Former child star Jeremy Miller reveals his TV dad Alan Thicke and big brother Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains treated him like real family — and saved him from poverty and living on the streets — when he was down and out.
Miller, who played Thicke’s son Ben Seaver from ages 9 to 16 on the sitcom that ended its seven-year run in 1992, revealed during an interview on the Youngstown Studio podcast that he was “on the brink of homelessness” after becoming a chef and his catering business went under in 2008 when he was in his early 30s.
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“Things got really bad, and Alan and Kirk were the only two who stepped up to help me,” says the now 48-year-old. “Alan set up interviews with all of his restaurateur friends in Santa Barbara and a few other places, and got me connected to different places where I could utilize my chef skills and earn some money to help take care of my family.”
He can’t praise Thicke, who died from a heart issue at 69 in 2016, enough, noting: “All it took was a phone call to say, ‘Hey, Al, I’m really struggling. Do you know anybody who might …’ and that’s all I had to say.
“He was on the phone for the next two days, making connections and doing everything he could to try and help me. That was just the kind of guy he was. Alan was one of the most caring, generous and loving men you could ever know.”
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He recalls Thicke made filming Growing Pains easier, because “in between every take, it was hard to get a scene done because we were rolling on the floor laughing.”
He still considers the late star a father figure, adding: “He would call just to check up on me, make sure everything’s going good. But he really did fill that father role. He was my other dad.”
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