Then: Tim Considine (pictured here in My Three Sons, just a few years after The Mickey Mouse Club ended) gained fame as the scrappy Spin on the Club‘s wildly popular serial, The Adventures of Spin and Marty. His father, John W. Considine Jr., produced early Hollywood films such as Boys’ Town and Puttin’ on the Ritz; his mother, Carmen Pantages, came from the family that owned the famous Los Angeles theater chain bearing their last name. Preternaturally confident, he retired often from his acting career. “Unlike most child actors, I was permitted by my parents to act,” he says. “They did not encourage it at all. My father produced 43 movies. What the hell did he care whether I was ever in a movie? They were never impressed with it, and that was to my great advantage. That was what I had that virtually no one else had.” But he loved the idea of working for Disney and fit perfectly into the role of the most popular kid at the Triple R Ranch summer camp. Along with his costar (and good friend) David Stollery, he became one of the Club‘s teenage heartthrobs. Even Annette Funicello herself couldn’t help but fall for his charm. As she wrote in her autobiography, “In my adoration of Tim, I was one of millions of teenage girls.”

Now: Along with Mouseketeer Don Grady, Tim starred as the eldest of My Three Sons starting in 1960. But he retired from acting yet again just five years into the successful sitcom’s run when he decided he’d rather work behind the camera. He asked to direct some episodes, but producer Don Fedderson balked, so, at the age of 24, Tim walked away from the hit. “They didn’t need me,” he says. “It went on for seven years without me. I just tired of it. I’d had it. And I said, ‘Well, I’m out.’ It wasn’t that I hated anybody or anything. I just wasn’t that interested in doing the same thing over again.” He started writing for the screen with his brother, John, but still chafed under Hollywood types’ constant tinkering with his words. He eventually started freelance writing, which he continues to do today. He specializes in sports, travel, and automotive writing and photography — and has even written several times about his former costar, David Stollery, who now designs cars for a living.

For more on the Mouseketeers’ lives on The Mickey Mouse Club and beyond, check out my book Why? Because We Still Like You.