Beloved Canadian actor Alan Thicke, best known for his role as Jason Seaver on Growing Pains, has died at the age of 69. As TMZ reports, the actor was playing hockey with one of his three sons on Tuesday afternoon when he suffered a heart attack. He died shortly after at a local hospital.
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Recently, Thicke returned to acting on a beloved family sitcom with a role on Netflix’s Full House revival. Over the years he appeared in other popular shows such as How I Met Your Mother and Scream Queens as Tad Radwell — the scene-stealing father of Glen Powell’s Chad Radwell. In addition to playing himself on HIMYM the actor recently appeared as himself in shows such as Grandfathered and, as one of his last on-screen projects, the pilot of This Is Us in which Justin Hartley’s fed up character Kevin flips out on Thicke on the set of their fake sitcom.
He also worked in the music department on several shows, writing the theme songs for The Facts of Life and Diff’rent Strokes which only adds to Thicke’s already-impressive resume. As hockey writer Sean McIndoe points out, Thicke also once memorably sang the opening song to the 1998 NHL Awards telecast, which cements him as one of the coolest Canadians ever.
RIP Alan Thicke. https://t.co/Z3FUTiu5J3
— Down Goes Brown (@DownGoesBrown) December 14, 2016
Thicke is survived by his three sons (Carter, Brennan, and Blurred Lines singer Robin Thicke) and his current wife Tanya. He will be missed by fans of amazing television dads everywhere.
(via TMZ)