Kirk Cameron | |
|---|---|
 Cameron atCPAC in February 2012 | |
| Born | Kirk Thomas Cameron (1970-10-12)October 12, 1970 (age 54) Panorama City, Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1979–present |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 6 |
| Relatives | Candace Cameron Bure (sister) |
| Website | kirkcameron |
Kirk Thomas Cameron (born October 12, 1970)[1] is an American actor, author,evangelist, television host, documentarian and producer.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] He first gained fame as ateen actor playing Mike Seaver on theABC sitcomGrowing Pains (1985–1992), a role for which he was nominated for twoGolden Globe Awards.
Cameron made several other television and film appearances through the 1980s and 1990s, including the filmsLike Father Like Son (1987) andListen to Me (1989). In the 2000s, he portrayedCameron "Buck" Williams in theLeft Behind film series and Caleb Holt in the drama filmFireproof (2008). His 2014 film,Saving Christmas, was panned by critics and made theIMDb Bottom 100 List within one month of its theatrical release, with some critics even labelling itone of the worst movies ever made.[9] He has produced films since then, includingLifemark (2022),[3][10][11] which was commercially successful.[12] In 2022, he wrote a faith-based children's book,As You Grow, which he read at libraries the following year during a well attended nationwide book tour.[13]
Cameron is anevangelical Christian who partners withRay Comfort in the evangelistic ministryThe Way of the Master, and the co-founder of The Firefly Foundation with his wife, actressChelsea Noble.
Cameron was born inPanorama City, a neighborhood in theSan Fernando Valley region ofLos Angeles.[14] He is the oldest of four children born to parents Barbara (née Bausmith) and Robert Cameron, a retired schoolteacher.[15] His three sisters are Bridgette, Melissa, and fellow actorCandace, who portrayed D.J. Tanner on the television sitcomFull House.[16] Cameron attended school on the set ofGrowing Pains, instead of a public or private school having many other students.[17] However, he went to some classes atChatsworth High School during production breaks and graduated with honors in their class of 1988.[18][19] Cameron was anatheist in his early teens.[20] When he was 18, during the height of his career onGrowing Pains, he became aborn-again Christian.[21][22][23]
Cameron began acting at age nine, and his first job was in an advertisement for abreakfast cereal.[24] His first starring role was at age 13, in the television seriesTwo Marriages.[25] At this age, he appeared in several television shows and films. He became famous in 1985 after being cast as Mike Seaver in theABC televisionsitcomGrowing Pains.[26] In the series, Mike would eventually have a girlfriend named Kate MacDonald, played byChelsea Noble, Cameron's future wife.[27][28] Cameron was nominated for twoGolden Globe Awards for his role, and subsequently became ateen heartthrob in the late 1980s,[29] while appearing on the covers of severalteen magazines, includingTiger Beat,Teen Beat,16 and others. At the time, he was making $50,000 a week.[21] He was also in a 60-secondPepsi commercial duringSuper Bowl XXIV.[30] Cameron also guest-starred in the 1988Full House episode "Just One of the Guys", in which he played Cousin Steve ofD.J. Tanner, the role played by Cameron's sister,Candace.
Cameron went on to star in many films, including 1987'sLike Father Like Son[31] (abody-switch comedy withDudley Moore), which was a box office success.[32] His next theatrical film, 1989'sListen to Me, performed poorly at the box office.[33] WhenGrowing Pains ended in 1992, Cameron went on to star inThe WB sitcomKirk, which premiered in 1995 and ended two years later. InKirk, Cameron played Kirk Hartman,[34] a 24-year-old who has to raise his siblings.[35] Cameron and Noble also worked together onKirk.[28]
In around 1990, Cameron, along with his wife, Noble, foundedThe Firefly Foundation, which runsCamp Firefly, asummer camp that givesterminally ill children and their families a free week's vacation.
Cameron mostly left mainstream film and television, though a decade afterGrowing Pains ended, he starred in a television reunion film,The Growing Pains Movie,[36] in 2000, and another one,Growing Pains: Return of the Seavers, in 2004.[37] Cameron reunited with the cast ofGrowing Pains for aCNNLarry King Live interview, which aired on February 7, 2006, in conjunction with theWarner Bros. release of the complete first season ofGrowing Pains on DVD.[38] Aside from this, Cameron has often worked in Christian-themed productions, among them the post-Rapture films:Left Behind: The Movie;Left Behind II: Tribulation Force; andLeft Behind: World at War, in which he playsCameron "Buck" Williams. Cameron's wife Noble also starred in the film series,[39] playingHattie Durham. Cameron has worked withCloud Ten Pictures, a company which produces Christian-themed films, and has starred in several films, includingThe Miracle of the Cards.[40] He also appeared in the 2008 drama film,Fireproof,[41] which was produced bySherwood Pictures. The film was created on a budget of $500,000, with Cameron as the lead actor, portraying Captain Caleb Holt.[42] Though it was a low-budget film, the film grossed $33,415,129 and was a box office success. It was the highest grossingindependent film of 2008.[43]
Cameron relates in his autobiography that he once turned down a TV series because, as he put it, he was unwilling to spend more time being a make-believe husband and father to an on-set wife and children than he would spend with his actual wife and children, choosing instead to appear in or produce films and TV shows, whose content is in keeping with his faith-based values.[6] He also tours the nation to give marriage and family seminars and talks.[44][45][46][47]
In 2012, Cameron was the narrator and host of the documentary filmMonumental: In Search of America's National Treasure. On its opening day, March 27, 2012,Monumental grossed $28,340. The film stayed in theaters until May 20, 2012, grossing a total of $1.23 million.[48][49] On April 11, 2012, Cameron was honored byIndiana Wesleyan University, and inducted into theirSociety of World Changers during a ceremony in which he spoke on IWU's campus.[50]
In 2013, Cameron announced he would be the host of the filmUnstoppable slated to premiere September 24, 2013. A trailer for the film was blocked onFacebook, with Cameron speculating that it was due to the film's religious content. Facebook subsequently removed the block, stating it was the result of a mistake by an automated system and a spam site previously registered at the same web address.[51]
Cameron starred in and produced the 2014 family filmMercy Rule, in which he plays a father who tries to save his small business from lobbyists, while supporting his son, who dreams of being a pitcher, inLittle League Baseball.[52] Cameron's real-life wife plays his wife in the film, which was releaseddirect-to-video and viadigital download.[53] Also in 2014, Cameron starred in the Christian-themed comedy film,Saving Christmas. The film was panned by critics,[54] and winning the 2014Golden Raspberry Award forWorst Picture andWorst Screenplay. Cameron also won the award forWorst Actor andWorst Screen Combo, which he won with "his ego".[55] Cameron starred inExtraordinary, a 2017 film made byLiberty University students. That was the first such film to be released nationally, for one night in September 2017. The film follows the dream of a marathon running Liberty professor, whose cross-country trek strains his body and marriage.[56] In August 2017, Cameron and Noble created the online marriage course,The Heart of Family: Six Weeks to a Happier Home and a Healthier Family.[57][58]
In the 2018 documentary filmConnect, Cameron helps parents with navigating the dangers of technology, includingsocial media, for their children.[59][60] In 2019, he appeared in an episode ofFuller House, theNetflix sequel toFull House.[61]
In 2021, Cameron started hosting the show,Takeaways with Kirk Cameron, onTBN. He interviews guests, many of whom are well-known, to discuss pressing issues forChristians with the goal of finding takeaways that everyday Christians can use in their own lives.[2]
In 2022, Cameron starred in the commercially successfulanti-abortion filmLifemark.[3] Cameron played Jimmy Colton, the adoptive father of David Colton.[12][62][63] That same year, Cameron wrote a faith-based children's book,As You Grow, published by Brave Books, which follows the life of a tree as it grows and shares "biblical wisdom through the seasons of life." The following year, Cameron embarked on a nationwide book tour, reading his book to often over-capacity crowds at many libraries.[13]
After converting toProtestant Christianity, Cameron stated in his autobiography, he came to feel that some of his scenes were antithetical to his newfound faith, and inappropriate for the family viewers that were the show's intended audience. Among these was a scene that called for the unmarried Mike Seaver to share a bed with a girl and, in the morning, say to her, "What's your name again?" For these reasons, he began insisting that these types of storylines be edited to remove the parts that he found objectionable.[6][64]
After the series ended, Cameron did not maintain contact with his former co-stars. Cameron has stated that this was not due to any animosity on his part toward any of his former cast members, but an outgrowth of his and his wife's desire to start a new life away from the entertainment industry and, as he put it, "the circus he had been in for the past seven years".[65]
Prior to the premiere ofThe Growing Pains Movie in 2000, for which the entire main cast reunited, Cameron described his regrets over how his relationship with his castmates changed after his religious conversion during production of the series, saying, "I definitely kind of made an about-face, going toward another aspect of my life. I shifted my focus from 100% on the show, to 100% on [my new life], and left 0% on the show—and even the friendships that were a part of that show. If I could go back, I think I could make decisions that were less inadvertently hurtful to the cast—like talking and explaining to them why I just wanted to have my family at my wedding."[65]
In a 2011Growing Pains cast reunion onGood Morning America,Alan Thicke, who played Cameron's father, said, "Kirk's choices for a lot of people seemed extreme, but when you think about all of the choices that kids could make under the pressure that he had, what better choice could you make than to choose a religious spiritual life?".[66]
Cameron's conversion to Christianity also prompted a commitment to kissing no one other than his wife onscreen. For this reason, his real-life wife served as a stand-in for a scene in the filmFireproof in which his character, Caleb Holt, kisses his wife Catherine, who is played in the film byErin Bethea. The scene was shot insilhouette to obscure this fact.[67][68]
Cameron partnered with fellow evangelistRay Comfort to teach evangelism methods through the ministry they founded,The Way of the Master,[69] and the television show of the same name that Cameron co-hosts. It won theNational Religious Broadcasters' Best Program Award for two consecutive years.[70] It also formerly featured a radio show known asThe Way of the Master Radio with talk show host Todd Friel.[71] The radio show was later canceled, and replaced withWretched Radio, hosted by Friel.[72][73]
Cameron and Comfort participated in a televised debate with atheists Brian Sapient and Kelly O'Conner of theRational Response Squad, atCalvary Baptist Church, inManhattan, on May 5, 2007. It was moderated byABC'sMartin Bashir and parts of it were aired onNightline. At issue was theexistence of God, which Comfort stated at various times during his ministry that he could prove scientifically without relying on faith or theBible. However, he never committed to this restriction for the debate, itself, as later clarified byThe Christian Post in a correction they made at the very end of their article about the debate.[74] The audience was composed of both theists and atheists. Points of discussion includedatheism andevolution.[75] While Sapient contended during his arguments that Comfort violated the rules by talking about theTen Commandments, Cameron later stated onThe Way of the MasterRadio that the rules of the debate did not say that the Bible could never be referenced, but rather that Comfort simply had to come up with one argument that did not reference the Bible or faith.[76] During the debate, Cameron referred to the absence of acrocoduck to dispute the theory of evolution, which then became ameme to highlight misconceptions about the theory.[77]
In November 2009, Cameron and others distributed free copies of an altered version ofCharles Darwin'sOn the Origin of Species on college campuses in the U.S..[78][79] The book consisted of Darwin's text with chapters of the book removed, and with an added introduction by Comfort reiterating commoncreationist assertions about Darwin and evolution. The book was criticized by scientists and Darwin's biographers who criticized the omission of key chapters of the book, and who stated that its introduction contains misinformation about Darwin, and long-refutedcreationist arguments about the science of evolution,[80][81] such as the linking ofNazi racial theories toDarwinist ideas.[79] Comfort later said that the four chapters were chosen at random to be omitted in order to make the book small enough to be affordable as a giveaway, with the absent chapters available for download, but that the missing chapters were included in the second edition, which had a smaller text size that made printing the entire book as a giveaway affordable. The second edition still lacks Darwin's preface and glossary of terms.[82]The National Center for Science Education arranged a campaign to distribute an analysis of the Comfort introduction and a banana bookmark at colleges across the U.S., a reference to Comfort's presentation of the banana as evidence for the existence of God.[83]
On March 2, 2012, Cameron stated onCNN'sPiers Morgan Tonight, when asked abouthomosexuality, that it is "unnatural, it's detrimental and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization".[84] Cameron's comments received criticism fromGLAAD,[85] and provoked a backlash from gay rights activists and Hollywood celebrities, includingRoseanne Barr,Craig Ferguson,Jesse Tyler Ferguson, as well asGrowing Pains co-stars,Tracey Gold andAlan Thicke.Piers Morgan stated that Cameron was brave for expressing his opinion, "however antiquated his beliefs may be". He, however, received "thousands of emails and comments" from supporters.[86][87]Rosie O'Donnell invited him to discuss his views onher talk show, but he declined and suggested a private dinner to discuss this topic personally.
Cameron is an outspoken social conservative. He supportedDonald Trump in the2016 presidential election, saying, "There are clearly enemies of Christian principles and Christianity [and] I don't think Trump is one of them."[88]
In 2020, Cameron said that such things asCOVID-19 could be used by God to bring about his purposes and that he had suspicions – without specifying what they were – about how COVID-19 got started.[89] He also opposed the designation of churchgoing and extended familyThanksgiving celebrations as nonessential, a measure implemented to slow the spread ofCOVID-19 pandemic, saying, "Socialism and communism are knocking on our doors [...] disguised in the costumes of public health and social justice."[90]
As record-breaking levels of COVID-19 infections in December 2020 overwhelmed hospitals,[91] including inSouthern California,[92][93][94] Cameron organized at least two gatherings of dozens of people for maskless Christmas caroling protests against enhanced restrictions to combat the second wave of the pandemic. The events, which were lawful, were held outside, in venues such as a mall parking lot inVentura County, part of the Southern California Region, a group of counties under a state-mandated stay-home order triggered by low ICU capacity.[95]Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County Public Health Director, denounced Cameron's decision to hold large gatherings as "very irresponsible and very dangerous."[96] Cameron responded to criticism of this by stating that the psychological harm of theCOVID-19 lockdowns could be worse than the coronavirus itself.[97] Cameron also held an outdoor masklessNew Year's Eve event inMalibu, despite a request by state senatorHenry Stern that he should stay home.[98]
Cameron and his wife, fellowGrowing Pains starChelsea Noble, were married on July 21, 1991. They have six children: four adopted and two biological.[99] In 2024, Cameron moved with his family from California toTennessee.[100]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Goliath Awaits | Liam | Television movie |
| Bret Maverick | Boy #1 | Episodes: "The Lazy Ace" (Parts 1 & 2) | |
| 1982 | Beyond Witch Mountain | Boy | Television movie |
| Herbie, the Love Bug | Young Kid | Episode: "Herbie the Matchmaker" | |
| Lou Grant | Joey | Episode: "Victims" | |
| 1983 | Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land | Gary | Television movie |
| Two Marriages | Eric Armstrong | Episode: "Relativity" | |
| ABC Afterschool Special | Willy Jeff | Episodes: "The Woman Who Willed a Miracle" & "Andrea's Story: A Hitchhiking Tragedy" | |
| 1984 | More Than Murder | Bobby | Television movie |
| Children in the Crossfire | Mickey Chandler | ||
| 1985–1992 | Growing Pains | Mike Seaver | 167 episodes |
| 1988 | Full House | Cousin Steve | Episode: "Just One of the Guys" |
| 1990 | The Secrets of the Back to the Future Trilogy | Himself (host) | Behind-the-scenes show |
| 1991 | A Little Piece of Heaven | Will Loomis | Television movie |
| 1994 | Star Struck | Runner | |
| 1995 | The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes | Dexter Riley | |
| 1995–1996 | Kirk | Kirk Hartman | 31 episodes |
| 1998 | You Lucky Dog | Jack Morgan | Television movie |
| 2000 | The Growing Pains Movie | Mike Seaver | |
| 2001 | Touched by an Angel | Chuck Parker | Episode: "The Birthday Present" |
| The Miracle of the Cards | Josh | Television movie | |
| 2002 | Family Law | Mitchell Stark | Episode: "Blood and Water" |
| 2003–2013 | Praise the Lord | Guest host | Recurring |
| 2003–present | The Way of the Master | Himself (host) | — |
| 2004 | Growing Pains: Return of the Seavers | Mike Seaver | Television movie |
| 2019 | One on One with Kirk Cameron[101] | Himself | — |
| Fuller House | |||
| 2021–present | Takeaways with Kirk Cameron | Himself (host) | Christian talk show[102] |
| 2024 | Adventures with Iggy and Mr. Kirk | Crowdfunded television show[103] |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | The Best of Times | Teddy | — |
| 1987 | Like Father Like Son | Chris Hammond / Dr. Jack Hammond | |
| 1988 | Straight at Ya' | Himself | Alcohol/drug guidance video[104][105] |
| 1989 | Listen to Me | Tucker Muldowney | — |
| 1990 | The Willies | Mike Seaver | |
| 1998 | The Birth of Jesus | Uncle Kirk | Direct-to-video |
| 2001 | Left Behind: The Movie | Buck Williams | — |
| 2002 | Left Behind II: Tribulation Force | ||
| 2005 | Left Behind: World at War | ||
| 2008 | Fireproof | Caleb Holt | |
| 2012 | Monumental: In Search of America's National Treasure | Himself | Documentary; also producer |
| 2013 | Unstoppable | Documentary | |
| 2014 | Mercy Rule | John Miller | Direct-to-video and digital download |
| Saving Christmas | Kirk | Limited theatrical release | |
| 2017 | Extraordinary | Barry | — |
| 2018 | Connect | Himself | |
| 2022 | The Homeschool Awakening | Documentary, two-night theatrical release | |
| Lifemark | Jimmy Scotton | Distributed viaFathom Events |
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | The Horde | Chauncey |
I go to school on the set, not to a regular school
Monumental: In Search of America's National Treasure ... was a strong performer as well, grossing $1.23 million from over 100,000 attendees.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
