TV URBAN LEGEND: Kirk Cameron had the wedding between his character, Mike Seaver, and Julie McCullough's Julie Costello on Growing Pains canceled because of Cameron's disapproval of McCullough posing in Playboy before she was on the series.
The arc of Mike Seaver on Growing Pains is one of the stranger ones that you'll see on a TV sitcom, owing greatly to the behind the scenes effects of the actor who played him, Kirk Cameron. Cameron was the breakout star of the sitcom, which ran on ABC from 1985 to 1992. The show was part of a weird reaction to the hit 1983 film, Mr. Mom, where Michael Keaton famously becomes a stay-at-home dad while his film wife, Teri Garr, goes back to work. The 1984 and 1985 TV seasons were then filled with new shows about men in domestic roles, from 1984's Charles in Charge to 1985's Who's The Boss?, Mr. Belvedere and Growing Pains, where Alan Thicke's Jason Seaver (Alan Thicke) moved his psychiatry practice to a home office so that he could be the stay at home parent while his wife, Maggie Seaver (Joanna Kerns), could go back to work as a newspaper reporter. The children were Mike (Cameron), Carol (Tracey Gold) and Ben (Jeremy Miller).
HOW DID KIRK CAMERON CHANGE ON THE GROWING PAINS?
Cameron became a star as the wisecracking irresponsibly lovable oldest brother, Mike. He began doing films, as well, during this period. Things changed, though, when Cameron became a Born Again Christian somewhere around the third season of the show. As time passed, Cameron began to object to some of the plotlines that his character, Mike, was involved in on the show. One of the producers of the series, Steve Marshall, later noted, "It made it an unhappy set and the actors were not happy and the producers were not happy." Cameron felt that Mike's plotlines were too racy in general, even complaining to upper management about the producers being little more than pornographers (ironically enough, years later Marshall literally WOULD go to prison for distribution of child pornography).
The point in the show that people often refer to, though, regarded an addition to the fourth season of the show, Julie McCullough's Julie Costello, who became the nanny for the Seaver's fourth child, Chrissy, in that season and a recurring cast member (although not an official cast member, which is important to note)...
As it was soon revealed, Mike and Julie were secretly dating and in the finale of Season 4, Mike and Julie get engaged...
DID KIRK CAMERON GET THE WEDDING BETWEEN MIKE AND JULIE CANCELED ON GROWING PAINS?
In the Season 5 premiere, however, after a fantasy sequence involving their wedding, Julie abruptly leaves Mike at the altar, and they break up. This has naturally led to accusations that Cameron had the wedding called off because of the revelation that McCullough had posed for Playboy a few years earlier.
The controversy over the Playboy appearances was not actually derived from the show itself, but rather from the fact that McCullough, who grew up in North Carolina (her father was in the military, so they traveled a lot), had been named the Queen of the 1989 Azalea Festival, an annual tradition in Wilmington, North Carolina. A Southern Baptist minister, J. Edwin Bullock, who had a TV ministry, made getting her to lose the gig a big deal for him at the time, arguing, "The Azalea Festival is sort of like Mother's Day. It's a family event and this kind of thing is not in keeping with that." McCullough's Playboy spread was then published in the local papers (with her body covered up) and it became such a to-do that she dropped out of the festival.
This, of course, led to unwanted attention on the series, with Growing Pains' showrunner Dan Guntzleman noting at the time, "I wasn't fond of the publicity," as he felt that it hurt her appeal as the girl next door. He added, though, "Despite all this, using Julie is not stretching it that much. If you start knocking out actresses who have appeared in the buff, there will to be a lot of all-male shows on the air."
Guntzleman then explained that Cameron did not call the wedding off because there never was a wedding to BE called off, explaining, "The wedding plans were never called on. The idea of him marrying is absurd. If he got married, it would be kinda tough for him to be living at home. Kirk never storms. He never expressed any concern over Julie's pictures."
In his autobiography, Cameron denied getting McCullough fired over the photos, turning to Guntzleman again, now years later, who explained, "The truth is, Julie was let go because Mike being in a committed relationship was a dead end-he was, after all, an immature imp who was ill-equipped to deal with a grownup world on all levels. That's where the conflict and comedy came from: The maturity to have and maintain a lasting relationship fought against this...Julie was to play the part of Mike's first serious relationship-the first time he was swept up in something larger than himself, but she was never intended to be his mate for life, even the life of the series."
Another producer on te series, Mike Sullivan, concurred, "It was a guest star role; she wasn't hired as a series regular. There was never any intention of the Mike character being married or in a permanent romantic relationship."
This isn't to say that there wasn't friction between Cameron and McCullough, especially because Mike's next girlfriend on the show after McCullough left was Cameron's real-life girlfriend (and later wife), Chelsea Noble (Cameron famously refuses to kiss any other actor in his films, to the point of having Noble wear a wig so she can stand in for Cameron's film wife during kissing scenes). McCulloiugh has said about Cameron, "He thinks if I read science books that I'm going to hell. [I would] rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints ... the sinners are much more fun. And a lot more interesting than some book-burner who is still having growing pains. I am at peace with God. Kirk thinks people like me are going to Hell, if I do then at least I'll go well informed and well read."
So I'm not necessarily willing to concede that he wasn't the reason her character was outright written off of the show (although even there, I tend to agree that when you have young characters call off a wedding like that, the standard course IS the non-cast member actor leaving the show, so I think the odds aren't bad that Cameron wasn't the reason she was let go from the show, either), but I think that the producers' take on the wedding is extremely realistic and believable (especially since the Playboy controversy was started by an outside source), so I think for that part of the story, at least, that I'm willing to go further and say that the legend is...
STATUS: False
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