‘Family Affair’ Star Johnny Whitaker Reveals Downside to Childhood Fame: ‘It Was Not Cool’

If you watched television in the 1970s, Johnny Whitaker feels like an old friend. In addition to charming primetime viewers on Family Affair as adorable Jody, Johnny starred in kid-friendly fare including Saturday morning’s Sigmund and the Sea Monsters and the 1973 musical Tom Sawyer. “The best part of being a child actor was meeting President Johnson,” Johnny, 64, exclusively tells Closer. “The worst was that I couldn’t play baseball or go to a regular school.”

Like so many former child actors, Johnny endured a rough transition into adulthood. “[The Brady Bunch’s] Christopher Knight says that Hollywood loves its puppies, but once they become dogs, they don’t want anything to do with them,” Johnny says. “Unfortunately, that’s quite true.” Today, he’s a certified drug counselor, who’s proud to have been sober for 26 years. Johnny is currently working on his first memoir.

What do you consider your big break?

“Probably [1966’s] The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming, because that’s where I met Brian Keith. He wanted me to come and audition for the role of the next-door neighbor in his new series. Family Affair was [conceived] for a 16-year-old girl, a 10-year-old boy, and a six-year-old girl, but at my audition, Anissa [Jones] and I looked so much like twins, they changed it. That was my big break.”

Do you have a favorite episode of ‘Family Affair’?

“My favorite episode is ‘Arthur, the Invisible Bear.’ In it, Uncle Bill goes in to talk [to my school counselor] because I see this invisible bear. He goes in to see the therapist and tells me to wait outside. In the script, it said, ‘Jody begins telling the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.’ No one called cut, so I continued telling the entire story of the three bears. At the end, I got a standing ovation by the cast and crew.”

Do you feel like you got a good education during your years as a child star?

“I had some of the best education while I was working. Jodie Foster and I learned French the summer of ’71 when we did Napoleon and Samantha. She was going into Le Lycée Français in Los Angeles and had to be semi-fluent in French in order to get into the school.”

That’s kind of awesome.

“After that, I fell in love with languages and got to be fairly proficient. My father taught us Spanish from the time we were children. And I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon faith, in Portugal. So, I speak Portuguese, Spanish, French. In high school, I learned sign language, too.”

Obviously, you were a pretty bright kid. Did you use any tricks for memorizing scripts?

“I used to go to bed [early]. Mom would come up to see me when I was in a deep sleep and she’d read me my lines while I was sleeping. Then the next day, I would wake up and have my

lines kind of in my subconscious.”

Was there a downside to your early fame?

“As a child, you don’t understand why people are treating you differently or why you’re getting teased by other kids. It was not cool, but I laughed all the way to the bank.”

When did substance abuse become a problem in your life?

“I was married for four years. Then she divorced me to marry the man who gave me my bachelor party. That was what kind of sent me down the path to drugs and alcohol — but I know I am to blame. I take full responsibility. I had lost my religion because of it and my faith in God.”

“But 26 years ago, I got clean and sober after my family did an intervention. And then five years ago, I returned to the LDS Church. Now I’m on the Sunday School Board. I also do a regular ministry at the jail once a month to bring a message of hope, faith and courage to men who are incarcerated for drugs and alcohol. Every year, my nonprofit does the International Overdose Awareness Day and Recovery Month. We do it in September.”

Is there anything you miss about your early fame?

“My very wealthy uncle said, ‘Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure helps you choose the particular type of misery you want to live in.’ I didn’t know anything about money then. I would like to see that [money] today, because the work that I do as a drug and alcohol counselor — we don’t really make much money. But we do enjoy our work. And fame is fleeting. My parents always told me that.”

It sounds like your family have been very supportive.

“My family have always been very supportive and very good for me and to me. They’re the reason that I’m not as crazy as I could have been!”

What part does spirituality play in your life today?

Today, it is a very important part of my life. It wasn’t during the time that I was doing drugs, because I didn’t want anything to do with God. In retrospect, I never really lost my faith in God. I guess I lost my faith in me and God. I didn’t want to know about spirituality … because I wanted to have fun. If I thought what I was doing was not right, then I would have to stop, and I didn’t want to stop.”

Is there anything you know now that you wish you’d known then?

“I sort of make this a joke, but it’s serious. When I was doing Disney movies in 1971, I became friendly with one of the artists [who worked at Disney World]. He said, ‘Hey, Johnny, did you know that Disney is giving away one-for-one stock options?’ So, I went to mom and dad. I was making about $15,000 a picture, [so I said,] ‘Let’s put half of it in stock.” But my mom and dad said, ‘Oh, no, no, no. We don’t gamble with our money.’ Today, those stocks would be worth millions. That’s the only thing that I would have changed.”

What do you like about being the age you are today?

“At this age, I’m comfortable with me and who I am. I don’t have to try to impress anybody. If people get impressed, great. If they aren’t, so what? I love the work that I do helping people. I love talking to people. I love sharing the message of Jesus Christ with people. And that’s a beautiful thing.”