Nevertheless, by the age of twelve, he was taking Broadway bows alongside Burgess Meredith for his stage debut in 1954 in The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker at the Coronet Theatre.

In 1966, he returned to Broadway in a starring role opposite Joan Van Ark in Barefoot in the Park, which he worked on simultaneously with his stint on Dark Shadows.

Several of his 1971 episodes have been preserved by UCLA's TV Archives, though the magnetic VHS tapes are awaiting digital transfer and are not available for viewing by the public.

Miles Cavanaugh on ABC's The Edge of Night, for which he was twice nominated as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series at the Daytime Emmy Awards in 1979 and 1984.

Crothers was openly gay among co-stars and others in the entertainment industry, but was closeted publicly and was even engaged to his good friend, actress Veleka Gray, at the time of his death.

[5] They became close friends on the set when she joined the final season of Somerset, where they played the lovers Julian Cannell and Vicki Paisley.

During his last appearances on Santa Barbara, he was by then growing very ill. On November 6, 1985, Crothers died from AIDS-related[6] lymphoma in Los Angeles at the age of 44.