:rip:

November 21st, 1993 - Bill Bixby passed away from prostate cancer at age 59

http://www.biography.com/images/database_images/bixby_bill.jpg

:rip: Bill Bixby

:rip: to a talented, kind man who endured so much personal tragedy and went much too soon.

Rest in peace.

Amen, Brian. What a great guy and actor, too. Can't picture him at age 76 (what he'd be today).

:rip:

Bill Bixby was the perfect father...the perfect superhero and the perfect actor. He is truly missed. What a great man he was.

45Nt5cIeazA

So young and so sad.

:rip: to a talented, kind man who endured so much personal tragedy and went much too soon.

Yeah, he had such a tragic life. His seven year old son, his only child, died of a rare throat infection while on a ski vacation, and his wife, the actress Brenda Benet, left him for another woman, divorced him, and then shot herself a year later. He married a second time, but died six weeks before he collapsed from prostate cancer while directing an episode of Blossom; he died soon after.

I don't know how many of you saw the recent episode of Autopsy: The Last Hours of... (https://www.reelz.com/autopsy/) on Reelz. But they did an episode that examined Bill Bixby's death (https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/23/obituaries/bill-bixby-tv-actor-dies-at-59-starred-in-3-long-running-series.html) from prostate cancer at the age of 59 in 1993. I try to be careful when acknowledging so-called celebrity blind (http://www.agcwebpages.com/BLINDITEMS/2020/JAN.html) items on here. But I still can't help but wonder when I about five months ago came across a "reader blind" (https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2020/01/blind-item-8-reader-blind_31.html) that suggests that Bill Bixby was unfortunately the victim of a curse.

Basically, Bill in between the end of The Courtship of Eddie's Father and start of The Incredible Hulk (https://napavalleyregister.com/opinion/letters/remembering-televisions-the-incredible-hulk/article_0fa1d63f-c06d-51d6-aba2-abcc1d996891.html), starred on a show for NBC called The Magician, where he played a stage magician who moonlighted as a detective. The story goes that Bill was required to do research for The Magician and therefore, met with practitioners of the dark arts. However, Bill supposedly offended these people by first doubting that what they did was real and then, not acknowledging them in the show's credits for the help that they gave.

Whether it was truly a "curse" or just coincidence, this was followed by the tragic (http://archive.motleymoose.net/2013/05/11/the-amazing-and-tragic-life-of-bill-bixby/) and sudden death (https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/03/03/The-6-year-old-son-of-Incredible-Hulk-television-series-star/4533352443600/) of his six year old son, Christopher (Bill's ex-wife and Christopher's mother, Brenda Benet, committed suicide the following year), a fire destroyed a lot of his personal effects, and he went through a career dry spell (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0084642/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0) after the cancellation of The Incredible Hulk in 1982. Bill starred in on last show, a sitcom called Goodnight Beantown, which was cancelled after only 18 episodes.

The blind concludes by implying that Bill Bixby finally went back to these practitioners and apologized. Soon afterword, the supposed spell was lifted and that's when Bill started finding new success behind the camera. But sadly shortly thereafter, Bill fell ill (https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1993-10-31-9310310398-story.html) and died from what could be otherwise considered a treatable form of cancer.