Key Points
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Kathy Garver explains to Entertainment Weekly the status of her relationship with her former child costar Johnny Whitaker.
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Garver and Whitaker played siblings on the beloved sitcom Family Affair from 1966-1971.
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“His career went in a totally different direction,” Garver tells EW.
Family Affairsitcom actress Kathy Garver has admittedly attempted to keep things in the family when it comes to her relationship with former child costar Johnny Whitaker.
In celebration of 60 years since Family Affair — about a trip of orphaned siblings who move in with their uncle in New York City — first debuted in 1966 on CBS, Garver exclusively explains to Entertainment Weeklyhow often she keeps up with Whitaker, who played her younger brother on the show through 1971.
“I saw him last night at the Marilyn Monroe tribute!” Garver excitedly tells EW, referencing the Academy Museum’s launch of a Monroe-centric exhibit at its Los Angeles location.
Though the pair haven’t remained as close as they once were while filming the sitcom, Garver says she appreciates his dedication to work that exists outside the Hollywood bubble.
“His career went in a totally different direction, so I think he helps people off drugs now,” Garver says, commending Whitaker for overcoming his own issues with drugs in the past, about which he has spoken in various interviews. “He gave up his career a long time ago,” she notes.
Garver adds, “Good for him,” and explains that, “I see him, I say hi” at various events, and maintains a cordial connection to her former onscreen sibling.
Though Garver, 80, went on to have a career in film, television, and the theater after working as a teenager in the role of Cissy on Family Affair, Whitaker largely stepped back from Hollywood in subsequent years.
Whitaker appeared on the program as Jody, one half of a pair of twins opposite Anissa Jones, who died in 1976 at 18, as Buffy. The former actor told Woman’s Worldmagazine earlier this year that Jones’ death impacted him as a young adult.
“It was at that time that I realized that I might need to become a little bit more normal and do some more normal things,” he told the outlet, adding that he eventually went back to school, joined the spirit team, and immersed himself in student government.
Garver, too, tells EW that Jones’ death greatly impacted her.
“I remember going to her 18th birthday party, and her mom coming up to me and saying, ‘I wish you’d spend more time with Anissa because she’s in the wrong crowd,'” Garver tells EW of Jones’ last birthday in March 1976, five months before she was found dead in a California home of an apparent drug overdose. “These drugs kill people,” Garver adds. “It’s just so sad. We’ve lost so many of the child stars because of the drugs, and there’s no one there [to support them].”
Elsewhere in his Woman’s World interview, Whitaker, 66, opened up about his own experience with drugs that bubbled up after his stint on Family Affair.
“Even though I was not involved in drugs and alcohol at that point, I had had some negative experiences with some casting directors that were not very positive,” he said of his post-sitcomcareer. “Some problems caused by adults not being kind to young adults sexually, which kind of screwed me up in that way to a certain extent. And I came out of that needing to pay penance to a certain extent for what had happened—although it was not my fault, you still feel that it is, because I enjoyed it. I mean, there was pleasure in what had happened to a certain extent— emotionally, no, but physically yes. And I had made that decision to turn my will and my life over to God.”
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Eventually, he became entangled in a turbulent romance wth a model, and ultimately “went off in sex, drugs, and rock and roll for the next 10 years.”
Garver, also an accomplished author who recently unveiled her latest book Romancing With the Stars,tells EW she’ll also embark on a celebrity cruise in honor of Family Affair‘s 60th anniversary.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
