Fun Finds: TV Mirror Magazine, Feb 1977

I really jinxed myself not long ago when I mentioned how easy things have been going and that I've had more time than usual to post. Good gravy, the bottom dropped out of my work life big time and I've barely had time to do anything but push the rock from one end of the gravel pit to the other, then back again! Ha ha! But I'm here now with a Fun Find. It's been a minute since one of these. Today's entry is from one of my favorite TV eras. Oddly enough, it doesn't really focus on many of my own treasured people but, then again, I'm here to try to share things with an audience beyond just me. If you enjoy Angie Dickinson, Henry Winkler and vintage daytime soaps, this will likely appeal to you more than it may others. I usually don't scan entire articles (and some pages have been skipped here) but rather provide a story recap, but I went a skosh further this time out, knowing that many of you like to see as many old ads as you can. Here we go!

So many people, including my mother, just adored Totie Fields. She continued to work even after amputation, a mastectomy and an eye operation, but another blood clot did her in on August 2nd, 1978 when she was but 48. The Exorcist sequel was just rancid... William Gray Espy did return to soaps. He spent a good many years off and on as Mitch Blake on Another World.

(This page out of order deliberately for continuity.) You can read more about Kathryn Hays here. Jamie Lyn Bauer did wed in 1982, have three children and is still married. Ms. Martel never was able to reestablish her TV career, but she did live to be 73, passing in 2011. I couldn't locate a thing on young Mickey Esposito...

I am skeptical about some of the romances noted in this section. BTW, Lisa Mordente is the daughter of Chita Rivera. She was recurring on Barnard Hughes' sitcom Doc. I have to believe that at some point Lee and Lindsay buried their bionic hatchet. But Cindy Williams' issues at her show were real. She eventually left it and it tried to carry on for a brief while! (From the middle picture, Shera Danese and Peter Falk would wed that December. She became his widow in 2011.)

God, that's awful about Ron Glass' mother. Never knew about that. Her murder was never solved. Linda Lavin never did give birth, but her second and third husbands provided her with stepchildren. Larry Linville was unhappy with the shift in tone that M*A*S*H underwent over time and that he was incessantly the butt of countless jokes. He felt that the character had reached its limit, so he did not return. Ms. McClanahan was married six times in all! This one was from 1976-1981. 

I couldn't see any record of Carmine Caridi's mystery ex-wife, but he had a very busy career as a character actor for 50 years. That's an interesting tidbit on Polly Holliday's childhood experience informing her performance on Alice. (Hilarious that the final blurb mentions TV-watching recluse Peter Falk when two pages prior there's a pic of him on the town with his soon-to-be second wife!

Jennifer Leak (who was in the recently-profiled Lost Flight and also had a revealing part in Eye of the Cat, 1969) had previously been wed to Tim Matheson! The met during the film Yours, Mine and Ours (1968), divorcing by 1971.

She did wed James D'Auria in 1977 and they're together still today. Her daytime soap career continued until the early-1990s with Guiding Light, One Life to Live and Loving. By the way, as a kid I was SO excited - yet terrified - about that rendition of King Kong (1976.) You may read my take on it here. 

Miss Dickinson's divorce from Burt Bacharach wasn't final until 1981, though they separated in 1976. She never remarried. Daughter Nikki, seen here, was the inspiration for his song "Nikki," which was used as the theme for the ABC Movie of the Week for several years. A victim of Asperger's, it was an early example of a celebrity going public with an autistic child. (Early episodes of Police Woman included a young, autistic sister, but she was soon written out!)

Notably private Dickinson is one of the very few, perhaps the only, celebrity to flat-out stop tape and exit the attempt to make her the subject of This is Your Life.

What wasn't revealed until later (in those less-aware times) was that Burt didn't fully understand the situation with their daughter and thought that Angie was indulgent and feeding the behavioral problems. He had Nikki sent to a facility for help and it didn't wind up improving her well-being much. Sadly, she committed suicide following a long battle with depression in 2007 at age 40.

"Hey..."

Stage actor Henry Winkler had scarcely gotten his on-screen acting career started (a couple of movie roles and a smattering of TV) when he landed the role of Fonzie on Happy Days. Few performers were as instantly recognizable as "The Fonz" in his day.  

Winkler continued to act in character parts following Happy Days' 1984 cancellation, and it was a rough go at times to shake off that iconic specter. He recently enjoyed one of his most rewarding parts in years on the HBO series Barry, earning an Emmy Award in the process. Now 78, he continues to act and also works as a commercial and PSA spokesperson.

I really never thought I would get to see The Doctors in its hey-day, but a number of years ago, an over-the-air channel began playing it each day and I caught up with much of the story line of Nick Bellini (Gerald Gordon) and Althea Davis (Elizabeth Hubbard.) Gordon was fiery in the part, to say the least. Check out that chest hair.

His Emmy came for portraying Andrew Jackson in First Ladies Diaries: Rachel Jackson. (Ironically, his former costar Hubbard won one herself for playing Edith Wilson!) By the way, the TV-movies he worked on as part of the General Hospital deal were It Happened at Lakewood Manor and The Day the Women Got Even, neither one a feather in anyone's creative cap! Heavy-smoker Gordon worked until the early-1990s, but passed from emphysema in 2001 at age 67. (By the way, I adore "Expensive Looking Mock Suede Trim." Not... "Ride 'em cowgirl!")

This would be a great shot of Miss Morgan Fairchild, but they've gone and reversed the negative! (The inset is correct.)

This is what the main photo ought to look like.

I can still hear my grandmother bemoaning "that evil JENNIFER!" This was the year, though, that Fairchild left the daytime soap behind and made a bid for regular prime-time TV work. Her bid at a regular showcase was the short-lived Flamingo Road.

Fairchild can be seen here during a break with a can of sugar-filled Coca-Cola! Drew Snyder wasn't on Search for very long, but he did maintain a lengthy career in TV roles and character bits on the big screen up through 2020.

Lewis Arlt, bottom pic, later segued into writing. He worked a long while on Loving and also on Another World, General Hospital and One Life to Live. (Soap writers were often shifted and shared around from show to show based on their success and/or failure with viewers.)

I thought this ad was quite daring for 1977! I didn't scan all the rest of the story, but it goes on to mention quietly charming "loner" Michael Nouri, Fairchild's rumored departure after "Jennifer" has been insane and guilty of murder, the slow climb it took the producer to gain better ratings and the fact that veteran Ann Williams was about to be killed off, much to her dismay.

When you land on Brenda Dickson, you land on the cray-cray. The originator of Jill Abbott on The Young and the Restless seemed always to be on a roller-coaster of ups and downs. This marital union lasted from 1976 to 1983.

I couldn't love this cheesetastic photo any more if I tried! 1970s open shirt, necklace and chest hair. (But enough about her... Ha ha!! I'm kidding.)

Now we're talkin'. I always loved Lynda Carter. if you're as confused as I am by the references to her role in Apocalypse Now (1979), it's that the storm noted in this article destroyed the set she was working on. When the director Francis Ford Coppola was able to resume filming - two months later - Carter was obligated to be at work on Wonder Woman. So she was replaced by Colleen Camp!

Above this wrap-up of Carter's article is the end of Gerald Gordon's. Dig the tidbit that he'd attempted to get a stage musical based on The Birds (1963) off the ground! Wild.

Interestingly, this page relays how Ann Williams "took it like a trooper" when she was written out while costar Val Dufour had earlier noted that she broke down in tears one day directly after a scene. Up in the right corner, Erika Slezak married Brian Davies the year after this and they are together still.

Speaking of long marriages, Doug and Susan Seaforth Hayes married in 1974, though their Days of Our Lives characters weren't hitched until 1976, and they are still together. In the upper left corner is young Michael Nouri. In the middle pic is Cher's sister Georgeanne La Pierre and young Richard Dean Anderson, later to be MacGuyver!

This is a rather fascinating article and set up pictures considering the tumult that came about later in Robert Blake's life...!

Sondra Blake is not a name that I'm familiar with, but she actually maintained a long career as a TV (and occasional movie) character actress, still working occasionally.

I bet quite a few of you know this gal...

All's Fair only ran one season. It was a Norman Lear concept comedy about a conservative D.C. writer in love with a liberal photographer. Apparently, some of their verbal banter could turn more than a little shrill.

Ms. Peters was about to begin a four-year relationship with Steve Martin, but didn't wed until 1996 when she married a younger investment advisor. Sadly, he was killed in 2005 in a helicopter crash at only age 43.

The last part of this article (unscanned) is about Sue Cameron producing The Don Ho Show and exclaiming that daytime shows are the "bread and butter" of the networks and that success or failure is usually known within three weeks.

Many of you may know Greg Mullavey, but in my own experience, his wife Meredith MacRae (daughter of Gordon and Sheila) is more familiar.

As a nine year-old kid, I never, ever watched Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. The satire would have been right over my head. Happy as they seem, they did wind up in divorce court by 1987.

We'll wind up with a few full page ads that caught my eye...

Laugh at the weather, yes, but don't lean in too close to those birthday candles...!

"Life is better with big tits!" (And if you believe that anything bought through the mail could do this in 15 days... well, you have my condolences!)

How ironic! I also kept eating for 15 days... December 19th - Jan 1st! Ha ha! And I look just like the pic on the right.

Much to my delight, even taking into account the product, the back cover of the magazine featured this glorious color photo of then-model Tom Selleck!

Before we say farewell, one of Henry Winkler's later successes was playing Adam Sandler's football coach in The Waterboy (1998.) In the film, His character schools Sandler on not always telling his mother everything he does and promptly drops trou to reveal a Roy Orbison tattoo on his ass! The shot never includes both Winkler's face and the shot of the tattoo, leading to reports of a body double, but there are outlets that say Winkler truly got the tattoo, then had most of it laser-removed (keeping Orbison's sunglasses as a memento of the movie!) Who knows... But in any case, this brings us to...

The End!