Kerwin continued acting through the 1980s and into 1990s. He appeared in the 1985 science fiction movie “Enemy Mine” and the 1995 thriller “Outbreak,” about a deadly plague.

By the time he was making “Outbreak,” Kerwin “was actively struggling with sobriety,” Savanah Kerwin said, which may have played a role in his decision to walk away from acting.

In 2010, Kerwin pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree theft for falsifying documents to obtain state medical assistance and food stamps in Hawaii, The Associated Press reported. He was sentenced to five years of probation and was ordered to perform 300 hours of community service.

“I’ve been struggling with the sin of drug use for a long time,” Kerwin told the Los Angeles Daily News in 1999, in an interview conducted while he was in a rehabilitation center in Perris, California. “I’ve gotten in years of abstinence. The last time I found myself turning to drugs again, I came here to restore my walk with the Lord.”

Later, his daughter said, he helped run the rehabilitation program U-Turn for Christ and was a youth pastor there for several years.