Leif Garrett is featured as one of the members of the cast in the CMT network’s reality television series Ty Murray’s Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge. He is a singer and performer who was born on November 8, 1961 in Hollywood, California and was originally named Leif Per Nervik, with Leif Garrett an adopted stage name. He is the son of stuntman and cameraman Rik Nervik, and was raised in a family of Norwegian heritage. When he was younger, Garrett studied at Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary School located in Burbank, California, where his mother got into arguments with a teacher in the first grade because of the length of his hair.
Garrett started out as a child actor when he was only five years old, having roles in television productions such as Peter Lundy and the Medicine Hat Stallion, Three for the Road, and The Last Survivors. He also gained recognition as a singing teen idol, releasing albums of his songs the late 70s and early 80s. However, Garrett’s career has been severely affected by both alcohol abuse and drug addiction, and a suit was brought against him in court for crashing a car and leaving his best friend Roland Winkler a paraplegic. He has been in and out of prison for his substance abuse issues.
(Photo courtesy of Ron Jaffe/CMT)