The feathered-haired prince of ABC Afterschool Specials

Rest in peace, Lance Kerwin

I didn’t even know what a crush was when Lance Kerwin strolled into my eyeline. Whatever was going on between us – and yes, it was a RELATIONSHIP – hit my preadolescent neurological system by surprise and like the proverbial ton of bricks.

I can’t think about him without pondering the specificity of growing up when I did, because it’s now a lost world, hard to explain to those who came immediately after. It involves the dark days of childhood where there was one television in the house, only three channels to choose from, and you had to scour TV Guide or the television listings in the newspaper, looking for things you wanted to see. If you were an actor-fan, like I was from an early age, you also had to scour for names that interested you. Let’s take a moment to praise resourceful Gen X kids, doing their best, all on their own, to make sure they caught the movies they wanted to see. It took dedication. You had to be diligent. You had to be on top of it. You had to check those TV listings religiously, because you only had one shot. If you missed a movie or a television episode re-run, then … oh well, guess you can’t see it ever again.

My introduction to Lance Kerwin was an ABC Afterschool Special called Pssst! Hammerman’s After You! I had to have been 10, 11 years old. I don’t know why it spoke to me on such a deep level. I only saw it twice, the second time because of my daily-devotional activity scouring the TV listings, keeping my eyes peeled for a re-run. I still remember the lightning bolt of excitement when I saw, in my weekly scouring of the TV listings, the magical words Pssst! Hammerman’s After You! It was a glimpse of a shimmering holy Grail. If something you wanted to see was playing in re-run, you had to announce to your family, “DIBS ON THE TELEVISION TOMORROW FROM 3 TO 3:30.”

I honestly don’t remember much about Pssst! Hammerman’s After You! The story was about a kid being bullied, I do remember that. It’s on YouTube in its entirety and I think I will re-watch. Beyond the plot and the “message”, it was Lance Kerwin, above and beyond, who really got to me. He was so sensitive. It was like his emotions were on the outside of his skin. There was a softness about him that moved me to my little tomboy core. Plus his feathered hair and chin dimple, although I wasn’t quite “there” yet in my development to swoon over physical characteristics. I wasn’t “into boys”, at least not yet. My crush wasn’t romantic, in other words. It was more like I had found a spiritual soulmate. One must write of these things without condescension. I am being dead serious. I take my celebrity crushes seriously, although I recognize the humor. I’ve written about this before: to an unhappy child, or a child struggling mightily with something - identity, circumstance, situations beyond her control - pouring all of that into a crush on a celebrity is an amazing safety valve. It provides a release for all that feeling, a SAFE release. I am a grown woman now, but I still sometimes have crushes like this, and I recognize the purpose they serve. (Side note: I just looked up Pssst! Hammerman’s After You! on IMDB and came across the following actor credit: “Willie Aames – Kid at Gumball Machine.” Those six words are a time machine into another era.)

James at 15/16 was Kerwin’s peak. I didn’t watch the show. I think it was maybe too old for me? I don’t remember. I remember seeing one or two episodes, but there was something illicit about it. There was a vast age gap between 10-year-old me and 15-year-old James. There was a giant brou-haha when James lost his virginity in one episode. I wasn’t ready for plot points like that. The ABC Afterschool Specials were my speed (Kerwin did five of them). He also did a couple of Special Event TV Movies, prestige projects. I remember very well The Death of Richie, starring the King of Teen Idols at the time, Robby Benson. Why I would have seen The Death of Richie and not James at 15 I don’t know. I saw plenty of things I wasn’t “ready” for, in my relatively unmonitored consumption of television movies, in perpetual re-run on Saturday afternoon television. I saw The Death of Richie in re-run (I saw everything in re-run; I wasn’t staying up late to watch television when I was a kid) and I saw it because of Lance Kerwin (he’s not even the lead!) I just looked it up and

1. the whole thing is on YouTube (Lance Kerwin is all over YouTube) and

2. Ben Gazzara and Eileen Brennan play the parents!

My final Lance Kerwin moment came when I was probably 12 or 13, and it was via another movie re-run, probably on Saturday afternoon. I can clock how old I was because I saw it in our new house, the house we moved into when I was 12, and I watched it on the television in the den downstairs. (By that point, we had two televisions, one color, one black and white). The movie is called Side Show. I have no idea how I caught this particular movie on television. Did I know it was on? Did I see Lance Kerwin’s name in TV Guide and mark my calendar? Probably. Side Show features shades of Nightmare Alley. A young puppeteer (Kerwin) joins a traveling circus and finds himself thrust into a dark depraved world, and his innocence is lost. The poster alone should have waved me off.

Look at that cast! I don’t remember much of it, but I do remember the HUGE impact it made. It was a frankly upsetting experience for 12-year-old moi. I felt so connected to Lance Kerwin because of the ABC Afterschool specials and because he was my soulmate and all, and so it was upsetting to see him in such a different milieu, dark and violent and grown-up. I should re-watch Side Show. It, too, is on YouTube in its entirety.

Lance Kerwin was a big star but his moment in the sun was brief. I grew out of my crush (Ralph Macchio my first real romantic celebrity crush). Kerwin was one of many feathered-haired boy teen idols of the 70s and early 80s, boys whose careers didn’t last beyond adolescence. When the internet arrived, and Google became a thing, I Googled Lance Kerwin. The fan sites I discovered told me what I already knew: we all remembered him. I was not alone. I stared at the pictures of him on those sites – the current him – and a weird feeling of the passing of time, and what time can do, and has done, came over me. He was a child when I loved him. I was a child too. I realized, suddenly, how old I was.

Since Kerwin’s work was mostly in television, it has been lost to history. The idea that “streaming” gives us access to everything is one of the big lies of our surreal corporate-owned era. The problem with streaming is that if something is NOT available via streaming, it might as well not exist at all. It’s like it never happened. It’s a problem of perception, not reality. If Kerwin had appeared in a couple of classic films, if he had shown up in The Outsiders, say, his “footprint” might seem larger, his name might ring a bell with future generations. Ralph Macchio leapt from television (Eight is Enough) to the big screen (The Outsiders, Karate Kid), and so his “place” is more secure, even though his career also slowed way down after the 80s. Kids today are discovering Ralph Macchio through Cobra Kai, which then leads them to Karate Kid. If Macchio’s career had just been Eight is Enough, it would be a different story. To get to know Lance Kerwin’s work, you have to go to YouTube and start plugging in titles. You have to know what you are looking for. But make no mistake: Lance Kerwin was as big as it gets in the Teen Idol category. Lance Kerwin was Prince of the Afterschool Specials, King of the Sensitive Earnest Boys with Feathered Hair.

You don’t forget the people who meant a lot to you before you thought critically about things. Someone moved you and therefore you loved them. Someone had a dimple in their chin and therefore they were representative of all that is good in the world. Someone had feathered hair and it made you feel things before you even knew what those “things” even were or would eventually mean. 

My memory of him is his sensitivity, how alive he seemed, how soft he was. He wasn’t schticky at ALL. He didn’t “trade” on his cuteness. He wasn’t a precocious cutesy kid. Granted, he was on the cover of Tiger Beat as much as any other teen idol, and sometimes with his shirt off, but as an actor, he wasn’t a self-aware self-consciously Cute Boy. He was all sensitivity, so much so it was almost awkward to watch him. Robby Benson was huge too, but he brought an almost glamorous neuroticism to the Teen Idol space, similar to what James Dean brought back in the day. Robby Benson’s good looks were over-ripe, in the same way John Travolta’s were. He was enormously attractive. Lance Kerwin was adorable but he didn’t have Benson’s twisty-sexy-torment. Teen Idols are not carbon copies. Each one serves a different need. Kerwin was sensitive without being neurotic. He was cute without being intimidatingly gorgeous. He was just open. I think that’s what I must have loved about him, why he meant so much to me in the perilous years when I segued from grade school to junior high, very bad years for me. Kerwin spoke to me, somehow. I still remember it so vividly. 

The number of people who remember Lance Kerwin and crushed on him through first-hand experience of his stardom is small. We are a small generation, numerically. And our fandom was contained in our generation, since future generations couldn’t discover him, due to his “output” being for all intents and purposes lost (unless you start searching YouTube for all the grainy uploads). The evidence that it all happened is not as strong and/or present as it is with, say, someone like Robby Benson, or Ralph Macchio, or Shaun Cassidy. But it happened. 11-year-old Sheila LOVED this dimpled blonde boy, and not just because he was dimpled and blonde. She loved him for what he made her feel, and for how easily he shared his own openness and sensitivity.

I trust 11-year-old Sheila. She followed her instincts, she knew the real thing when she saw it.