When Tim Allen was arrested for smuggling cocaine (2024)

From the affable family man in ABC’s Home Improvement to Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear and The Santa Clause, Tim Allen has carved a legacy of love, laughter and fond childhood memories. The man we now associate with the merriment of Christmas was once sat precariously on a fence top facing the split ground of his future.

Allen was born in Denver, Colorado, in June 1953, by the birth name Timothy Dick. According to his biography, the comedy actor decided to change his name to Allen after having a hard time in his school years. Kids will be kids, and Allen was bullied mercilessly for his suggestive surname. He has since credited these tough experiences as granting him the powers of comedy as he used sharp wit as a defence mechanism.

Tragically, when Allen was just 11 years old, his father, Gerald Dick, was killed in a car accident. The strength of the father-son bond made this tough situation all the tougher for Allen at such a vulnerable age.

“I loved my father more than anything,” Allen remembered later. “He was a tall, strong, funny, really engaging guy. I so enjoyed his company, his smell, sensibility, discipline, sense of humour — all the fun stuff we did together. I couldn’t wait for him to come home.”

After the accident, Allen’s family moved to Detroit, Michigan, where his mother got remarried to her high-school boyfriend. After several years of living with his mother and stepfather in a traditional family climate, Allen left home for Central Michigan University. After a short term here, he transferred to Western Michigan, where he would meet his first wife.

During his time at university, Allen fell into a decadent lifestyle and with the tragedy of his father heavy on his shoulders, he began to use drugs profusely. To fuel his habits and pay his way through student life, Allen began a career as a drug dealer; at first, just a little here and there, but gradually this snow-balled towards larger quantities, higher rewards and higher stakes.

Reality hit home on October 2nd, 1978, two years after Allen’s graduation. According to CBS News, Allen was arrested at Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport, Michigan, in possession of more than 650 grams of cocaine. Ironically, and unfortunately for the 24-year-old smuggler, the state had just passed legislation that issued a life sentence to those in possession of 650 grams or over.

As detailed in John F. Wukovits’ book Tim Allen (Overcoming Adversity), Allen had been set up by undercover police officer Michael Pifer, who had allegedly been tracking him for months. Allen put the Adidas holdall full of cocaine in a locker and handed the key to Pifer. “The next thing I observed was a gun in my face,” Allen later told the Detroit Free Press.

The arrangement, as Allen understood it, was to receive $42,000 for his risk; instead, he faced a court hearing and probable life sentence – not a good day out for actor-to-be, but strangely, it would be one of the best things that ever happened to him.

After pleading guilty to the trafficking charges, Allen handed over the names of associate dealers in return for a lighter sentence. Consequently, he was sentenced in a federal court as opposed to a state court, meaning the newly passed law no longer applied to his case.

With final hearings concluded, Allen faced a prison sentence of three to seven years, but through positive and penitent behaviour, he ended up serving just two years and four months. He was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota, on June 12th, 1981. Meanwhile, Allen’s information “helped authorities indict 20 people in the drug trade and resulted in the conviction and sentencing of four major drug dealers.”

The correctional facilities seemed to have worked their magic on the wayward son, and he began attending local stand-up comedy events during his parole. By day, he found steady work at an ad agency; at night, he split sides at the Comedy Castle in Detroit.

“When I went to jail, reality hit so hard that it took my breath away, took my stance away, took my strength away,” Allen told Esquire. “I was put in a holding cell with twenty other guys — we had to crap in the same crapper in the middle of the room — and I just told myself, I can’t do this for seven and a half years. I want to kill myself.”

Some say that comedy comes from dark places; this was certainly the case for Allen. Thriving from the rock bottom of his prison cell, he grew from strength to strength, turning his experiences into golden comedy material.

“I was funny before that,” he later told the Los Angeles Daily News. “Prison grew me up. I was an adolescent that woke up too early when my father was killed, and I stayed at that angry adolescent level.”

After gaining a wider platform in a run of commercials, Allen eventually persuaded ABC to humour his sitcom visions. Home Improvement premiered in 1991, and, as they say, ‘The rest is history.’

Watch Tim Allen and co-star Tom Hanks discuss their roles in Toy Story in the run-up to the fourth film in 2019 below.

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