Kerwin's journey from prime-time prince to ditch-digging druggie has been long and tortuous. In 1977 his turn in the title role of James, which focused on the trials of an earnest Boston high schooler, made Kerwin the highest paid adolescent on TV. Off-camera he was often simply high—on alcohol, pot and, later, cocaine and crack.
Though NBC canceled James after only one season, Kerwin moved into TV movies during the '80s, usually playing upstanding adolescents. (An exception was his starring turn in the 1980 TV movie The Boy Who Drank Too Much.) At times, he says, "the pressure to be an example to kids was tearing me apart. The only way that I knew to escape was drugs." His act fooled even his costars. "I would never have thought of [him using] drugs," says actress Melissa Sue Anderson of Little House on the Prairie, who played opposite Kerwin several times. "I would drink Tab, and he would say, 'Drink fruit juice. It's much better for you.' "
Police eventually caught Kerwin using something more toxic. In 1989, after a group of homeless people saved him from a mugging in San Francisco, he got them rooms in a motel to show his thanks and ended up smoking crack with them. The manager called the police, and Kerwin was taken to jail. Though he wasn't charged, "that was a wake-up call for me," he says now. Soon afterward, he made his first visits to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.
Tracing the roots of his problem was easy. The youngest of five brothers growing up in the 1960s in Newport Beach, Calif., Kerwin first tried marijuana at age 6 and by 9 was a regular smoker. After his parents split in 1963, his mother, Lois, a Hollywood booking agent, remarried and raised him in what he describes as an "alternative lifestyle." Says Kerwin: "I thought I was lucky that my parents were my friends. But what I really needed was parents."
After accompanying his mother to her acting class one day in 1973, Kerwin was spotted by an agent and within two years had found his way into the cast of NBC's The Family Holvak. Shortly after its one-year run ended, James at 15 began.
Though his career slipped a gear in the '80s, his drug use did not. He moved to Hawaii in the early '90s, found religion and began attending the nondenominational Cavalry Chapel, where many of the ministers were former hippies. He made it through several yearlong stints of sobriety but always relapsed. In those days, "recovery for me was about recovering my stuff, all the things I had lost while I was on drug binges," he says.
The 1994 birth of Savannah—his daughter with agent Kristen Lansdale, 30, from whom he split in 1998 after an eight-year relationship—helped provide the push he needed, Kerwin claims. Last year, when his pastor suggested U-Turn for Christ, Kerwin agreed to try it.
Now his days begin with a 5 a.m. breakfast followed by ranch chores, religious study, teaching a youth Bible-study group, and community service. Though clean and sober for more than a year now, he has no plans to return to the three-bedroom, oceanfront home in Mendocino, Calif., that he has owned since his TV salad days.
During the week, Kerwin shares a small studio apartment on the ranch with Savannah, now 5, who joins her mom on weekends. Her stuffed animals decorate one twin bed; his favorite religious-concert posters cover a wall. Kerwin's family is pleased by his progress but cautious about his long-term chances. "I'm not sure he'll remain sober," says half brother Tom Courtney, 49. "But he's more real and stable now."
Nor has Kerwin himself placed any bets, though he's delighted to be where he is. "I'm so happy, I cry now. I'm a bawler," he says. "I cry three, four times a week." As for whether he'll ever return to TV, he just shrugs. "I'm not done here yet," he says simply.
Erik Meers
Amy Brooks in Perris, Calif.
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