Lindsay Wagner

Born in a tough Los Angeles suburb, actress Lindsay Wagner quickly became accustomed to having to work hard and fight harder for the things she wanted out of life. The blonde, 5'11" Wagner supplemented her modelling and singing income by teaching theater arts to schoolchildren. In 1971, she was signed to a $162-per-week contract at Universal Pictures, under whose auspices she played supporting roles in such TV series as The Bold Ones and Owen Marshall, M.D. and co-starred in the theatrical features Two People (1972) and The Paper Chase (1973). Though she received good reviews for her work in the last-named film (in which she was cast as the daughter of imperious law professor John Houseman), Lindsay was summarily dropped by her studio in 1975. At the same time, Universal executives were looking for a tall, athletic actress to play a "bionic woman" opposite Lee Majors in a special two-part installment of the weekly TV series The Six Million Dollar Man. Lindsay's contract was extended an extra few days to permit her to play the role of Jaime Sommers -- and when the two-parter was spun off into the Bionic Woman TV series in 1976, Lindsay, still bitter over her firing, demanded a then-staggering sum of $17,500 per program, and a percentage of the merchandising profits. After the cancellation of Bionic Woman in 1978, Lindsay kept her star shining brightly such made-for-TV movies as The Incredible Journey of Dr. Meg Laurel (1979), Callie and Son (1981), I Want to Live (1983), Convicted (1986), The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Dedrickson Story (1989), and I Want to Keep My Daughter (1995). She has also appeared in several TV-movie sequels to The Bionic Woman, including 1993's Bionic Ever After. In addition to maintaining her successful acting career, Lindsay Wagner has entered the booming instructional-video market with Lindsay Wagner's New Beauty: The Accupressure Facelift.