A Child Star Gone Good

Remember this little gal:If you're a certain age, like say for instance over 40, and you watched a certain amount of TV, let's say for instance way too much TV, especially when you were young, then you probably remember the little girl that Shatner is holding. Her name is Pamelyn Ferdin and for about 20 years she was everywhere you looked on TV. She grew up right before our eyes and she worked on such shows as Star Trek, The Odd Couple, The Brady Bunch, Gunsmoke, and many many many more, you can check out all her credits on her IMDb page which is here.

Ms. Ferdin was on many of the shows I watched growing up. Because she and I were close in age I always felt a certain kinship with her and I was glad to see her get so much work. She was one of the first girls my own age that I had a crush on. Come on people, how could you not like a gal as pretty as this:You could power a small city with the wattage of that smile. To me Ms. Ferdin just seemed so nice. I'm sure she had her bad days and she probably rubbed someone the wrong way a time or two, but I always liked her. It was like seeing an old friend every time she guest starred on a different show.

Like all of us, Pamelyn grew up. But unlike some other former child actors who I won't mention but whose initials are that drunken skank Lindsey Lohan, Ms. Ferdin didn't slide into a life of drunken celebrity antics with a side of obscene entitlement. Nope. Not at all. Instead of being a fame whore like the current crop of former child stars that came of age in the last few years Ms. Ferdin went to college and she became a RN. And then she got a job, a real job, a job outside of acting and the film and TV industry. She went to work in a county hospital emergency room caring for indigent patients. And while she worked at that job she also began volunteering with animal welfare rights groups.

She did the occasional voiceover on the side while she worked as a nurse and did the animal right activism thing but these days she's not into the acting thing anymore. She said in an email to me, "I'm no longer in acting. After becoming a registered nurse and working in an emergency room at a County hospital caring for indigent patients, I am now a full time animal rights activist. I am a member of Animal Defense League-Los Angeles (see http://www.animaldefense.com/ and also go to ADL-LA's current campaign web site at http://www.stopthekilling.net/ )."

I'm sure you're saying, "An email to you? She wrote you an email Monkey man?" Well yes, actually she did. And she did it because I emailed her first. You see I read a post MWB did about watching one of her old series on DVD and I looked her up on the interwebs. I found out she had a website and as I read about her and what she had been up to I thought, "What a neat woman. I'm so glad she turned out to be such a normal and compassionate person." I saw on her web page where you could email her and she claimed to read all emails personally, so I sent her an email telling her thanks for all her performances and for helping animals.

And wouldn't you know it, she went and emailed me back and she told me thanks for my nice email to her and she told me all about her work helping those how can't not ask for help, animals. She went on to tell me, "I felt that acting was not really making the world a more peaceful, compassionate place, so I became a nurse. After twelve years of nursing I realized that people do have a voice and they can ask the nurse for pain killers, assistance in getting up, and will tell you off if they don't feel you are giving them the best of care!!

Animals can't speak out on their own behalf, and there is just a small minority of people who are willing to speak up for them. As Ingrid Newkirk once said, "When it comes to suffering, a pig, is a dog, is a rat, is a boy." Animals are the most innocent and the most tortured beings on earth right now, and I felt that I had to speak up for those animals being abused, tortured, killed and afraid or I couldn't live with myself."

To me this whole thing, finding out what Ms. Ferdin had done with her life after acting and exchanging emails, was a breath of fresh air for me. I was bowled over that she returned my email and took the time to tell me in depth the things she now did. I can't imagine any of the skeevy fame sluts of today getting a real job or working in the trenches for animal rights or even returning an email to a fan. I'm glad my initial instincts about Ms. Ferdin were right and that she is a nice, compassionate person who is working to make this world a better place. And this whole thing just goes to show you that some people are just as nice and kind as we imagine they are, even former TV stars.

Thanks once again Pamelyn for all the memories you gave me and thanks for turning out to be a nice helpful person.