Still Growing: An Autobiography (14 page)

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?”

I described 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.