Lee Majors Interview
Lee Majors Interview
Lee Majors Interview
ENTERTAINMENTi
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taneously shot additional scenes for ferred, he says, after a football the pilot, which they recut to 90 min- scholarship to Indiana University utes. The network approved of this ended. "Back injuries and a Iittle baby
one-hour "second" pilot became one of the regular six episodes that were ordered.
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may be meant as
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supported himself as an assistant playground director for the parks depart in the
1964
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"After I finished 'The Fall Guy,' I got a little burned-out," Majors ex-
partment, taking night classes at MGM's old acting school. After a bit
Joan Crawford movie
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"Strait-Jacket," he broke into TV a year later with an episode of "Gunsmoke" and one of "The Alfred Hitchcoek Hour."
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with his new daughter Nikki, who is now 4 years old. Except for the occasional TV movie - including two sequels to "The Six Million Doliar Man"
to spend time
- Majors iaid iow until taking on an uncharacteristic role: that of a philosophical, 44-year-old private in the last several episodes of "Tour of Duty" (on CBS) in 1990.
"That was a great transition part
for me, to play that old guy," says Majors, 53. "It gave me a Iittle taste of moving on over the hill into character roles. Now instead of holding my gut in, I can just let it fall!" In "Raven," Majors plays a privatedetective buddy of Jonathan Raven (Jeffrey Meek), who is an American
"My family couldn't be there the appeared in the latter two series 5t whole time," says Majors, "and you 0nce. miss 'em, especially my little girl, Now, living in a tony part of Fort who was in pre-school. And I was Lauderdale, Majors is a happy man. stuck there two-and-a-haif months. If Or a fat and happy man, to hear him the show's picked up, I have to go back tell it. "This'll open a big door for me in August, and my wife's due in No- if it's rof picked up," he says wryly of
vember and she has to stay in bed - "Raven," "because people will get a with a lot of video movies." chance to see me as a character acMajors was born Lee Yeary in Wy- tor." At the very least, he has certainandotte, Mich., orphaned at age 2, and ly become a character. raised by relatives in Kentucky. He O 1992 NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE AssN. has a 30-year-old son, Lee Majors II,
beat out fellow finalists Dennis Hopper and Roy Thinnes for the Barbara This was all done in Hawaii, a Stanwyck TV Western "The Big Valseeming idyli, but Majors disliked be- ley'(ABC, 1965-69). He went on to coing separated from his family - es- star in "The Men From Shiloh" (NBC, peciaily since his third wife, Karen, 1970-71) and "Owen Marshall, Counpregnant with twins, had suffered a selor at Law" (ABC, 19?1-74) before five-month miscarriage in her previ- starring in "The Six Million Dollar Man." For a few months, Majors even ous pregnancy.
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his parents. ,As Herman "Ski" Jablonski, Majors helps Raven fight the ancient order of assassins while assisting him search for his long-lost son. It's pulp fiction from TV vet
Frank Lupo, co-creator of "Wiseguy."
says Majors of the grizzled Ski. "The show is so dark and violent in places. In the original (two-hour) pilot, I don't come in until after about a half-hour,
from a youthful first marriage. In 1973, he married Farrah Fawcett, then known primarily as a model, and
they were divorced nine years later after a reportedly tempestuous union. Majors met Karen, now 31, shortly
thereafter.
STAR VIEW
FRANK LOVECE
"We've been together since '84," Majors says. "We kept it kind of a secret - we got married in New ZeaIand, and when we got back two or three months later I got a telegram from the Enquirer, congratulating me that we'd kept it from them! I