1970s Heartthrob Leif Garrett Is 62 Years Old & Still Handsome Today

Jul 02, 2021 by apost team

When recalling popular teen idols from the 70s, Leif Garret's name has to come up. Garrett was most famous as a teenager, known as a heartthrob that covered the pages of magazines. He began his career as a child actor and then transitioned into music when he was 15. Some of his best-known acting projects include "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," the "Walking Tall" film series, and the television show "Family."

In 1976, Garrett began his singing career with a five-album recording contract with Atlantic Records. Early in 1977, he released his very first single out into the world, titled "Come Back When You Grow Up." His self-titled debut album was released the same year, and all of the singles charted well on the Billboard Hot 100. The album mostly featured covers of oldies hits like "Surfin' USA."

The hit single from his second album was called "I Was Made for Dancin'," and it launched his music career forward. The song topped the charts in both the US and the UK and is still the singer's most popular hit. Garrett had the chance to tour throughout America, and while it was a dream come true for a teenager, there were serious consequences that followed Garrett as an adult.

Later in life, Garrett struggled with drug addiction and found himself in trouble with the law on more than one occasion. The talented star fell from grace, but in 2019 opened up about his troubled past in an autobiography titled "Idol Truth." Read on to learn more about the secrets behind Garrett's battles and to see how the star looks today.

Garrett was born in Hollywood, California, on November 8, 1961, to actress Carolyn Stellar and Rik Narvik. The star has a sister who is also in show business, named Dawn Lyn, and their father left the family when the two children were very young. When he was five, Garrett's mother had an agent who wanted to help book both of the children on film and TV productions.

Garrett grew up on film sets, studying whenever he had the chance, and eventually graduated from high school when he was only 15. This was the same time that his music career was beginning to take off. 

Garrett spoke with Fox News about the experience of going on tour with no supervision. "My mother was a very trusting person. I'm on the road at 15, 16 during the height of my teen idol years. And I was doing it all without a parent. I was barely at home. Instead, (my management) insisted they would treat me like their own son," he explained.

The singer continued, "Looking back at it now, you shouldn't allow your child to do that, especially when you haven't known these people for very long. I don't hold any ill feelings towards my mother. But it's just common sense and logic. You shouldn't be so trusting as a parent. It screwed me over financially for one thing."

When asked by Smashing Interviews Magazine what he thinks brought him so many female fans, Garret answered, "You know, I think that I was pretty. It was weird. I think I was not scary; you know what I'm saying? So young ladies could fantasize or whatever. I think I did have talent because I was a successful actor before music."

apost.com

Garrett continued, "I was selling magazines, Tiger Beat and 16 and stuff like that, so obviously part of it was because of the look, but if you can't back it up with some talent, which is why you'd still be out in the public eye, then you can't be there for just the way you look."

The decision to go into music was not entirely Garrett's; he said that it was something his management suggested and ran with. "I had to learn trial by fire. I was not a born singer. I believe that I had the ability to perform on stage, but everything had to be learned in the music area instead of just coming naturally like acting did," Garrett said in the same interview.

When Garrett looks back at his success as a teenager, he mostly sees a loss of control. He explained, "I would've stuck with acting. I was asked if I wanted to make a record, not if you make this record with us, that's all you're going to be doing for the next five years and not really doing anything in the acting genre."

Ultimately, Garrett was failed by the adults around him when he was a child and a teen. He told Fox News, "I don't think I was a very mature 16-year-old. I became mature very quickly because I was always surrounded by adults who were drinking and doing coke. I was a child, but being treated as an adult… And all of this was coming out of my pocket." Being offered drugs before he was even 18 years old had a profound impact on Garrett's life in the future.

One of the things that Garrett opens up about in his autobiography is the fact that when he was recording music and performing on stage, the producers and his management team would use someone else's voice blended with Garrett's or replace his voice entirely. This made Garrett feel like he was living a lie, and the situation put him in an emotional state he was not prepared to handle. 

Fox News asked Garrett what drove him to use drugs for so long. He answered, "Obviously, perpetuating this lie of me being this musical artist. I sang, but it wasn't me 100 percent…. And I didn't feel like I was being heard. No one wanted to hear what I had to say. As long as people were buying my records, it didn't matter. I wanted to be an adult artist with longevity. And yet I was made to record these oldies. There were so many other things I wanted to do, but they just wanted me to be this California surfer boy, the Tiger Beat cover star."

The artist continued, "I just wasn't given the chance… I think I was trying to mask a lot of feelings of not being true to myself. I wasn't allowed to have any say in what I was doing, in my own career. So I had to mask that feeling… But narcotics weren't my entire life. I know I've had trouble with it. I made some bad decisions. But there has always been more to my story." Nobody wants to be defined by the mistakes they have made.

Garrett also recognizes that he was still a kid when he was exposed to drugs. "I really wish I had more discipline in my life … I probably wouldn't have gone so much into self-medication. I was a rather shy child, but the self-medicating came from my pain over not having any control, once I got into the music, over my own life," Garrett said in his interview with Smashing. 

In 1979, while under the influence of drugs and alcohol, Garrett crashed his car, and the only other passenger, Roland Winkler, was seriously injured. Winkler became a paraplegic and suffered complications due to the injuries from the crash for the remainder of his life. He passed away in 2017.

The two did not see one another until 1999 when VH1 reunited the pair on the show "Behind the Music," without telling Garrett before the show started. He explains, "That was as raw and real as it gets. I had no idea that I was going to be seeing Roland and that he would tell me that he did not hold me responsible, even though I held myself responsible big time for that and deservingly so."

He continued, "But it was a weight lifted off my shoulders. It was still difficult to think of it in different terms, but it was very enlightening because he got it before a lot of people did when he said that it could've been me or him and that it was just the luck of the draw." 

Garrett would continue to use drugs and alcohol, suffering from heroin addiction, until 2010 when he was arrested for possession and spent 90 days in county jail. He remembers this as his rock bottom and went into rehab following his release.

Despite the hardships of growing up as a teen idol, Garret is thankful for the opportunities he has been given. Now that he is sober and in a new stage of his life, Garrett is learning not to take things for granted, especially the people who are important to him. With a new book and a new lease on life, Garrett is ready to get back out there.

The star told Fox, "I look back at my life and there are many things I got to experience that other people never get to do. And I'm grateful for that. I just wish it could have been a better situation. I wish I had made better decisions… My father just passed away a few months ago. I'm still beat up from that because I really wanted to get to know him. I wanted to understand so many things I never got answers to."

Garrett continued, "But right now, I'm just taking things one day at a time. I'm not in jail and I'm not in rehab. It took a long time to get to a point where I don't have to self-medicate myself to escape the pain. That feels good. Hard drugs are a difficult thing, especially if you've done it for a while. I play music because I love it. I will always love it. But I'm not in a rush to do more with it unless it's absolutely right. It has to be as real as possible."

Writing his autobiography, "Idol Truth," was a good way for Garrett to process everything he has been through in his life. Finally, being honest about his music career lifted a weight off of him. Now, Garrett can focus on moving on with his life and finding new joys. 

Garrett told Smashing Interviews Magazine, "Right now I'm promoting the book. I'm remodeling my house. I'm looking for love in all the wrong places (singing). I'd love to meet somebody to grow old with. I don't want to die alone. Of course, I have my animals, but I need somebody who would be there for me, and I could be there for them. "Garrett has never been married and doesn't have any children. 

The singer is looking for love, but he doesn't want to rush into anything. He prefers to pursue dating the old-fashioned way. "You can't force the issue. You can't be like, 'Okay, I'm looking. I'm going to single bars and dating sites.' No. I don't believe in that stuff. If it happens, it happens, and if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be. But you better be prepared to be happy with yourself," said Garrett.

It is clear from the way that Garrett speaks about his life that he is in a much better place. He shared in 2019, "I'm at the point where I am happy with who I am. I never want to stop learning, first of all. The moment we stop trying to investigate and try new things, we stagnate and die. I just turned 58. There are physical aches and pains, but mentally I still feel 18." 

Hopefully, that mental age will provide Garrett with plenty of creativity, and he can get back to doing what he loves: acting and making music. It would be wonderful to see more work from him in the future. Garrett hasn't had an easy life, but at age 62, he still has plenty of time to make more hits or star in a new production.

Garrett had a successful career as a child star and teen idol, appearing in numerous film and TV productions and recording eight albums. Were you a fan of his back in the 70s? Do you remember seeing him in magazines? Let us know your thoughts, and don't forget to pass this story along to your friends and family.