Alan Thicke was born Alan Willis Jeffrey on March 1, 1947 in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, the son of Shirley “Joan” Isobel Marie (née Greer), a nurse, and William Jeffrey, a stockbroker. They divorced in 1953. His mother remarried to Brian Thicke, a physician, and they moved to Elliot Lake. He graduated from Elliot Lake Secondary School in 1965, and was elected homecoming king. He went on to attend the University of Western Ontario, where he joined the Delta Upsilon fraternity. Thicke hosted a Canadian game show on CFCF-TV in Montreal called First Impressions in the late 1970s and the Saturday morning celebrity game show Animal Crack-Ups in the late 1980s. In 1997, he hosted a television version of the board game Pictionary. In the early 2000s, he hosted the All New 3’s a Crowd on the Game Show Network. Norman Lear hired Thicke to produce and head the writing staff of Fernwood 2 Night, a tongue-in-cheek talk show based on characters from Lear’s earlier show, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. In the late 1970s, he was a frequent guest host of The Alan Hamel Show, a popular daytime talk show on Canadian TV, usually hosted by Alan Hamel.[citation needed] Thicke went on to host his own popular talk show in Canada during the early 1980s, called The Alan Thicke Show. The show at one point spawned a prime-time spinoff, Prime Cuts, which consisted of edited highlights from the talk show. Thicke was later signed to do an American syndicated late-night talk show, Thicke of the Night.

Alan Thicke had a successful career as a TV theme song composer, often collaborating with his then-wife Gloria Loring on these projects, which included the themes to the popular sitcoms Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. He also wrote a number of TV game show themes, including The Wizard of Odds (for which he also sang the vocal introduction), The Joker’s Wild, Celebrity Sweepstakes, The Diamond Head Game, Animal Crack-Ups (which he co-wrote with his brother Todd Thicke and Gary Pickus), Blank Check, Stumpers!, Whew!, and the original theme to Wheel of Fortune. Thicke was a popular songwriter. He co-wrote “Sara”, a solo hit for Bill Champlin and included on the latter’s Runaway album (1981). Alan Thicke produced a variety of television shows, including Anne Murray Christmas specials for the CBC, beginning in the late 1970s. Alan Thicke played Jason Seaver, a psychiatrist and father, on the family sitcom Growing Pains. When the show began, Jason was moving his psychiatry practice into the home to be closer to the family’s children while the family matriarch Maggie, played by Joanna Kerns, resumed her career as a reporter. Growing Pains debuted on ABC in 1985 and ran until 1992. Thicke reprised his role in two reunion TV movies, The Growing Pains Movie (2000) and Growing Pains: Return of the Seavers (2004).

Alan Thicke co-hosted the Walt Disney World Very Merry Christmas Parade (now the Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade) with Joan Lunden from 1983 to 1990, when he was succeeded by Regis Philbin. In 1988, he hosted the Miss USA Pageant in El Paso, Texas, replacing Bob Barker (who quit over fur being involved in the pageants). He replaced Barker again as host of the 1988 Miss Universe Pageant (along with Tracy Scoggins) in Taipei, Taiwan. Thicke was replaced by Dick Clark as host of the 1989 Miss USA Pageant in Mobile, Alabama and by John Forsythe as host of the 1989 Miss Universe Pageant in Cancún, Mexico. Thicke continued hosting a wide range of variety TV events. In 1989 he co-hosted with SCTV alumnus Andrea Martin the TV special Opening of SkyDome in Toronto, which aired across Canada on the CBC. In 2004, he hosted the Miss Universe Canada Pageant in Ontario. Thicke appeared on the American television series Hope & Gloria, which ran for 35 episodes. He played a lead role in the Not Quite Human trilogy of made-for-TV movies.[citation needed] In April 2006, he hosted Celebrity Cooking Showdown on NBC, in which celebrities were teamed with famous chefs in a cooking competition. In August 2006 and 2007, Thicke made a few appearances as talk show host Rich Ginger on The Bold and the Beautiful. Thicke also makes a cameo appearance in the 2007 movie Alpha Dog as the father of the lead character’s girlfriend.

In 2008, Alan Thicke appeared in a major supporting role as Jim Jarlewski in the television series adaptation of Douglas Coupland’s jPod. That same year, he had a cameo appearance in the How I Met Your Mother episode “Sandcastles in the Sand” as the dad in Robin Scherbatsky’s second “Robin Sparkles” music video. He guest starred as himself in the episode “The Rough Patch”. He appeared on a website made specifically for the show, canadiansexacts.org, featured in the episode “Old King Clancy”. In February 2009, Thicke made a guest appearance on Adult Swim’s Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job. In the same month, he made a guest appearance on the web series Star-ving. He also had a role in the 2009 film, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard. On July 10, 2009, Thicke appeared on the 1000th episode of Attack of the Show!, and he sang a song with Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn. Thicke appeared in the season six finale of Just Shoot Me, “The Boys in the Band.” He made a guest appearance on a few episodes of Canada’s Worst Handyman 5. In 2010, Thicke appeared on the television program, Tosh.0. In October 2010, he appeared as a celebrity contestant on Don’t Forget the Lyrics, where he played for the charities ProCon.org and the Alan Thicke Center for diabetes research. In March 2013, he participated on ABC’s Celebrity Wife Swap. He swapped wives with comedian Gilbert Gottfried. In October 2016, Thicke appeared as himself in pilot episode of NBC’s “This is Us”. On December 13, 2016, Alan Thicke collapsed while playing hockey with his son Carter at Pickwick Gardens in Burbank, California. The manager of the rink said he was talking and even joked to his son to take a photo as he was being wheeled out on a stretcher. Thicke subsequently died of type-A aortic dissection at the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, at the age of 69.