tv star collector
09-09-2008, 12:11 PM
Loni Anderson guest-starred in the Incredible Hulk episode "Of Guilt,
Models, and Murder" but she had met Bill Bixby years before. In her auto-
biography, My Life in High Heels (1995), she remembered Bill Bixby:
"ABC was about to begin a TV movie called Three on a Date, to be
directed by Bill Bixby. It was a comedy about couples who win dates to Hawaii; so far they'd cast June Allyson, Ray Bolger, Carol Lawrence, Gary
Crosby, Meredith MacRae, Patrick Wayne, Rick Nelson, Didi Conn, and John
Byner. ...
"When I walked in, Bill Bixby, Danny Thomas, and Ron Jacobs were there. I
didn't exactly get a warm welcome; I was a complete unknown to them. But
then, after a long minute, Bill Bixby leaned forward and said slowly, 'If you can
talk, you've got the part.'
"Beginnings, especially good ones, stay in your mind, and the people you
share them with hold a kind of magical meaning in your life. After all, you
never have another first.
"Danny Thomas was another part of that magic. He would come in every day
and look at the dailies, smoking that cigar. He would point to me with it,
saying, 'You, you, you. I discovered you.' There are few people as special in
this business as Danny Thomas was, or Bill Bixby.
"Bix became a good friend to me on that shoot and stayed one for years
afterward. He asked me to guest star on The Incredbile Hulk. I played
a killer (who karate'd people to death), and Jeremy Britt, who these days is
the brilliant and inscrutable Sherlock Holmes on PBS, played my lover and evil
cohort. Everybody thought the Hulk was killing those folks, and it was bad me.
What fun. When I called my grandmother and told her that I was going to be a killer, she said, 'I can't tell anyone that, Loni, especially my bridge club.
What on earth would they think?'
"When I was doing Nurses in 1993 and Bix was directing Blossom,
I would see him regularly and we would laugh at our Three on a Date
memories. And we commiserated--my marriage to Burt had collapsed, and
Bix was valiantly fighting prostate cancer, like my dad. Although he had
recently remarried, his first wife, actress Brenda Benet, had committed
suicide years before, after the death of their son. Mother and son had
visited on the Three on a Date set, and losing them both had been a
terrible tragedy to him. The people Bix worked with, and the work he did with
them, meant so much and gave him courage. I think he stayed on Blossom
until the week before he died. If there are role models in Hollywood--real
ones--Bill Bixby was a shining example."
Models, and Murder" but she had met Bill Bixby years before. In her auto-
biography, My Life in High Heels (1995), she remembered Bill Bixby:
"ABC was about to begin a TV movie called Three on a Date, to be
directed by Bill Bixby. It was a comedy about couples who win dates to Hawaii; so far they'd cast June Allyson, Ray Bolger, Carol Lawrence, Gary
Crosby, Meredith MacRae, Patrick Wayne, Rick Nelson, Didi Conn, and John
Byner. ...
"When I walked in, Bill Bixby, Danny Thomas, and Ron Jacobs were there. I
didn't exactly get a warm welcome; I was a complete unknown to them. But
then, after a long minute, Bill Bixby leaned forward and said slowly, 'If you can
talk, you've got the part.'
"Beginnings, especially good ones, stay in your mind, and the people you
share them with hold a kind of magical meaning in your life. After all, you
never have another first.
"Danny Thomas was another part of that magic. He would come in every day
and look at the dailies, smoking that cigar. He would point to me with it,
saying, 'You, you, you. I discovered you.' There are few people as special in
this business as Danny Thomas was, or Bill Bixby.
"Bix became a good friend to me on that shoot and stayed one for years
afterward. He asked me to guest star on The Incredbile Hulk. I played
a killer (who karate'd people to death), and Jeremy Britt, who these days is
the brilliant and inscrutable Sherlock Holmes on PBS, played my lover and evil
cohort. Everybody thought the Hulk was killing those folks, and it was bad me.
What fun. When I called my grandmother and told her that I was going to be a killer, she said, 'I can't tell anyone that, Loni, especially my bridge club.
What on earth would they think?'
"When I was doing Nurses in 1993 and Bix was directing Blossom,
I would see him regularly and we would laugh at our Three on a Date
memories. And we commiserated--my marriage to Burt had collapsed, and
Bix was valiantly fighting prostate cancer, like my dad. Although he had
recently remarried, his first wife, actress Brenda Benet, had committed
suicide years before, after the death of their son. Mother and son had
visited on the Three on a Date set, and losing them both had been a
terrible tragedy to him. The people Bix worked with, and the work he did with
them, meant so much and gave him courage. I think he stayed on Blossom
until the week before he died. If there are role models in Hollywood--real
ones--Bill Bixby was a shining example."