Alan Thicke

Alan Willis Thicke, born Jeffrey on March 1, 1947, in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada, was a Canadian-American actor, songwriter, and television host who died on December 13, 2016. His mother, Shirley Joan Isobel Marie Greer, worked as a nurse, and his father, William Jeffrey, was a stockbroker; the two divorced in 1953. His mother subsequently married a physician named Brian Thicke, and the family relocated to Elliot Lake, where Thicke took his stepfather's surname. He graduated from Elliot Lake Secondary School in 1965 and later attended the University of Western Ontario, where he joined the Delta Upsilon fraternity. He is the father of singer Robin Thicke.

Thicke built an extensive career in Canadian and American television spanning several decades. In 1975, he hosted the Canadian game show Face the Music for CHCH-TV, followed by First Impressions on the CTV network during the 1976–77 season, taped at CFCF-TV in Montreal. Norman Lear hired him to produce and lead the writing staff of Fernwood 2 Night, a talk show derived from characters in Lear's Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. He served as a frequent guest host of The Alan Hamel Show in the late 1970s, and when that program ended in the early 1980s, it was replaced by The Alan Thicke Show, which generated a prime-time spinoff called Prime Cuts. In 1983, he launched the American syndicated late-night talk show Thicke of the Night, promoted as a competitor to NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, though the program was short-lived.

As a composer, Thicke collaborated frequently with his then-wife Gloria Loring, producing themes for the sitcoms Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. His game show theme compositions included music for The Wizard of Odds, The Joker's Wild, Celebrity Sweepstakes, The Diamond Head Game, Blank Check, Stumpers!, Whew!, and the original theme to Wheel of Fortune. He co-wrote the Animal Crack-Ups theme with his brother Todd Thicke and Gary Pickus. As a songwriter, he co-wrote "Sara," a solo hit for Bill Champlin included on Champlin's 1981 album Runaway. Thicke also produced television programming, including Anne Murray Christmas specials for the CBC beginning in the late 1970s.

His most prominent acting role came when Growing Pains debuted on ABC in 1985. Thicke played Dr. Jason Seaver, a psychiatrist who relocated his practice to the family home while his wife Maggie, portrayed by Joanna Kerns, returned to work as a reporter. The series ran until 1992, and Thicke received a Golden Globe nomination in 1988 for the role. He reprised the character in two reunion television films, The Growing Pains Movie in 2000 and Growing Pains: Return of the Seavers in 2004.

Thicke's television presence extended across a wide range of hosting and guest-starring work. He co-hosted the Walt Disney World Very Merry Christmas Parade with Joan Lunden from 1983 to 1990. In 1987, he appeared in the Disney Channel film Not Quite Human as Dr. Jonas Carson, a scientist who creates a human-like android and adopts him as a son; he reprised that role in Not Quite Human II in 1989 and Still Not Quite Human in 1992. He hosted the 1987 and 1988 Crystal Light National Aerobic Championships, and in 1988 hosted both the Miss USA Pageant in El Paso, Texas, and the Miss Universe Pageant in Taipei, Taiwan, replacing Bob Barker in both instances. From 1995 to 1996, he appeared in 35 episodes of the American series Hope & Gloria. He played talk show host Rich Ginger on The Bold and the Beautiful from 2006 to 2009, and in 2008 appeared in a major supporting role in the television adaptation of Douglas Coupland's jPod. That same year, he made a cameo in the How I Met Your Mother episode "Sandcastles in the Sand" and subsequently guest starred in several additional episodes of that series. In October 2016, he appeared as himself in the pilot episode of NBC's This Is Us. He hosted the Canadian game show Animal Crack-Ups in the late 1980s and later hosted Animal Miracles on the Pax TV network from 2001 to 2003. From 2014 to 2015, he starred in his own reality series, Unusually Thicke, on Pop. In 2013, he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.

In 1996, Thicke appeared on Broadway in the play Chicago, adding a stage credit to a career built predominantly in television. He was born in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, the same Canadian town noted in his verified performance record.