The Bionic Woman Herself — Lindsay Wagner — Shows No Signs Of Slowing Down At 74

Jan 29, 2021 by apost team

Great entertainers usually love their craft enough that they never want to retire, and actress Lindsay Wagner is no exception. Beside her famous portrayal of the "Bionic Woman" on the popular 1970s TV show, she has many other acting credits.

She also has many recognitions and awards for the dozens of productions she has participated in. At the Night of the Stars held by the San Diego International Film Festival, Wagner received a Humanitarian Award. After a lengthy career, the actress has not shown signs of any desire to quit.

It seems fitting that Wagner would have perseverance in her life when considering the types of roles she has played in her career. In the "Bionic Woman," Wagner played a secret agent who was surgically enhanced with robotic replacement parts that gave her super strength, speed and hearing in the late 70s. In life, Wagner seems just as tough as her heroic television character because she has had success in many endeavors, including writing, teaching, coaching and modeling.

Wagner's childhood was marred by a divorce. After her parents split, Wagner lived with her aunt and grandmother for some time as her parents "grew up" she said in an interview with People in March 1980. "Divorce is not an easy thing on a child. I took a certain amount of guilt for it, so that made me down on myself. By the time you grow up and understand what divorce is, it’s too late,” she added. She went on to live with her mother in Los Angeles, California after the breakup.

At age 13, she "bottled up" her emotions, but found a release when she began acting classes L.A. teacher James Best. Her acting endeavors began in Oregon where she participated in school plays after her mother relocated there with her step-father. She picked up her interest in acting again when she took on the role of hostess for the musical program "Playboy After Dark." People reported that she then went onto become a Nina Blanchard model when she was just 14, and at age 16 ended up with a stomach ulcer. After graduating from high school Wagner worked as a cocktail waitress, sold clothing at a boutique, and even sang for a rock band. Finally, she signed a contract with Universal for $162 a week when she was 22 years old. 

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She appeared on many TV shows, including "The Rockford Files" and "Marcus Welby, M.D.," and she also took some movie acting jobs during that period that included "The Paper Chase" and "Two People." She returned to television in 1975 with her iconic role as Jamie Sommers in "The Bionic Woman." The show was a successful spinoff of the even more famous "Six Million Dollar Man" series that chronicled the adventures of Steve Austin who was played by Lee Majors. The Sommers character was a romantic interest of the Austin character.

Her character was originally meant to die, but it was resurrected due to popular demand. The Sommers character came back in a two-part special on "The Six Million Dollar Man," and a spinoff show was created that gave Wagner the lead role in her own program. "The Bionic Woman" debuted in 1976. While working on the popular show, Wagner also did some acting overseas.

Wagner looked back on her experience with the TV show, stating that it gave her a chance to do something she enjoyed while creating something meaningful, as she recalled to the Times Colonist. Her character used intelligence and physical prowess to overcome difficult situations. She believes her heroism in the show caused ripples in the women's movement. "It was the beginning of changing the image of women in the media,” she told People in 2018. "Anybody over the age of 34 still tells me how I was such a big part of their childhood," the actress added. 

However, this isn't to say that Wagner's acting career did not take a toll on her. As she ended her role in The Bionic Woman, she felt burnt out by all the work. "How Jaime Sommers was feeling—not like a woman but like a kind of robot—was the way I was feeling about the series," she said in 1980. "I had constant disharmony, inter-studio battles and no personal life. I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I wanted to experience myself as a person for a while." Her mental exhaustion paired with health issues led to difficulties on set for her, where she was labeled as petulant and demanding. 

Her wildfire success and ambition for her career also took a toll on her marriage. She had married Micheal Brandon in 1976, just as "The Bionic Woman" had begun to film and her career exploded. Wagner had become an overnight success in Hollywood and maintained a 70-hour-per-week schedule. "I was so involved in my career that I couldn’t see objectively anymore who I was personally, or what I needed in a mate," she reflected in 1980. "That kind of rush is frightening, trying to keep up so that you don’t get trampled by the pace. I’ll have to be excused for anything I did then."

Speaking about any future plans of marriage at the time, she said, "I have been married too much at this point in my life. For me to settle down with anybody right now would be repeating history in a very dumb way. It would be silly, impractical and cause more pain than anything," she elaborated. "I don’t want to do that to myself again—or to anybody else." She ended up marrying twice after her relationship with Michael Brandon— she was married to stuntman Henry Kingi from 1981 to 1984 and with whom she shares sons Dorian and Alex, followed by her marriage to TV producer Lawrence Mortorff from 1990 to 1993. 

From her days as Jamie Sommers, Wagner has been a beacon of female empowerment. Speaking to Smashing Interviews Magazine in 2016, Wagner said, "Women were being redefined in our culture by everybody. We really didn’t even know what it meant. The simple fact that women were even “allowed” to be the pinnacle of a show was a start. I think a lot of women didn’t even understand, to be honest with you, what it meant for a woman to be in power." 

During the interview, she also touched upon her childhood and how it had impacted her desire to become involved with advocacy and social change. Referring to her "Quiet the Mind and Open the Heart" workshops, she said, "I was a survivor of domestic violence when I was younger. Our culture back then was very much into, 'That’s the way people are.' I didn’t believe that. That was not my experience, so I studied. I’m still studying the mind and spirit and how all that stuff works together, even studying different cultures."

She also elaborated on how pivotal it was to play her character to change the way television was produced. "When I went into this business and decided to go into it professionally, it wasn’t until I was twenty-two. I found it such a wonderful opportunity to talk about social issues. Having become so popular and having so much power in the business with the popularity of "The Bionic Woman", I was able to get a project done that they really didn’t want me to do back then. These were issues that they were afraid to talk about in entertainment because programs were sourced by companies that were advertising products. That’s how television worked."

Elaborating on the difficulties of touching on social issues at the time, Wagner said that once the ball was set rolling, television studios realized that people would not shy away from knowing more about social issues. "But that’s how that came about. They saw that people liked the movies. They didn’t turn them off. They came back for the next one and the next one. It didn’t take the companies long to realize that there was a market for them in that generation, and people were not going to turn the station," the actress added.

Wagner continued to star in various movies and television shows after her time on "The Bionic Woman," with her most recent memorable role being Helen Karev on the hit show "Grey's Anatomy." Along with her acting, Wagner still remains active in her goals to foster social change. She gave a speech at the fourth annual Global Empower Summit at the University of California in San Diego. She named herself an advocate for human potential, and she spoke about domestic violence and other women's issues, as mentioned by the San Diego Union-Report. She believes that a lot has changed since her time on television.

"It’s going to be interesting to see in the next generation what happens because men and women have both been raised differently than we were, than I was. Our culture is very different today. There’s a lot more permission for men to be sensitive as well as powerful, and there’s a lot more permission today for women to be powerful as well as sensitive. It’s just finding that balance and then expressing it through the way we create. Evolution’s a big order," said the star. 

Are you glad to hear that Lindsay is still going strong in her senior years? Let us know your thoughts about this wonderful actress, and be sure to share this story with your friends on social media.