Joanna Kerns

Kerns got her start in show business as a dancer before turning to acting. She attended UCLA and majored in dance. There, she saw an advertisement for a Gene Kelly production called Clown Around and applied for an audition. To take the part, however, she would have to drop out of college and move to New York, which she did. After Clown Around, Joanna also got parts in the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of Two Gentlemen of Verona and Ulysses in Nighttown, where she was directed by Burgess Meredith. Meredith also introduced Kerns to Peggy Feury, under whom Kerns studied acting. In 1972, she moved back to California and landed a job as a backup dancer at Disneyland, and started auditioning for TV commercials and steady acting jobs. On May 4, 1977, she made an appearance on Charlie's Angels as Natalie, a worker at a massage parlor in the episode "The Blue Angels". During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Kerns started making a name for herself in guest spots on many televisions shows that included: Emergency!, CHiPs, The A-Team, Starsky & Hutch, Street Hawk, Laverne and Shirley, Three's Company, Hill Street Blues, The Love Boat, Hunter, Quincy, M.E., Magnum, P.I., and V, as well as many commercials. During an interview, Kerns said, "I kind of was always looking for the next thing; I auditioned for anything, hoping to get a big break" (Lifetime's Intimate Portrait). Then, Kerns got her first steady acting job in 1983, starring as Pat Devon in a new CBS series called The Four Seasons, which lasted only one season. The sitcom, which was based on a 1981 movie of the same name, was about three couples who all lived under the same roof in California. Although the show was not well received by television critics, her part proved to producers that she was capable of acting as a leading lady.

Soon after the cancellation of The Four Seasons, Kerns auditioned with Alan Thicke for a new family sitcom called Growing Pains. Kerns joked in interviews that Alan and she had immediate chemistry, especially when she kissed him on his nose by accident during their audition together. Kerns and Thicke's chemistry won them both the parts, and the two became great friends off the show. The successful show, which dealt with two working parents raising their kids, ran on ABC from 1985-1992. Kerns reprised her role in two reunion TV movies, The Growing Pains Movie (2000) and Growing Pains: Return of the Seavers (2004). During the success of Growing Pains, Kerns began to star in television movies, where she played controversial parts very different from the beloved all-American mom, Maggie Seaver. One such performance that shocked audiences was her 1992 movie, The Nightman, in which Kerns played a highly sexual business woman who was a motel owner. Her many TV movies include: Those She Left Behind, Blind Faith, The Big One: The Great Los Angeles Earthquake, Shameful Secrets, and No One Could Protect Her.

After Growing Pains ended, Kerns turned to directing. She directed one episode of Growing Pains while starring on the show and got hooked. In an interview, Kerns stated, "I was always fascinated by the difference in the quality of work by what director I had. They would have not just a great storytelling sense, but also a great cinematic sense." She loved directing and decided to change the focus of her career from acting to directing, while continuing to make rare appearances in front of the camera when the right parts came along. She has also directed episodes of television shows including Dawson's Creek, Titans, Scrubs, Private Practice, Psych, Felicity, Grey's Anatomy, Privileged, ER, Ghost Whisperer, Army Wives, Pretty Little Liars, Switched at Birth, The Goldbergs, This Is Us, and Fuller House. Kerns also directed Annie Potts in an original made-for-television movie for Lifetime TV entitled: Defending Our Kids: The Julie Posey Story. She has since made a number of shorts, and directed the sixth episode of Pitch, a sports drama on Fox. Kerns has also made notable appearances in feature films, including A*P*E (1976), Girl, Interrupted (1999), and the comedy Knocked Up (2007). She has also co-founded the Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards given to women in acting. Kerns was a member of the Motion Picture and Television Fund Board of Trustees from 2004 through 2008.

Kerns's older sister is Olympic swimmer Donna de Varona and her aunt was silent film actress Miriam Cooper. She also had a younger brother, Kurt. Kerns competed in gymnastics in the Olympic trials in 1968 and ranked 14th out of 28. In 1974, Kerns met a commercial producer, Richard Kerns, on the set of a commercial, and they married two years later. Their marriage lasted nine years and the couple had a daughter, Ashley Cooper. In 1994, Kerns married Marc Appleton, a prominent Los Angeles architect. In August 2019, Kerns filed for divorce from Appleton. Kerns was romantically involved with comedian and actor Freddie Prinze a short time before he died of suicide. The two had worked together on the 1976 TV movie, The Million Dollar Rip-Off. In 2004, Kerns wrote a letter of support for convicted sex offender Brian Peck, who had worked on Growing Pains, ahead of his sentencing for sexually abusing a 14-or-15-year-old minor in 2001, since revealed to be actor Drake Bell. Following the release of the documentary Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV (2024), Kerns stated that she was misinformed when writing the letter and "Knowing what I know now, I never would have written it." In 2016, Kerns underwent a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer, specifically a ductal carcinoma in situ. She has raised funds for Planned Parenthood.