Though his latest major small screen effort was canceled in 2022 and then purged from streaming on Disney+ altogether in May 2023, Big Shots and Full House vet John Stamos likely won’t be missing from our TVs for very long, such is his deserved streak of fan-favorite efforts. It’s a goal he first sought out at a young age, and he can admit that his career and good looks led him to mature into true adulthood perhaps slower than he might have otherwise. But for all that he’s been considered a sex symbol ever since his ‘80s days on General Hospital, Stamos revealed why he could never quite match up with the “Lothario” lifestyle many fans presumed he embraced.
John Stamos first made television audiences swoon in 1982 when he joined General Hospital as Blackie Parrish, with a handful of TV movies and fairly short-lived series (You Again? and Dreams) happening between his soap opera exit and the arrival of Full House’s Jesse Katsopolis in 1987. By the time fans were seeing the rock’n’roll biker discovering his inner Uncle J, the actor had already cemented himself as celeb eye candy, and that only became more pronounced over time. But the actor explained to CBS News that while he had his share of encounters, his schedule didn’t easily allow for him to be a huge ladies man. In his words:
There was a long time when I felt like, ‘I need to be this Lothario,’ because people were living vicariously through [me]. … I wasn’t that guy. I mean, there were moments. But I think people thought I was out doing a lotta things with a lot of women that I wasn’t. First of all, the thing that saved me most was I would go to bed around 8:00 at night. I was always asleep!
Have mercy on our rose-colored glasses, John! I can’t imagine what it would be like to have TV audiences “living vicariously” through someone in such a way. I guess social media has made it easier to fall into that kind of mindset when it comes to fandoms, but back in the dog days of Stamos’ General Hospital run, fans were presumably nipping at tabloid table scraps and late night talk show appearances. Probably easier to assume someone is constantly getting it on whenever their lives aren’t publicized with rabid consistency.
There’s a weird paradoxical kismet involved with the fact that the gig that turned him into a public hottie is also what required him to hit the bed early for morning call times, thus limiting his night life.He doesn’t seem to be complaining about it one bit, though.
Stamos is set to unveil a lot of behind-the-scenes stories and details about his life in a new memoir, titled If You Would Have Told Me, where we’ll hopefully get to hear a few lurid tales from his youth mixed in with all the wholesome anecdotes about the late, great Bob Saget and fellow Full House vet Dave Coulier. (Wait, those stories are always just as raunchy as anything else, such as the one about ol’ Pepper Mill the Donkey.) Maybe his stories about wife Caitlin will tap more into the wholesome perspective, which is on display when he talked about why he’s always grateful to greet fans in public. As he put it:
I wanted to be famous. I wanted to be famous so bad! And then once I got it, I loved it. I still do. You know, these people go, ‘Oh, I hate being famous, taking pictures.’ If you see me somewhere, ask for a picture. I’m happy to do it, because it’s what I wanted my whole life.
Just make sure that picture you ask for is completely above-board, anyone still living vicariously through the Fuller House vet. Tsk tsk tsk.
John Stamos’ upcoming autobiography, If You Would Have Told Me: A Memoir, is set to hit stores and online retailers on Tuesday, October 24.