Where is Growing Pains star Joanna Kerns? What she's up to now, decades after quitting acting

Joanna began to make a name for herself in the '70s and '80s with guest-starring roles in TV shows like Emergency!, CHiPs, The A-Team, Starsky & Hutch, Laverne and Shirley, Three's Company, Hill Street Blues, The Love Boat, and Magnum, P.I.

In 1983, she landed her first major role on the CBS series, The Four Seasons, which was canceled after one season. However, soon after, she was cast as Maggie Seaver in Growing Pains and played the role for all seven seasons from 1985 to 1992.

After Growing Pains, Joanna starred in several TV movies and big screen films, including Girl, Interrupted and Knocked Up.

Soon after Growing Pains ended in 1992, Joanna turned her hand to directing and has directed episodes of several TV 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, Dynasty, Jane the Virgin, Fuller House, and most recently Chicago Med.

On making the switch to directing, Joanna told Variety: "When I was acting, I was always fascinated by the difference in the quality of work by what director I had. With certain directors, I felt safe — I knew it was going to look fabulous. 

"They would have not just a great storytelling sense, but also a great cinematic sense. That's when I started to say, that's what the camera can do."

While Joanna prefers to spend her time behind the camera nowadays, she hasn't ruled out a return to acting.

"Oh yes, absolutely!" she told Variety when asked about a possible return. "I remember my agent saying to me, 'You're really going to have to make a choice. If you're going to be a TV director, you book way out front. And no producer or TV studio wants to hear, 'I'll do it if I don't get an acting job. So you have to make a commitment.'

"And that's what I did. I did it at the right time because I was aging out in that big black hole for women. There's a lack of good roles for women between 40 and 60, and then they come back again. I love acting. I'm around."

In November 2016, Joanna was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ, a non-invasive, stage zero cancer trapped inside the milk ducts.

She had a double mastectomy that December after two lumpectomies, "instead of risking radiation and the chance of it coming back," she told People in 2017.

"Had I not caught my cancer this early on, I would have had to have a year of chemotherapy, and because of the reoccurrence and aggressiveness of this particular type of cancer, which was non-invasive HER2, I chose to do the mastectomy," she said.

As of late 2017, Joanna was given the "all-clear" from her doctors and is cancer-free.

In August 2019, Joanna filed for divorce from her husband of almost 25 years, architect Marc Appleton.

They married in September 1994 and had no children together. Joanna is a mom to daughter, Ashley, whom she had with her first husband, producer Richard Kerns, with whom she was married from 1976 to 1985.