Here’s What The Cast Of ‘Charles In Charge’ Has Been Doing Over The Last 25 Years

When Joanie Loves Chachi ended its less-than-stellar run in 1983, TV executives scrambled to find another vehicle for its lead actor, Scott Baio. After all, you don’t just leave the star of Zapped! and The Boy Who Drank Too Much twisting in the wind. So, on October 3rd, 1984, CBS premiered Charles In Charge, in which Baio played a young college student who worked as a live-in babysitter in exchange for room and board. It lasted seven months before CBS pulled the plug.

Less than two years later, the show — with a revamped cast — returned on first-run syndication. It ran four successful seasons and made stars out of its young cast. It also had the benefit of having two talented veterans (James Callahan — who passed away in 2007 — and Sandra Kerns) anchoring the cast as the Powell children’s grandfather and mother, respectively.

It’s been twenty-five years since Charles In Charge aired its final episode. Here’s a look at what some of their stars have been up to since then.

Scott Baio – Charles

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Baio’s first acting role following the end of Charles In Charge was a TV series based on the movie Look Who’s Talking. Unfortunately, Baby Talk didn’t last past his first season on the show (the show’s second). Fortunately, the following year, he took a recurring role on Dick Van Dyke’s comedy/drama series Diagnosis: Murder. He also had an iconic guest role on Arrested Development as Bob Loblaw, keeper of the Law Blog. More recently, he’s been playing himself — first in Wes Craven’s werewolf flick, Cursed, and in VH1’s reality shows Scott Baio is 45… and Single and Scott Baio is 46… and Pregnant.

Willie Aames – Buddy Lembeck

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Aames took the role of Buddy Lembeck, following a successful run as Tommy Bradford on Eight Is Enough. If he wasn’t already ’80s enough as it was, he also voiced the character of Hank on the Dungeons & Dragons animated series. After hosting one season of the American version of the UK game show The Krypton Factor, Aames took on the role of Bibleman, a straight-to-video religious superhero series.  He’s now the narrator of Bugtime Adventures,  another religious themed animated series.

Nicole Eggert – Jamie Powell

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Eggert is probably best known — post-Charles, anyway — as Summer Quinn on Baywatch. Coincidentally, like her previous show, Baywatch was also originally a network series that later found success on syndication. Since then, she — not unlike her Charles co-star Baio — has mostly found success in the reality TV world, landing appearances on Celebrity Fit Club and Splash (that celebrity diving show NBC did a couple of years ago).

She’s also an ice cream truck driver. No, really.

Josie Davis – Sarah Powell

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After finishing up on Charles In ChargeDavis finished high school and decided to take the whole “acting career” seriously. At the age of 24, she auditioned for the famous Actor’s Studio and was only one of two students selected to enter that year. She would go on to have a fairly successful career, landing roles on shows like Beverly Hills 90210CSI: NY, and Titans. Most recently, she’s been featured in a number of movies for Lifetime and Hallmark and the Nick At Nite TV series Hollywood Heights.

Alexander Polinsky – Adam Powell

Alexander, like many child actors who weren’t ruined by show business, took a different route to success in the entertainment industry. He did appear in a few acting roles, such as in Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, and the religious war drama Saints and Soldiers (there seems to be a running theme here). However, he’s focused most of his career on voice acting in both animated and video game roles — including that of Control Freak, a role he voiced in both the Teen Titans TV series and game.

He’s also worked as a mold maker for numerous films, a trade he became interested in while looking for something to do in between takes of Charles In Charge.

Ellen Travolta – Lillian

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Univeral Television/Getty Images

Yep. That’s John Travolta’s sister. She originally played Scott Baio’s mother on both Happy Days and Joanie Loves Chachi. So, of course, she was going to play Charles’ mom on Charles In Charge. She’s done the occasional TV appearance since then, but she apparently just missed the chance to play Baio’s mom in his latest show, 2013’s See Dad Run.

James Widdoes – Stan Pembroke (Season One)

If Mr. Widdoes looks familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen Animal House. After starring in the classic 1978 comedy as Robert Hoover, Delta House fraternity president, Widdoes would guest star on numerous TV shows before taking the role of Stan Pembroke on the CBS run of Charles In Charge.

Since then, he’s had a pretty distinguished career as a television director. He’s helmed episodes of Dave’s World (starring his doppelganger, Harry Anderson), The King Of QueensTwo and a Half Men and the pilot episode of Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place. He’s also the director of the YouTube series The 4 to 9ers, which is really good.

Jennifer Runyon – Gwendolyn Pierce (Season One)

Jennifer Runyon may be best known as the college coed that Bill Murray tried to seduce at the beginning of Ghostbusters — a role she took following the original cancellation of Charles In Charge on CBS. Following that, she had parts on the pilot of Quantum Leap, the George Burns film 18 Again! and Beverly Hill 90210. He last movie before her retirement in 1993 was the Jurassic Park ripoff Carnosaur (produced by her father-in-law, Roger Corman).

This year, however, she’s returned to acting in the extremely low budget Silent Night, Deadly Night 2: The Revival which, considering the family she married into, seems almost perfect.

Jonathan Ward – Douglas Pembroke (Season One)

Much like Alex Polinsky after him, Jonathan Ward eventually gravitated away from show business. Before getting out, however, he would star in a number of notable films, including the legendary E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial wannabe Mac and Me, as well as Steel Magnolias and a voice appearance in Ferngully: The Last Rainforest.

Nowadays, Ward runs a repair and restoration shop for Toyota Land Cruisers in Van Nuys, CA, called TLC: Toyota Land Cruisers. According to their website, they will perform anything from “a basic oil change to a complete overhaul” and they’ve had a number of favorable write-ups for their customs in the press.

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