Bill Bixby

The son of a sales clerk and a department store owner, Bill Bixby was
the sixth-generation Californian born as Wilfred Bailey Bixby, on
January 22, 1934, in San Francisco, California. An only child growing
up in the 1940s and 1950s, he attended schools in the same area, took
ballroom dance lessons, before attending Lowell High School, where he
excelled in drama. After his graduation from high school, he attended
San Francisco City College, where he majored in drama. He transferred
to the University of California-Berkeley, where he majored in the
pre-law program, but never stopped falling in love with his interest in
acting. After almost graduating, he left his native San Francisco, to
travel to Los Angeles, where he became a lifeguard and a bellhop.Two years later, in 1959, two executives noticed him and hired him
immediately for commercial work and modeling, in Detroit, Michigan. At
the same time, he auditioned for theater roles. He joined the Detroit
Civic Theatre Company and made his professional stage debut in the
musical, "The Boy Friend." Long after his trip to Michigan, he
continued doing commercial work and made numerous guest appearances on
popular TV sitcoms.He made his TV debut in an episode of
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959).
He also did many other roles, most notably as "Charles Raymond" in
The Joey Bishop Show (1961).
After many guest and recurring roles, he landed a co-starring role
opposite Ray Walston in
My Favorite Martian (1963),
in which he portrayed a newspaper reporter playing host to a visitor
from another planet. After the first season, it became a hit and Bixby
became a household name to millions of fans who liked the show. The
show was going well until its cancellation in 1966, which left Bixby in
the dark, for the time being. However, he finally got the chance to go
onto the big screen. The first of the four post-"Martian" 60s movies he
played in was the Western,
Ride Beyond Vengeance (1966).
The following year, he played in
Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! (1967)
and, soon after, he was approached by
Elvis Presley to appear in both
Clambake (1967), and
Speedway (1968). Afterwards, he once
again returned to series television, this time playing widowed father,
"Tom Corbett", on
The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969),
based on the popular 1963 movie. After its first season, it became a
much bigger hit than his first show and Bixby, heretofore one of
Hollywood's most confirmed bachelors, changed his views on marriage and
family, subsequently taking actress
Brenda Benet as his bride and fathering a
son. He also tried his hand at directing an episode of the series,
called "Gifts Are For Giving," about Norman's highly treasured gift.
After completing its second season, Bixby received an Emmy nomination
for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, but didn't win. By its third season
in 1972, the show had bad scripts and ABC decided to pull the plug.Once again, Bixby was not long out of work and was offered a chance to
star in a lead role as "Anthony Dorian/Anthony Blake," on his first and
only NBC dramatic series called,
The Magician (1973). The show
focused on Anthony performing magic tricks which helped people who were
in trouble, and in real-life, Bill became a fine magician, performing
to both children and adults. But sadly, the show was canceled after one
season due to its expensive costs.After a seven-year absence from the big screen, he co-starred in
another western, opposite Don Knotts and
Tim Conway, in
The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975).
Like most of the theatrical movies he did, it was not a blockbuster at
the box office, but was still an average hit. In late 1977, he was
offered the role of "Dr. David Bruce Banner," in a two-hour pilot
called,
The Incredible Hulk (1977).
About a physician/scientist who turned into a green monster whenever he
became angry, the idea appealed to CBS, and several months later, they
premiered a new science fiction-dramatic series, called,
The Incredible Hulk (1977).
When it debuted as a mid-season replacement, it became the #1 show in
the United States, and in many other countries. His character became
famous for ripping up shirts each time he turned into the Hulk, played
by bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno. Bixby had
wanted to direct some episodes, but the time he had to spend in the
make-up chair for the transformation sequences made that problematical,
and he managed to helm only one segment, "Bring Me the Head of the
Hulk," in the fourth season. The series was canceled in 1981 (although
the last few episodes didn't air until 1982).Bixby, once again, came back to series television, acting in, producing
and directing his last sitcom,
Goodnight, Beantown (1983),
on which he played "Matt Cassidy." Chosen for the role of "Jennifer
Barnes," was one of Bixby's old friends,
Mariette Hartley, who had won an Emmy
for her guest appearance in
The Incredible Hulk (1977)
as Banner's second wife. The two played co-anchor newscasters of a
Boston television station whose sparring on and off the air developed
into friendship and respect. Discounting a brief, inconsequential
return to the network's schedule in the summer of 1984, the series
lasted for less than a year, from April 1983 to January 1984.Bixby now decided to concentrate on directing and worked on
Wizards and Warriors (1983),
Goodnight, Beantown (1983)
and Sledge Hammer! (1986). He
also directed the pilot for a New York spy series, "Rockhopper." He
also appeared in front of the camera as the host of the daytime
anthology series,
True Confessions (1985),
which dealt with real-life crises of everyday people. Bixby
additionally served as host for two shows targeting younger viewers:
"Against the Odds," a series of biographies of prominent people,
frequently from history, for the Nickelodeon cable channel; and "Once
Upon a Classic," a collection of British TV adaptations of literary
classics on PBS.He came back to reprise his role of "Dr. David Banner" from
The Incredible Hulk (1977)
by acting in, producing, and directing the three spin-off movies:
The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988),
The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989)
and
The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990).
He also directed TV movies such as
Baby of the Bride (1991)
and
Another Pair of Aces: Three of a Kind (1991).In April 1991, while directing one of his last movies, he became very
ill and was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He underwent surgery and by
December, his cancer seemed to be in remission, so he came back to
guest star as "Nick Osborne" in a two-hour TV movie/pilot called
Diagnosis Murder: Diagnosis of Murder (1992).
In mid-1992, while his cancer continued to be in remission, Bixby
returned to work as a director to direct several episodes of the
popular NBC sitcom, Blossom (1990),
where he became the main director of the show. At first, he hid his
illness from the cast and crew, until one of the producers found out,
and then he announced publicly that he wanted to continue working until
he could no longer do so. Prior to going public with his cancer, he
directed a TV movie starring Roseanne Barr
and Tom Arnold,
The Woman Who Loved Elvis (1993),
which was his final directing project.Unfortunately, the cancer returned by mid-1993 and, on November 21,
1993, six days after directing his last episode on "Blossom" (1991),
Bill Bixby died at age 59 in his home after a two-year battle with cancer. For over 30 years, he was in great demand and his big roles and
directing credits have been a personal testimony to his fans. His life
is gone, but his legacy lives on for years to come.