Meeting Lee and Bill and other fun tales

So, I met "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Greatest American Hero" in the same day. I can now die a happy man.

You have to understand that I have been a Lee Majors fan since childhood. He was Col. Steve Austin. AND Colt "The Fall Guy" Seivers. AND Heath on "The Big Valley." AND Roy Tate on "The Men from Shiloh" (aka "The Virginian").

AND he grew up admiring former Tennessee football player and (later) coach John Majors, who is another favorite. Lee had changed his last name from Yeary to Majors in honor of his hero when he became an actor.

Class act, couldn't have been nicer.

I showed him my 1977 booklet "Majors of Tennessee," distributed by The Tennessean when John Majors returned to UT that year. On one page, Lee Majors is shown (sporting a Pitt jacket) on the sidelines during the '76 Pitt/Penn State game.

He perked up when he saw the book. And he thumbed through it, remembering when he attended the Pitt national championship game.

I got so caught up in the moment, I almost forgot to pay for his autograph. He joked, "(You'd better), or else I'm keeping that!", pointing to the book. 

When I was a boy, Lee Majors and his then-wife Farrah Fawcett knew a couple who lived in Emory Estates in Halls. They'd sometimes visit. During the mid '80s, my dad and I would watch "The Fall Guy" on Wednesday nights together. I still have the "Fall Guy" lunchbox I carried throughout elementary school.

I've been waiting 35 years to meet Lee Majors. That moment happened today at the FanBoy Expo at the Jacob Building.

Also appearing at the event was William "The Greatest American Hero" Katt. I LOVED this show when I was a kid. I can remember watching it on Friday nights during the final months of its original ABC run.
When the FX cable network debuted in 1994, "The Greatest American Hero" was part of its original lineup. Dean Harned and I held a viewing party at his house. When the DVDs were released in 2005, I hunted all over Knoxville for a copy of Season 1.

Bill Katt was kind, gracious, unpretentious and serious in the good sense of the word. He confirmed that show creator Stephen J. Cannell fought the network to try to keep it fun but serious. He, Katt and co-star Robert Culp wanted the show to deal with humanistic and existential themes amid Ralph crashing into buildings, best evidenced in the first season episode "The Best Desk Scenario." The network wanted the show to be cartoonish and feature episodes in which Ralph saves the world week after week.  Tragically, Cannell's son died unexpectedly that year. Katt says some of the fight went out of Steve Cannell.

"That's when you started seeing lizards crawling out of the sewer," Katt said. "Steve Cannell came up and personally apologized to me for that. I think if (the change) hadn't happened, the show would have had a longer run."

(If the name Stephen J. Cannell doesn't at first ring a bell, perhaps this will jog your memory.)

He told us that NBC offered him a guaranteed two-year contract at double his ABC salary in the mid-1980s to revive the show after it became a hit in syndication. He turned it down, he said, shaking his head.

Katt says he performs in at least one stage play a year and would make a living doing it if he didn't have to relocate from Los Angeles to New York. His mother, by the way, is Barbara Hale, best known for playing Della Street on "Perry Mason." She's doing well at age 94, he says.

I have a migraine tonight, but that matters not. Today was a day to be a kid again. I took home three autographs (two from Katt) and a lifetime of memories.

'Will Penny': The brooding loner, unable to love

Curiosity got the better of me.

After reading in all those tributes last week to Charlton Heston that he considered "Will Penny" to be his best role, I surfed over to Netflix and moved the late '60s western to the top of my queue. Watched it last night after work and I must say it's quite an interesting picture.

It's a rather quiet western in a curious way and, if you overlook the cliches and all-too-cute plot devices, not a bad movie. Heston plays an aging, solitary cowboy who never has stopped long enough to form any meaningful relationships and can't seem to rise above his personal limitations as a man.

Will Penny is leaving a cattle drive and looking for winter work when he and two cowpunchers (Lee Majors and Anthony Zerbe) run into nefarious preacher Quint (Donald Pleasence) and his crazy family. The Quints shoot Zerbe over an elk and promise further trouble, which they manage to deliver at inopportune times throughout the film.

Penny eventually breaks with the cowpunchers and finds work on the Flat Iron Ranch, where he bumps back into Catherine Allen (Joan Hackett) and her son Horace (Jon Francis). Penny says he's going to have to report the Allens, who are squatting in a cabin on the Flat Iron, to the foreman (Ben Johnson). But, as these things go, he develops an attachment to mother and son and finds himself falling in love with Catherine.

But the Quint family shows back up to cause trouble, Penny is unsure of himself and in the end, he makes a choice. And it's that choice, and the final moments of this film, complete with echoes of "Shane," that make it memorable.

Hackett was the perfect choice to play the female lead. The producers wisely opted against a Hollywood bombshell in favor of a meaty actor who could play this role with a heightened sense of realism.

Anytime Ben Johnson shows up in a film is a good thing, and Pleasence plays the heavy with his typical elan. Ratty Bruce Dern is along for the ride, too. Writer/director Tom Gries peppers his script with witty dialogue and moments that seem, well, real.

As is the case with most of these type of westerns, the plot is full of circumstantial twists that wouldn't happen in a million years. But as a character study, "Will Penny" surely stands out in the long history of Hollywood oaters.

Heston almost rises above his limitations as an actor, delivering as nuanced a performance as he was able to give. And, for better or worse, I found a lot of myself lurking beneath the brooding exterior of Will Penny, which I guess gave me plenty of other things to think about.

Bionic redux

Well, this has been a week for pleasant surprises.

Last night I TiVOed NBC's brand spanking new version of "The Bionic Woman." And, I gotta tell ya, I wasn't expecting much.

The original "Bionic Woman" (and more importantly its predecessor "The Six Million Dollar Man") are two of my all-time favorite network shows. It is a true travesty that both those fine programs have yet to make it to DVD in the United States.

But, out of curiosity, I figured I'd give the new show a chance. I'm glad I did.

2007's version of Jaime Sommers (Michelle Ryan) is a spunky, attractive bartender, and something of a dropout. Jaime is taking care of her wayward younger sister Becca (Lucy Hale). She's also learned she's pregnant by her boyfriend, professor Will Anthros (Chris Bowers).

But as they drive back from dinner, Jaime and Will are victims of a terrible car accident, one that, we later learn, isn't what it seems. In order to save Jaime's life, Will takes her to a secret research facility where, yep, bionic technology -- invented by Will's father -- is used to replace her damaged organs.

Thus the adventure begins...

The new "Bionic Woman" lacks the campy charm of the '70s bionic shows. (I kept waiting to hear that famous springing noise when Jaime's bionics kick to high gear -- and was disappointed).

But the show has been successfully modernized and is quite engaging. The 43 minutes flashed by nearly as fast as the newly bionic Jaime can run.


So, it will never fill the special place in my heart that belongs to Lindsay Wagner's and Lee Majors's bionic adventures, but the new "Bionic Woman" is pretty darn good. I hope the adventure is allowed to play out. I can't wait to see where it goes from here.

I also hope that a successful redux "Bionic Woman" will get the original shows out on DVD. Come on, guys. This is a no-brainer.

"The Bionic Woman" airs Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. (Eastern) on NBC. Full episodes can be viewed at NBC.com