Lance Kerwin is DEAD TO ME

I hated Ike Eisenmann circa 1979. His ugly ass stunk up all of his 70s teen roles

He was great in Salems lot. The little house on the prairie girls talk about him in their biogs. Sad.

Man, there was some shitty stuff on television in the seventies and eighties.

I always thought he and Jimmy McNichol were the same guy.

There certainly was some shitty stuff on Tv in the 70s, r3, but Lance Kerwin was in quality pieces.

"James at 15" was terrific for its time--it was considered groundbreaking, and it was very intelligent.

"Salem's Lot" was also very well done.

So I'm not clear what you're referring to.

He looked like Jodie Foster

Jeez, that photo of him at a comic con in the link is so heartbreaking. Such sadness.

Salem's Lot scared the crap out of me, but then I was an impressionable gayling. Kerwin did not ping for me, but oh, David Soul, musical, just musical.

R7 Fuck, you are not wrong, would not have recognized him at all. Fucking sad, he was a good little actor. Salems Lot was good.

My first serious crush. He looked well-blessed in swimming trunks.

He was an early crush of mine. That is really a shame his life was so difficult for him. Aside from James at 15 I remember the when he played Micheal Landon-ish as a teen - a bed wetter whose mom would hang the sheets outside the window for everyone to see. He would run home to take the sheets in……. I’m getting old when Adam Rich and Lance Kerwin start dying.

[quote]Jeez, that photo of him at a comic con in the link is so heartbreaking. Such sadness.

My God. He looked like Jonathan Banks.

Man R7, you ain't kidding - that is the definition of, "that's a rough 62." And others have noted, Salem's Lot on TV was scary (for its time). Anyone else remember the Danny Glick character in S.L. floating outside Kerwin's window asking to be let in? Gave me the shivers!

He must have done a lot of drugs and drunk a lot of booze to have looked so rough at that age.

Being a teen star seems to fuck almost everyone up. Even if you wind up successful as an adult (like Jodie Foster), you're still a mess emotionally.

James at 15 was a middle school sensation when it originally aired. If you missed it on Thursday night, you were excluded from all the Friday morning conversations dissecting the episode. It was loved by both kids and critics, a fine accomplishment.

The book Salem's Lot scared the shit out of me, and the miniseries was even worse. I loved all horror and slasher movies at that time, but I couldn't sit through Salem's Lot. The portion that I saw gave me nightmares. For me, the scariest vampires ever portrayed on screen.

I'm sorry that Lance didn't make the transition into an adult acting career, and that his life seems to have been a hard one.

I'm getting really tired of so many celebrities from my childhood dropping dead lately.

It's not going to get any better from here.

AWW...I wanted to be him.

“James at 15” may be the only single season series that had a title change.

“Critics also approved of its handling of James' first sexual experience, with a Swedish exchange student (Kirsten Baker) in the episode which aired February 9, 1978— at which point the show assumed the name James at 16. “

Awww, that’s a shame. Do we still have to wear our “Live Strong” bracelets?

It seems silly now.

I never watched shit like that. I was only 3 yrs old anyway.

I wanted him so bad I could almost taste him. Rest in peace.

Brian was the hotter Kerwin. But RIP.

R22 Not related.

Hey what about me R22?

I would love to see "Snow Queen". Sounds hot.

What was on his boombox?

I had such a crush on him back when James at 15 was on TV, I even wrote him a gay-crush fan letter! Didn't he become a meth head/religious nut?

Lance/James was a godsend to this neurotic, teenage closet case in Iowa. Loved him and his lady friend (not romantic), Marlene.

DL fav Kate Jackson played an “older woman” in the pilot who taught James some valuable life lessons.

He was handsome still in his early 30s.

#TheSilenceIsDeafening

Fuck, when Adam Rich died I thought, "at least we still have James at 15!" Terri Nunn of Berlin was on it as the "slutty" girl who was going to let James fuck but he declined.

This is disappointing.

So kind of an asshole then.

Churchy too.

So no James at 63 reboot?

I forgot about Adam RIch.

Yep, R35. So he's walking and falsifying documents with Jesus now.

Sadly, in the recent photo of him in Variety @OP he aged to look like Kurt Barlow (Reggie Nalder) from Salem's Lot.

Here's an episode with special guest star/known cunt Melissa Sue Anderson.

James at 3,200,000

R40 MSA turned into blind bitch on the prairie really fast.

Was he a Republican?

Had he been ill for a long time - he looks unhealthy and thin in more recent pix?

I loved that show - we are (or were) contemporaries . But that pic at Comic Con - Jesus, the shaved head with white goatee look doesn’t work for anyone.

RIP James at 62.

R1 is quite the irrelevant cunt, isn't she?

And just a couple of weeks ago here at DL we were casting him in some great TV movies.

Didn't he also play the runner who became fast because his mother would hang his bedsheets out that he peed on? I thought he was dreamy, I was around 9 when James at 15 came out.

I think he dated MSA at some point. I believe she might have mentioned it in her memoir. Though, Missy didn't 'kiss and tell' and prattle on about all sorts of 'unseemly' elements of her life, like some women named Melissa who were on LHOP did in their memoirs.

I they they double-dated with Brian Kerwin and Half-Pint.

Damn that Brian Kerwin was a hot piece.

RIP loneliest runner!

[quote]r47 And just a couple of weeks ago here at DL we were casting him in some great TV movies.

Did he make the cut to be in DataLounge’s Irwin Allen’s Coronavirus disaster film?

He looks like someone who cuts classes, smokes cigarettes, and drinks beer in this photo with Laura Ingalls

He did a "Murder She Wrote," but no "Fantasy Island" or "Love Boat."

He looks like Jackie Earl Haley. And not in a good way.

I had a big crush on Lance Kerwin! The losing his virginity aired when I was 13. My brother and I had a TV in our room, and I always watched it upstairs, alone. Not gonna lie, but I jacked off to him that night.

A couple of days later, some lady wrote into our local newspaper about how wrong it was for James at 15 to show that scene (and deal with that subject). My mom asked me at dinner that night if that was the show I always watched upstairs. 😗

Has Susan Dey commented?

Don’t be ridiculous!

James At 15 pilot is on Youtube, 9posted above). And the first season is up on Pirate Ray.

Suicide?

Jesus Christ, 2023 is just taking out everybody.

Predictions for the next two celebrity deaths-Danny Bodaduce and John Astin

oops meant Bondaduce

He could have been seeking Medicaid. Maybe that’s why he omitted he had property. He would not have been eligible with property.

R10, maybe the show should have been titled James at 7 1/2”. Never saw it because it was before my time. I do remember seeing Salem’s Lot as a kid, and that was pretty damn scary.

Linky stinky, r54.

Why I'll Never Comment On The Death Of Lance Kerwin.

Yes...we all can have his stuff...

[quote]A couple of days later, some lady wrote into our local newspaper about how wrong it was for James at 15 to show that scene (and deal with that subject).

I remember that letter to the editor like it was yesterday. She also said it was wrong that you jerked off to him after the show ended that night, and soiled your bedsheets. Remember ? The whole town knew what you did.

[quote]Yes...we all can have his stuff...

I have sufficient.

No longer singing.

R6 He looks like he has the body of an old man.

I hope when Susan Dey dies Hollywood pays her callousness back in kind with nary a single comment.

Has anyone heard from Kate Jackson?

Lynn Carlin played DL favorite Dawn's mother too. She sure had a full plate of horned up 70s teens to deal with.

Dawn's Mother : You're the one who's sneaking out behind my back, leaving your brothers alone!

Dawn Wetherby : Why do I always have to babysit?

Dawn's Mother : Running around like a tramp!

Dawn Wetherby : You're the tramp!

" He recently appeared in the 2022 film "The Wind & the Reckoning."-USA Today

R7 The openings to James at 15 to Dawn : DOATR take me back. The film quality, the music, the clothes. I makes me so sad. Nostalgia and missing people.

Try one more time, R64

He looks better in this recent picture⬇️⬇️⬇️

At R33, article says that Kerwin was a "pastor at Calvary Chapel in Kapaa (Kauai, Hawaii) and a U-Turn for Christ program leader."

Prosecutor in Hawaii said "the 49-year-old Kerwin was caught falsifying documents to obtain state medical assistance and food stamps."

Kerwin's own defense attorney admitted that "when Kerwin applied for the benefits, he omitted in the application that he owned three properties on the mainland."

Not one, but THREE properties.

He's a scumbag, in my book. Liquidate some of your damn assets instead of committing welfare fraud and working as a damn church pastor.

Shows were filmed in 35MM, the film quality should be great, but you rarely see good prints of 70s TV shows. There are probably more good prints of 1950s shows, like I Love Lucy, or Superman, than there are of most filmed 70s shows.

B&W film stock is inherently more stable than color stock, and 70s color stock was pretty shitty - as was the hack-work lighting on TV from that era in general - so 50s TV shows have a number advantages.

I Love Lucy was also shot by a brilliant German cinematographer, Karl Freund, (who shot fucking Metropolis). He was hired by Desi specifically to figure out how to light for 3 cameras shooting simultaneously - moves are lit for a single camera. One solution was to paint the sets in shades of grey - even props like newspapers were tinted to help with the overall contrast ratio.

[quote]Kerwin's own defense attorney admitted that "when Kerwin applied for the benefits, he omitted in the application that he owned three properties on the mainland."

That is disappointing. I'd assumed he was in a bad way, because very few individuals who falsify documents to get food stamps do it because they're greedy, it's usually the organized groups who commit large-scale fraud who are the real problem.

But owning three properties in Hawaii and having a spouse who brings in income and then applying for food stamps is shitty as hell. I'm guessing his properties were rentals, too.

Fascinating shit, r83.

I love stuff like that.

Man you can make a killing at those conventions......some guy bought my teeth and - well you can make a lot of $$.....I love show business.....well.....LOVED.

R83. Thanks--for informing other posters. I did know all that. I also said Superman from the 50s - which was in color - looked good. But while it's true 70s film stock wasn't great, I went to the movies in the 70s and watched TV in the 70s, and it didn't look the way it looks now. A lot of the TV shows from the 70s you see on YouTube look blurry and washed out. They didn't look that way when they were aired. I have Adam-12 and Dragnet from the 70s on dvd and they look great.

Most shows were not shot in 35mm, they were shot in 16mm.

It depends on when the transfers you were looking at were made R87. It also depends on how old the prints were and when they were made. 70's color stock was notorious for decaying quickly, so new prints / transfers made off the neg 10 - 15 years later would look off - as would the prints that were made back in the 70's - they lose their yellow layer and go pink very quickly.

Color stocks from the 50's aged better than stocks from the 70s -- so by the 90s, original 50s Superman prints and neg could easily have been in better shape than 70's Love Boat prints and neg.

DVD transfers of old shows are all over the place in terms of image quality. If they were done with care and a decent budget, off a decent film element, they can look sharp and can have a new color correct that tries to compensate for any color-shifts in the source material - but often they were done cheaply and look pretty bad -- totally depends on the show. Stuff on You-Tube could come from anywhere, it could be digitized off some old vhs tape - total crap shoot as to quality. You're welcome.

Another excellent point R88. Lucy, and most likely Superman, were shot on 35mm with most 70's stuff shot on 16 - so a huge difference in image quality right from the start. That a difference was less obvious on old NTSC tube TV's vs the kind of home hardware that is common now.

James at 15 stood out in the sea of 70s schlock, and I remember how cool it was to have a quality show with a teenager as the lead, taken seriously. Yeah, I had a crush on him too.

I don’t give a shit!!!

Any word on cause of death?

Yeah, his heart stopped beating.

R88 No, most TV shows were shot in 35mm. Or videotape. 16mm was sometimes used in videotaped shows for filmed inserts. But 35mm was the standard for TV.

meth and jesus

I was sad to hear about his death yesterday. I was a fan of his growing up. He was only a couple of years older than I am. He was a very good actor in his prime.

I’d just happened on this interview recently that he did this past year. Posters on YouTube didn’t seem bothered by his appearance or state, but I thought something seemed very wrong.

They're making a film right now of Salem's Lot--I'm very curious to see it. I hope they retain the 1970s setting.

R98, it's already in the can, and yes it still takes place in the 70's.

I like it when something is already in the can.

He looks so familiar to me, but I don't think I've seen anything he appeared in.

R99 Does Lance have a cameo in the film as are often given to stars of the original production?

James at 15 really paved the way for My So-Called Life, which was also critically lauded and which also only lasted one season.

This is Salem’s Lot (2023) IMDB page. Other than Spencer Treat Clark, Alfre Woodard and John Benjamin Hickey, I don’t know the rest of the cast. Stephen King is one of the writers.

R104 The character Lance played is now black in the new version.

And Hubie Marsten is now a disabled trans Inuit.

R106 And Sue Norton is a enby with fibromyalgia.

I read 'Salem's Lot decades ago and remember the David Soul/Lance Kerwin TV movie. Was it 4 hours? Maybe six?

The book was frightening, the TV movie stayed close to the novel, but was s-l-o-w.

The end of the book is great, I can't remember if the TV movie ends in the same way.

BTW - if you read King's books, they often cross over. 'Salem's Lot was referenced in Tommyknockers (I think). A minor character was tempted to take an exit off I-95 for the town of Jerusalem's Lot. I remember thinking, "no, don't do it!". I haven't read King in decades...

R108 Father Callahan from Salems Lot turned up in The Dark Tower series, as did King himself.

I got a slashy vibe from David Soul and Lance's characters in Salem's Lot. Was that in the book?

R110 Kinda, at the start they are hiding out in Mexico and pretend to be father and son. They really do love each other, but no explicit anal.

R110, no Steven King doesn’t do romance or camp - along the lines of Steven Spielberg.