The star said his abilities as a self-described “schmoozer” did not translate well into a genre that depends on a host’s balance between killer comic instincts and self-deprecation as well as talent for engaging with a guest.Īlan Thicke and Tanya Callau in 2006.
Thicke made a legendarily disastrous attempt to dethrone NBC’s Johnny Carson as the undisputed ratings giant of late-night television.
“It was way ahead of its time, predating the emergence of the great ’80s era of irony,” said cultural scholar Robert Thompson. gofer to his home country’s leading media personality within a decade.Īlong the way, he wrote comedy and sketches for high-profile TV specials in Hollywood, co-wrote the theme for “Wheel of Fortune” and sitcoms including “The Facts of Life” and “Diff’rent Strokes,” and helped craft the Norman Lear-produced “Fernwood 2-Night” (1977), a satire of low-budget community talk shows that doubled as a send-up of middle-American values and prejudices. But his compulsive work habits, amiable public persona and quest for self-improvement propelled him from Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “Living with Alan was like being on an endless est seminar,” the first of his ex-wives once said. Thicke’s son, pop singer Robin Thicke, confirmed the death to the Associated Press. The Canadian-born performer, who also appeared on soap operas (“The Bold and the Beautiful”) and reality TV shows (“Unusually Thicke”), reportedly died after a heart attack. Alan Thicke, a television mainstay as writer, composer of theme songs, host of game and late-night shows and, most notably, the wisdom-dispensing patriarch of the long-running sitcom “Growing Pains,” died Dec.