Kirk Cameron

Kirk Cameron is an American actor and Christian-film producer whose four-decade career has produced multiple defining late-1980s and 1990s American TV-comedy roles — particularly his 1985–1992 lead role as Mike Seaver on ABC's family-comedy TV series Growing Pains. He was born Kirk Thomas Cameron on October 12, 1970, in Panorama City, Los Angeles, California, into a working-class American Catholic family. His father Robert Cameron was a Panorama City-area schoolteacher, and his mother Barbara Cameron was a homemaker. His younger sister Candace Cameron Bure is also an American actress. The Cameron family relocated to Cabazon, California when Kirk was a young child.

His 1979 first commercial-modeling-and-TV-commercial career at age nine launched his early-career American TV public profile. His 1980 first credited TV appearance in the ABC TV series Lou Grant launched his early-career American TV career.

His September 24, 1985 first-broadcast appearance as Mike Seaver on ABC's Growing Pains — alongside Joanna Kerns, Alan Thicke, and Tracey Gold — launched his late-1980s and early-1990s American TV-family-comedy public profile. The Growing Pains TV series ran for 166 episodes across seven seasons (1985–1992) and produced his mid-1980s and early-1990s American teen-actor public profile.

His 1987 conversion to evangelical Christianity (at age 17, after his teenage encounter with American evangelical preacher Ray Comfort) shaped his later biographical narrative — particularly across his subsequent 1990s and 2000s American Christian-film career. His 1991 marriage to American actress Chelsea Noble (his Growing Pains co-star, whom he met while filming the show) and his subsequent 1991–present marriage produced his later biographical narrative. They have six children.

His later 2000s and 2010s American Christian-film career has produced multiple American Christian-film roles — particularly his 2008 lead role in Fireproof (the Sherwood Pictures Christian-romance film, which grossed $33 million worldwide on a $500,000 production budget), his 2014 first directorial Christian-film Saving Christmas, and his ongoing American Christian-evangelism public-speaking engagements across multiple American evangelical-Christian conferences.

His name Kirk derives from the Old Norse and Scottish-Gaelic place-name meaning "church." Kirk has been a popular American boys' name across the mid-to-late 20th century.