarming sitcom antics:
The roommates get a new puppy.
They buy Mr. Roper's car.
Jack and Chrissy take over Janet's babysitting job.
Janet has two concert tickets, and can only invite one of the roommates.

Jack's gay persona was a negative stereotype, no gay characters ever appeared, and at the end of the series, when Jack plans to get married to a woman, he explains to the landlord that he's been "cured."  The writers had apparently never met a real gay person.  But still, there was a lot for gay kids to like on Three's Company.

1. In the fall of 1977, Anita Bryant's Save Our Children campaign was in full force and our preacher had just discovered gay people, so all I heard about gay people was: subhuman monsters, bogeymen who lived only to seduce and destroy.  It was remarkable that anyone would pretend to be such a being, for any reason.

2. Or that a landlord would rent such a being an apartment.

3. Or that others would willingly flirt with the guilt by association. Even horndog neighbor Larry (Richard Kline) had no qualms about people thinking that he wa friends with a gay guy.

4. Jack eventually forgot to do the limp-wristed bit, becoming a conventionally masculine pseudo-gay guy.

5. You could hear the word "gay" frequently.

6. There were frequent muscular men as guest stars, such as Steve Sandor

In 2012, Three's Company was rebooted in the stage play 3C, starring Jake Silbermann.

Alf: from Melmac to West Hollywood

Alf (1986-90) was one of the "I've got a secret" sitcoms of the late 1980s (others included Harry and the Hendersons, Out of This World, and My Secret Identity).  It aired on Monday nights, opposite the female buddy-bonding Kate and Allie and the hunkfest MacGyver, so I rarely watched.  But you couldn't miss hearing about Alf, the sarcastic, irreverent Alien Life Form who crash-lands on Earth and imposes himself upon a nuclear family: nebbish Dad Willie Tanner, Mom Kate, eye-rolling teenage daughter Lynn, lonely preteen son Brian (Benji Gregory), and outcast Cousin Jake (Josh Blake).

Like all of the "family friendly" sitcoms of the 1980s, gay people did not exist.  Gay actor Jim J. Bullock had a recurring role as Uncle Neal, but his character was heterosexual.  Actually, every character was heterosexual.  Alf had a girlfriend back home, and started dating a blind woman (who didn't realize that he was an alien). Even ten-year old Brian had his share of crushes on girls (later photo, left).

Some teen idol attention fell upon Josh Blake, with some shirtless and semi-nude photos in teen magazines. His character was heterosexual, too, but his awkward attempts to form emotional connections with Alf allow for some gay readings.

Alf ended on a cliffhanger, with the government discovering Alf and carting him away.  Five years later, the movie Project Alf (1995) continues his story.  Fans were universally livid with rage; the Tanners were absent (none of the original cast wanted to be involved) and Alf was portrayed as far more antisocial and belligerent than in the tv series.  And he gets to make a homophobic crack about the army's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

My Two Dads

In West Hollywood in the late 1980s, Sunday meant church, brunch at the French Quarter, cruising at  Mugi or the Faultline, then Chinese take-out in front of the tv, watching 21 Jump Street, Married...with Children, It's Gary Shandling's Show, and Tracey Ullman. We certainly never watched My Two Dads (1987-1990), but we were familiar with the controversy.

The premise: 14 years ago, Marcy Bradford was canoodling with two men at the same time.  She never informed either that she was pregnant, and raised Nicole (Stacy Keanan) alone.  Then she dies, and a family court judge tracks down the men and gives them both custody.  Fortunately, they are both still single, and eager to co-parent a daughter they never heard of before:

1. Suave ladies's man Joey (Greg Evigan, the trucker-adventurer of  BJ and the Bear)

2. Skittish button-down Michael (Paul Reiser, who would go on to star in the popular Mad About You).

Housefuls of parenting men were surprisingly common in the 1980s, like the housefuls of single dads in the 1960s, but with double or triple the hetero-romantic plotlines.

The Judge (Florence Stanley from Night Court) moved into the building to keep an eye on the Full House-Minus-One.

Filling out the cast were former football star Dick Butkus as the owner of the diner downstairs, and two boyfriends for Nicole, so she could be like her mom:

1. Cory (Giovanni Ribisi of Friends and My Name is Earl).  Much older in this shot, of course.
















2. Zach (Chad Allen of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, who is gay in real life).

The familiar cast was augmented by familiar guest stars, such as Scott Baio (Charles in Charge), New York mayor Ed Koch, Russell Johnson (The Professor on Gilligan's Island), and Richard Moll (Night Court).

This was long before anyone in Hollywood would acknowledge the possibility of gay men being parents, so the dynamic duo live in a strictly gay-free New York City.  No gay characters, no pretending to be a couple to get some special gay-only privilege, no being mistaken for gay, not even for a double-take instant.

My Two Dads was strictly about heterosexuals.

Even the howls of outrage by watchdog groups was not about any implication of gayness, but because Nicole's mom was fornicating with two men at the same time.

By the way,  Stacey Keanan went on to star on Step by Step, another gay-free TGIF sitcom full of familiar faces, including Patrick Duffy of Dallas and Suzanne Sommers of Three's Company

Ricky/Rick Schroder

Ricky Schroeder was the iconic "cute kid" of the 1980s.  With his cherubic round face, baby blue eyes, and dimpled cheeks, he looked like a Campbell's Soup kid, or Richie Rich before his muscle spurt -- perfect for heart-wrenching roles on movies-of-the-week like Something So Right and A Reason to Live.

 In 1982, at age 12, Ricky was cast as a poor little rich boy on Silver Spoons -- his dad (Joel Higgins) is the fabulously wealthy owner of a toy company, so they live in a mansion that looks like a giant toy store.  Ricky has a series of same-sex chums, many of whom went on to teen idol careers  -- Anthony Starke, Jason Bateman as a bad boy, Billy Jacoby as another bad boy, Corky Pigeon as a nerd, Bobby Fite as a cowboy, and finally Alfonso Ribeiro, who grew into a bodybuilding hunk.

By 1987, Ricky was 17, muscular, and no longer cherubic, so Silver Spoons ended. Ricky renamed himself Rick, dropped the "e" from his last name (it merely signifies an umlaut in German), and started a massive re-invention campaign.

No more rich kids, nor more sophisticates.  If the role didn't require a Southern accent, he wasn't interested.  He played cowboys, country boys, rednecks,killers, and sports stars.  He was shirtless or sometimes completely nude in Too Young the Hero (1988), Across the Tracks (1991), and lots more.

And he did a substantial amount of buddy-bonding,

Rick has remained very active in moves and on tv.  In 2008 he made headlines by playing what was probably the first openly gay character on a tv science fiction series, Major Bill Keene on  The Andromeda Strain.

Though he is a long-term Republican, a member of the NRA, and a Mormon, three groups not known for their gay-friendliness, Rick is not at all homophobic.

There is a celebrity hookup story about Ricky on Tales of West Hollywood

John Stamos

Gay boys all but ignored 20-year old John Stamos when he was playing streetwise Blackie on General Hospital (1983-84).  Not many watched soap operas, and his pleasantly slender physique seemed bit too androgynous as Nautilus-toned man-mountains came into style. Besides, he had a girlfriend.

Some started to notice when John starred as aspiring rock star Gino Minnelli on Dreams (1984-85), which aired after Charles in Charge on Wednesday nights.  It offered lots of shirtless shots -- by this time John had joined a gym -- plus buddy-bonding episodes like "Friends" and "Boys are the Best."  But it only lasted for 12 episodes.

After 25 episodes of You Again? (1986-87), playing Jack Klugman's estranged teenage son -- which was switched around so often that no one saw it -- John finally found a place in gay teenagers' hearts in Full House (1987-95) on the TGIF ("Thank God it's Friday) block of kid-friendly Friday-night shows. 

He played Uncle Jesse, who moved in with his brother-in-law Danny (Bob Saget) and another male friend, Dave (Joey Gladstone), to help raise Danny's three daughters after his wife died.  

Alternative families are a standby on tv, but aside from the basic non-heteronormative family structure -- and John's smile -- there was little for gay teenagers to like.

He rarely took off a shirt -- when he did, the moments were mostly cute rather than hot. Only one episode showed him in a swimsuit.

 Nor did the friendships result in much buddy-bonding.  The guys all got girlfriends, and the daughters got boyfriends, and gay people were not mentioned, ever, even though the show was set in gay mecca San Francisco.  

In an Advocate interview, John states that he wasn't really aware that he had gay fan at the time -- "people weren't as out back then."  But he's made up for it since, as one of the most gay-friendly actors in Hollywood, even when depicted in TV Guide.  He played a gay wedding planner in the tv-movie Wedding Wars (2006).  He engaged in a same-sex kiss for charity at the GLAAD Awards.  

When The Office refused to air a joke in which a character pretends to be gay by imagining that he was "in a steam room with John Stamos," the blogosphere assumed that the screen hunk had objected -- but he quickly proclaimed that he had nothing to do with it, he loved the joke, and he would be more than happy to film any attendant fantasy sequence.

There's a John Stamos sausage sighting on Tales of West Hollywood.

Martin Spanjers: 8 Simple Rules for Playing Gay

In case you're wondering who this boy is who showers wearing a towel and seems very happy to be looking at the muscular adult hunk, his name is Martin Spanjers, and he was playing the teenage Rory on the TGIF sitcom Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter (2002-2005), about an overprotective Dad.  It wasn't as heterosexist as it sounds

1. Dad was played by the gay-friendly John Ritter, who originated the "straight pretending to be gay" bit on Three's Company (1977-84).
2. Mom was played by the gay ally Katey Sagal, star of Married with Children and Futurama.
3. The teenage daughter takes a girl to the prom in order to make a stand for gay rights.
4. At the same prom, Rory's date turns out to be a lesbian.




5. Grandpa (James Garner), brought in after the tragic death of John Ritter, thinks the school principal is hitting on Rory.
6. James Garner originated the "attracted to a guy who's really a girl"  in Victor/Victoria (1982).
7. Rory is one of the standard gay-vague sitcom kids, soft, shy, pretty, and struggling valiantly to act girl-crazy.

After Eight Simple Rules, Martin did the usual guest star bit, on 90210, Family Guy, and Good Luck Charlie.  Then he got a starring role on the vampire drama True Blood, with Joe Manganiello. When his parents discover that the teenage Sam Merlotte is a shapeshifter, they abandon him -- he comes home from school to find the house deserted.  A lot of gay kids could relate to parents unable to accept their true identity.  He drifted for a long time, through a series of failed relationships, unable to find a home anywhere, not even among werewolves.  Finally he grew up (into Sam Trammel), and opened a bar in Bon Temps, Louisiana, where he dated women but had erotic dreams about men.

Martin also made some quirky black comedies, such as Sassy Pants (2012), in which a teen (Ashley Ricards) runs away from her oppressive mother to live with her deadbeat Dad, and bonds with her Dad's much younger boyfriend (Haley Joe Osment).  Martin plays her younger brother, who is also gay.

More recently he has appeared in tv series such as Larry and Lucy, Angel from Hell, and Hot Girl Walks By.   He lives in L.A., but I don't know if he is gay or not.

The Hogan Family

During the 1980s, the buzzword was "family values," which meant that only people who had heterosexual nuclear families had value. We heard again and again that the only life worth living involved husbands and wives raising horny teenager and wisecracking preteens.  That's why Married...with Children was such a big hit, immersed in a pool of Family Ties, Family Matters, Growing Pains, The Wonder Years, and The Cosby Show.  

But there was a glimmer of inclusivity in The Hogan Family (1986-91), which began as Valerie, a star vehicle for Mary Tyler Moore Show second banana Valerie Harper  She played the matriarch of a nuclear family consisting of airline pilot husband Michael Hogan (Josh Taylor, left), horny teenager David (17-year old Jason Bateman, previously of It's Your Move and Silver Spoons), and wisecracking twins who looked nothing alike Mark (15-year old Jeremy Licht) and Willie (15-year old Danny Ponce).

After a season and a half, Harper left in the midst of a salary dispute -- and proved not indispensible.  Her character was killed, Aunt Sandy (Sandy Duncan) moved in, and the renamed series got top ratings for another three years.

As is common in nuclear family sitcoms, the kids soon took over.  The twins usually had episodes involving cheating, bullies, staying out past curfew, friends (notably Andre Gower), and the "discovery of girls."  By the last season, they were as heterosexually active as David.

Jeremy Licht had soft, androgynous features, and became the darling of the teen magazines.

Danny Ponce was frequently ignored. But many gay teens preferred him to Jeremy Licht

.Especially in later seasons, when he toned up.  Here's what he looks like after Hogan.

Jason Bateman was mostly ignored, too -- there are no shirtless teen idol pix of him anywhere.  But his David got most of the serious episodes (premarital sex, drunk driving, gambling), and he had ample time for buddy-bonding, particularly with the gay-coded teen-operator Rich (Tom Hodges).

 Rich died of AIDS in a December 1990 episode.

They didn't specify how he contracted the disease, but as this was the first sitcom AIDS episode where everyone didn't yell "Blood transfusion!" over and over, the silence was more than enough to tell us that David's friend was gay.

Most of the cast members are gay allies.  Jason Bateman has played gay characters many times. Jeremy Licht and his wife Kimberly are vocal supporters of gay rights; 2012 he participated in Brice Beckham's CCOKC video (Child Celebrities Opposing Kirk Cameron).

There's a Jason Bateman story on Gay Celebrity Dating Stories.

See also: Danny Ponce

Zachery Ty Bryan: Home Improvement Also-Ran

Born in Colorado in 1981, Zachery Ty Bryan was hired to play the oldest brother on the TGIF sitcom Home Improvement (1991-1999).  As he grew into adolescence, he became more and more muscular, but his spectacular physique never made a splash in teen magazines -- they were all agog over Jonathan Taylor Thomas.  For most of the series' run,  JTT was the standout star, Zachery a background player.

But he never became bitter over his second-banana status; ZTB and JTT remained on friendly terms.  Instead, he used his free time to star in movies and tv series:

1. First Kid (1996), about a regular guy who lands a date with the President's daughter.

2. "Mr. Muscles," a 1997 episode of Promised Land about steroid abuse.
3. Principal Takes a Holiday (1998), about a teen operator who gets a drifter to stand-in as his school principal.
4. Held for Ransom (2000), which allowed his character to buddy-bond with Jordan Brower.

Afterwards he mostly played athletes whose plots involve winning the championship, not getting the girl.  The Game of their Lives (2005), for instance, is about the U.S. soccer team beating Britain in 1950.

Code Breakers (2005) is about a cheating scandal at West Point Military Academy, with no girls in the cast.

In Hammer of the Gods (2009), he played a man-mountain, the Norse god Thor, who wields a mighty hammer and saves his friends (there's a girl, too, but it's most about his friends).

Today Zach has moved into independent film production.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas

Born in September 1981, Jonathan Taylor Thomas (JTT) became a star at age 11 through Home Improvement (1991-1998), playing Randy, the middle son of macho tool-show host Tim Allen. He was passive and somewhat feminine, gay-coded yet indefatigably girl-crazy from the start, and careful to rebel against any hint that he might be gay.

In “Groin Pull” (October 1992), Randy is cast as Peter Pan in the school play.  First he is horrified because he must “prance” rather than fly: as his father states, “Men don’t prance.  We walk, we run, we skip if no one’s looking. . .but we never prance!”  Then he discovers that Peter Pan is generally played by a woman, and almost drops out of the play, before Dad confinces him that he can re-create the role as heterosexual, “a man’s man. . .a man with hair on his chest.”  And it works: Randy comes home after the performance and exclaims triumphantly, “I saw Jennifer looking at me!"

The pubescent Jonathan Taylor Thomas soon began to dominate the teen magazines.  There are literally thousands of pin-ups and centerfolds, far overwhelming those featuring the more muscular Zachery Ty Bryan, who played his older brother, or Taran Noah Smith, who played his younger brother, or their various hunky friends (such as Josh Blake of Alf).

. His character became a teen dream operator, intensely attractive to girls -- never to boys -- and intensely heterosexually active and aware.

But Randy was not content to be just another of the girl-crazy hunks who populated 1990s tv.  He often supported liberal causes, in opposition to his conservative father, and his episodes often drew the series into serious themes, such as Randy questioning his religion or facing a possible cancer diagnosis. When JTT left the series in 1998, it was explained that Randy had been accepted into a year-long environmental study program in Costa Rica.

In his other projects, JTT more than made up for the "every girl's fantasy" plotlines of his conservative tv series.  He enjoyed a buddy-bonding romance with Brad Renfro in Tom and Huck (1995), and with Devon Sawa in Wild America (1997).  He played a bisexual hustler in Speedway Junky (1999), opposite Jesse Bradford, and a gay teenager in Common Ground (2000).

2 gay/bi roles in two years!  The gay rumors came fast and furious, but JTT, like his character on Home Improvement, always denied them: he said he didn't mind, but they made his elderly grandmother upset.

He moved into voice work, guest starred on Smallville, and went to college, graduating from Columbia University in 2010 with a degree in history.

 In 2011, tv personality Lo Bosworth re-ignited the rumors by stating that he was gay on the Chelsea Lately program.

There's a sausage sighting story on Tales of West Hollywood

The Homophobic Small-Town Manhattan of "Friends"

Friends (1994-2004) was set in the same intimate, "small town" Manhattan as Seinfeld.  But it lacked the New York color -- it could have been set in any big city -- not to mention the witty dialogue, interesting minor characters, and intricately connected plotlines.

And while Seinfeld was mostly heterosexist, assuming that gay people did not exist (except for a few homophobic episodes), Friends knew about the existence of gay people.  And was scared stiff.

It was about six heterosexual young adults who hung out together to commiserate over their terrible jobs -- though they still managed to afford huge apartments in Manhattan -- and terrible love lives -- though the women still managed to date a never-ending stream of chiseled hunks, including Adam Baldwin, Tom Selleck, and Brad Pitt.

The friends differed in personality, class background, socioeconomic status.

Upper class:
Neurotic, easily-befuddled Chandler (Matthew Perry), who worked as a statistician.
Former spoiled rich kid Rachel (Jennifer Anniston), who lost her silver spoon and worked as a waitress.

Middle class:
Nebbish paleontologist Ross (David Schwimmer, left), who had a crush on Rachel in high school.
His sister Monica (Courtney Cox), formerly fat and unpopular, now a control freak caterer.

Lower class:
Italian-American stereotype Joey (Matt Leblanc, top photo), a muscular but dimwitted aspiring actor.
Ditsy Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), who worked as a masseuse, and had an equally ditsy brother (Giovanni Ribisi).

Eventually they paired off into Chandler-Monica and Rachel-Ross.  Joey and Phoebe stayed unattached.

Gay people intrude in a number of episodes, as problems to be solved:





Chandler is horribly embarrassed by the fact that his Dad is a drag queen.
Ross's ex-wife is "now" a lesbian, and actually intends to "marry" her girlfriend.
Ross is horrified when his male student comes on to him.

But more common, in nearly every episode, is the men's homophobia -- a literal fear of gay people.

Tijara Mamula has uploaded a remix, "Homophobic Friends," with the highlights of the homophobic and transphobic jokes that form a constant undertow to the series.

Turns out that friendship itself is problematic.

If a guy has male friends, people think "he likes guys, he's gay."
If he has female friends, people think "he's like a woman, he's gay."

Chandler, Ross, and Joey are each mistaken for gay at various points in the series.  To gales of audience laughter.  To be thought gay is second worst humiliation possible.

The worst humiliation: to really be gay.  So the guys often criticize each other, and the other male characters, for acting "too gay."  They police the slightest gender-atypical behavior, horrified that signifies some inner gayness that must be stopped before it grows like a malignant tumor and destroys them.

Ross didn't know that his wife was a lesbian!  He must be gay!

Joey and Chandler hug!  They must be gay!

While on a ride-along, Ross refers to himself as the cop's "partner."  He must be gay!

So much for the cozy, small-town Manhattan of Friends.

But it gets worse: An incredibly homophobic joke in the first season turned a million gay fans away from the series forever.

See also: Homophobia on "Friends": This Time It's Serious.; and Giovanni Ribisi

Scott Wolf

Scott Wolf became famous for Party of Five (1994-2000), a teen drama about some kids being raised by their older brother (Matthew Fox) after their parent die.  Bailey (Scott Wolf) was the teen hunk, who had a drinking problem. Two recurring gay characters added to the angst; Ross (Mitchell Anderson), a teacher, and Victor (Wilson Cruz), a nanny.

Though Bailey didn't do any significant buddy-bonding, Scott Wolf did quite a lot in his movie appearances.  He was also quite willing to provide shirtless, underwear, and nude shots.

  

Double Dragon (1994) was an entry in the mid-1990s martial arts craze with an post-Apocalyptic edge: two brothers who looked nothing alike, Billy (Scott Wolf) and Jimmy (Mark Dascascos) search for a magical medallion.  Like most movies based on video games, it wasn't great, but it featured some buddy-bonding and last-minute rescues, minimal hetero-romance, and lots of shots of beautifully sculpted physiques.

 White Squall (1996), like White Water Summer, amassed a group of muscular teens (Jeremy Sisto, Ryan Phillipe, Eric Michael Cole, Jason Marsden), gave them a hunky mentor (Jeff bridges), and shipped them out to sea for a story involving survival, hugging, and near-nudity.

In Go (1999), a caper movie told from four different points of view, Rashomon-style, Scott went beyond buddy-bonding.  Lovable drug dealers Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr) are a gay couple.  They don't even die at the end.

Entertainment Weekly reported that the subsequent rumors that the actor was gay in real life "made him squirm," but he "didn't' find them offensive."  Why would something make you squirm if you didn't find it offensive?

At any rate, Scott has not played gay characters -- or engaged in significant buddy-bonding -- since.  Though he hasn't slacked off on the beefcake.

Growing Pains

The homophobic rants of Growing Pains star Kirk Cameron may lead you to believe that the TGIF sitcom  (1985-92) was exceptionally homophobic.  But it wasn't.

It aired next to programs I liked -- Who's the Boss or Head of the Class -- so I watched a few episodes here and there. Standard TGIF premise: affluent suburban family, psychiatrist Dad, newspaper columnist Mom, and their three kids: teen operator Mike (Kirk Cameron), feminist Carol, and practical jokester Ben.  In the last seasons they added two more kids to up the cuteness quotient: Chrissy  and Luke (a young Leonardo DiCaprio).









Like all TGIF sitcoms, Growing Pains was set in a gay-free world.  In one episode, Dad reacts in horror at the thought that Mike might be...you know, but no one ever said The Word.

But there was a strong homoromantic subtext between Mike and his best friend with the unfortunate name Boner (presumably the writers were unaware of the contemporary dirty meaning, and intended us to think of the old meaning, "mistake").  Boner was played by Andrew Koenig (son of Walter Koenig of Star Trek), who was reputedly gay in real life.









Kirk Cameron's conservative religious beliefs forbade many beefcake shots, so most of the teen idol attention fell on the stream of hunky guest stars, including K. C. Martel, Matthew Perry, and Brad Pitt, and in later seasons, on Jeremy Miller (Ben).














When Jeremy was 14, he began receiving letters from a violently obsessed fan, describing lurid fantasies of rape and murder, even giving the dates he intended to carry out his threats. Jeremy was not informed of the letters, and was astonished to discover that the heightened security on the set was for his protection.

The ensuing publicity gave Growing Pains a undeserved sordid reputation.

Today Kirk Cameron acts in fundamentalist Christian movies and makes anti-gay rants.  Jeremy Miller became a professional chef, but still acts on occasion.   No word on whether he is a gay ally or not, but he has kept silent while fellow Growing Pain stars Allan Thicke and Tracey Gold have issued condemnations of Kirk's homophobia.

See also: Alan Thicke.