Eighties TV star, 66, looks like she’s ageing backwards after quitting acting amid stalker hell and drug addiction
SHE shot to fame in the 80s as a stunning blonde pin-up in American TV show The Fall Guy.
Former actress Heather Thomas, 66, was one of the most desired women on the small screen as Hollywood stuntwoman and sometime bounty hunter Jody Banks.
The show's lead was none other than Six Million Dollar Man actor Lee Majors, who played Colt Seavers, and its opening credits famously featured Heather wearing a bikini.
Though her career was riding high during her time on the show, behind the scenes things weren't quite so rosy.
Firstly, she had mixed feeling about her sex symbol status.
She told People: “There’s obligatory condescension that goes with that. You fill that archetype, the blonde bimbo. But at that point, I was just having fun."
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Heather began to be stalked by deranged fans, one even scaled a fence armed with a knife.
She was also battling cocaine addiction when the cameras weren't rolling and headed to rehab in 1985 where she would meet her first husband, the founder of Cocaine Anonymous Allan Rosenthal.
“At first I was in a honeymoon stage with the drug," said Heather. "I felt that I was getting a lot for my money. It enabled me to stay up all night and then work all the next day. Cocaine is not approved of on sets. It’s not clubby to do it anymore. It is just a private hell.”
Her relationship with Rosenthal fizzled out the same year The Fall Guy came to an end: 1986.
Smaller roles followed and she graced the big screen too in Cyclone and Red Blooded American Girl.
In 1993 there was yet more stalker drama when an unhinged man turned up at her home to give her a screenplay. Heather subsequently took out a restraining order and called the person "disturbed".
Heather ultimately quit acting for good in 1998 after her brushes with overzealous fans - she claimed she had taken 45 restraining orders out - and roles drying up.
Instead she focused on parenting her stepdaughters Kristina and Shauna from her marriage to attorney Harry Brittenham. The duo would go on to have daughter India Rose in 2000.
She has kept a toe in the industry though. Heather has written and sold the rights to a number of scripts and screenplays, however, none have been made. She has also published a satiric Hollywood novel called Trophies.
The Fall Guy fans were thrilled too in 2020 when Heather and former co-star Majors and Doug Barr held a virtual reunion.
In more recent years she's involved herself in political activism, using her home as a base to hold events for liberal-minded Democrats to speak to wealthy potential donors.
