On an ordinary Thursday afternoon in April, 2016, Joe Cramer put on a hastily thrown together disguise, walked into a bank and carried out a robbery, fleeing with a wad of cash.
At the time, he was a hopeless heroin addict, living on the streets and wrestling with “recurring” suicidal thoughts. Joe’s fall from grace had been dramatic, to say the least.
Thirty years earlier, in 1986, he had the world at his feet. A child actor, he had just starred in Disney’s sci-fi fantasy movie, Flight Of The Navigator, earning plaudits for his performance.
But soon after its release, he decided to take a break from acting “to be a normal kid again”. That break lasted for three decades, as a dark path led to a life of drugs and crime.
The bank robbery was his way of reaching out for help. Three days after the heist, he got his wish. He was arrested and jailed, giving him access to the long-term treatment he needed to help put his life back on track.
Now 51, he’s clean and back working in the movie industry. He shared his harrowing story in the 2018 documentary, Life After the Navigator, hoping to help others facing issues similar to those he’s overcome.
Speaking to the Daily Star in 2020 from his home on Canada’s Vancouver Island, Joe said of the doc: “It isn’t a ‘where are they now?’ reality TV, glam drama – it’s what really happened.”
An only child to a single mom, Joe got into acting at a young age, appearing in plays and TV commercials, often filmed in nearby Vancouver. Then in the mid-80s, he starred in films, Runaway, I-Man and The Clan of the Cave Bear, before Flight Of The Navigator catapulted him to a new level of stardom.
The movie starred Joe, then called Joey, as David Freeman, a 12-year-old boy who is abducted by an alien spaceship then dropped back on Earth eight years later having not aged a day. It grossed $18m.
Joe said: “It was pretty incredible. The spaceship and imagination – the script was really amazing. You never can tell how successful something is going to be. I was just doing my job and having fun with it.”
The downside was that Joe had to spend months away from home.
He continued: “I got into acting for fun – I loved it and it came naturally to me. But I got pretty lonely. On Navigator there weren’t many other kids in the film, so mostly it was just me doing the job.”
Offers flooded in, but Joe felt “overwhelmed”. He made one more film, Stone Fox, before going on hiatus.
He said: “I just wanted to be a normal kid again, have fun, skateboard and all that stuff. But once I went back to school, I didn’t quite fit in anywhere.
“I was teased because I was the ‘movie star kid’, so I fitted in where I could – and it’s easy to fit in with the misfits who smoke and drink and smoke weed, so that’s what I gravitated towards. I got into cocaine at a really young age – 14 or 15.”
Things spiralled. By 18, Joe was regularly smoking crack and did his his first stint in rehab.
He said: “I look back and go, ‘What were you thinking?’, but as a kid it just didn’t register that doing these harder drugs was that much worse than smoking weed and drinking. By the time I realised, it was too late. I was a mess.”
A couple of years later, Joe moved to Mexico for four months. He kicked his drug habit and remained clean for 10 years, doing different jobs, including working in a sporting goods store.
Then, while at a party in his mid-30s, he relapsed. He said: “People were doing lines. I thought, ‘Maybe I can just do one or two’.
The thing with addiction and trauma is that if we don’t address the issue, it just stays there underneath, percolating, and at some point it’s going to come out. When I did those lines, it felt like this tidal wave of emotion and guilt and shame – things I hadn’t addressed when I was younger. Then all of a sudden I was doing drugs to feel numb – that’s when things get really dangerous.”
The years following are “fuzzy”. There was another stay in rehab in 2005, then a first arrest in 2007, for possession of drugs for the purpose of trafficking. At some point in 2011, Joe recalls his then girlfriend introduced him to heroin.
He said: “Before I knew it, I was wired. I didn’t even enjoy it – I was just doing it to numb myself.”
When Joe’s daughter arrived in 2014, he was desperate to get clean, but being in a “bad, abusive relationship” made things difficult. The bombshell news that she was going to be adopted hit him hard.
He said: “I thought I had no recourse, so I really went off the rails.”
Fast forward to 2016 and Hoe’s situation was truly desperate. Homeless, he had resorted to shoplifting to feed himself. He was also frequently experiencing suicidal thoughts. Knowing his fastest route to proper treatment would be through Nanaimo Correctional Centre, the local prison, he settled on a solution – he would rob a bank.
Joe donned a wig, bandana and sunglasses and shuffled into Scotiabank in Sechelt, a town on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast. Opting for a “non-violent” method, he handed the cashier a note.
His arrest three days later came as a “relief”. He pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and was jailed for two years less a day. He said: “I was in a really bad place and I knew about this therapeutic community, Guthrie House, inside the prison. It was such a relief when I got arrested.”
While on remand, Joe was put on methadone, a heroin substitute, to wean him off the drug. He spent his time meditating, doing yoga, playing chess and drawing pictures for his daughter.
After six months, he was sent to Guthrie, where he was “ready” to heal. Almost a year later, he was released into the facility’s sister programme outside prison, before moving into a ‘third stage’ house.
Keen to get a formal education, he took a criminology course in jail then once out, he completed his high school diploma equivalency. Most importantly, he reconnected with his daughter.
He told the Star: “We’re bonding quite a bit,” he said. “We have this really amazing family dynamic where she knows she has two dads and that it’s ok and everybody’s good with it.”
Joe won’t blame his childhood fame for his struggles, but he acknowledges its impact.
He said: “I missed a lot of my childhood. From eight to 14, I was acting. Those are fundamental years for growing into an adult – learning how to have relationships.
“In film it’s all imaginary. I realised, I just started playing the part for people – for a girlfriend, teacher, counsellor, my mom. I felt like I didn’t have an identity for most of my life. I had no idea who I was underneath the masks. But I’ve come out the other side and I embrace who I am now.
“I know I’ve done bad things, but I’m not a bad person. I have regrets, but I know I can’t change things in the past, so all I can do is try to be better from today and share my experiences in the hope it might help someone get through something.”
Life After the Navigator, directed by Lisa Downs, gave Joe an opportunity to tell his story. While making it, he also reconnected with director Randal Kleiser, producer Jonathan Sanger and co-stars Veronica Cartwright and Cliff De Young. The documentary is also a celebration of the movie, its impact and legacy.
Joe said: “Every time I share it reminds me that the past doesn’t control my life any more, that the past doesn’t define me and that the memories of me don’t define who I am. That last one’s super important because it’s easy to focus on what’s happened and who we’ve been in the past so much that it defines who we are in the present. Once I learned to let go of who was in the past, I became a totally different person.”
Since the documentary was released in 2020, Joe has worked on several short films, often behind the scenes but also on screen too. He’s taken acting classes and has done voluntary support work.
He said: “Acting’s something I’ve always loved and I’ve always wondered if it was something I could do again. I’m just going to do it because I love it, not with any goal in mind, because you follow your heart and success follows.”
Next year, four decades will have passed since Flight Of The Navigator was released, changing Joe’s life forever. Joe said: “Maybe we’ll approach Disney and see if we can make this sequel happen. Try for 2026 – the 40th anniversary….”
Get the latest celebrity gossip and telly news sent straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily Showbiz newsletter here.