Looking Back at Alan Thicke's Life and Career in Photos

Born in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada, on March 1, 1947, Alan Thicke got his start hosting the Canadian game show First Impressions in the 1970s, which led him to more hosting gigs and eventually his own talk show, The Alan Thicke Show. In that time he married Days of Our Lives actress Gloria Loring (right), with whom he wrote several popular theme songs, including those for Diff'rent Strokes, The Facts of Life and the original Wheel of Fortune. With Loring, he had two sons; the couple divorced in 1984.

His boys with Loring, Brennan (Dec. 17, 1974) and Robin (March 10, 1977), both went on to work in showbusiness, with Brennan lending his voice to characters on the '80s series Dennis the Menace and MASK, and Robin hitting pop music stardom in the 2000s. Thicke devoted much of his career to his sons, working for juvenile diabetes charities in Brennan's name and helping launch Robin's career.

In Hollywood, Thicke was best-known for his role as dad Dr. Jason Seaver on the sitcom Growing Pains, which ran from 1985 to 1992. "I am considerably more boring than Jason Seaver," he once joked to New York magazine.

Fresh off of Growing Pains, Thicke joined the cast of Hope & Gloria, poking fun at himself a bit as a bawdy talk show host. "The notion that I'm now parodying my middle-of-the-roadness seems to be so hip to [critics]," he told The Washington Post at the time. "So, I like that. I'm very much enjoying my critical acceptance. I've never had that." The series ended in 1996.

The end of Hope & Gloria led him back to actually hosting, taking the helm at the game show version of Pictionary in 1997.

In 1994, Thicke married his second wife, Miss World 1990 Gina Tolleson. "Gina was a savior to me emotionally," he told PEOPLE one year after their wedding. "She sprinkled good fortune throughout my family." The two divorced in 1999.

With Tolleson, he had one child in 1997, son Carter — who actually inspired him to write two parenting books in 1999 and 2009. "I am so enamored of this young man," Thicke told New York. "He knows that I’m his biggest fan and biggest supporter. He’s been just a wonderful companion to me on every level."

Thicke wed his third wife, model/actress Tanya Callau, in 2005. The couple — and Carter — made the foray into reality TV in 2014 with their semi-scripted series Unusually Thicke. "[It] combines my two favorite things: Family and laughing at my family," he told PEOPLE at the time.

Later in his career, Thicke made guest appearances on a variety of TV shows, including How I Met Your Mother, Scream Queens, Grandfathered and most recently This Is Us and Fuller House. His last tweet, sent hours before his death, commended the cast of the Netflix sequel.

In 2013, Thicke was honored with a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto. He told ET Canada the honor meant a lot, that "the country remembers you, appreciates you."

Thicke's last public appearance was on Dec. 2, 2016, at the Whistler Film Festival in Canada, where he was presented with the Icon Award and promised to "try and stay iconic." He passed away on Dec. 13, 2016, suffering a heart attack while playing hockey with son Carter. He was 69.