On this date in 1974, $6 Million Man starring Lee Majors premièred on US TV. 10 facts about this show.
What was it about? The plot concerns a former astronaut, Colonel Steve Austin, portrayed by Lee Majors. After being seriously injured in a NASA test flight crash, Austin is rebuilt with bionic implants that give him superhuman strength, speed and vision. Austin is then employed as a secret agent by a fictional U.S. government office titled OSI.
The working title for the series was Cyborg, which is the title of the book by Martin Caidin, published in 1971, on which the series was based.
Martin Caidin based the character of Steve Austin on astronauts David Scott and Eugene Cernan (commanders of Apollos 15 and 17, respectively).
The air crash in the opening sequence was real. The aircraft was an M2-F2 which crashed when a rescue Helicopter strayed into the air space during the test flight. Pilot Bruce Peterson had to suddenly swerve to avoid a collision causing the crash. The crash happened on May 10, 1967, at Edwards Air Force base in California (although the dialogue heard on the show was recorded by Lee Majors). The scene from the operating theatre was taken from a Columbo episode called "A Stitch in Crime".
The theme tune was written by Oliver Nelson.
So what could the Six Million Dollar Man actually do? The bionic Eye contained a camera, a night vision function, an infra-red filter and the ability to see things moving too fast for a human eye to distinguish. He could also see through it normally. The bionic legs enabled him to run at 60mph as shown in the opening credits, but it was never officially determined what his top speed was. He can leap 30 feet (9.1 m) high. His bionic arm is as strong as a bulldozer and contains a Geiger counter.
The producers made sure that, while bionics were pretty powerful, the stories were still plausible by placing limits on what Steve Austin’s bionic parts could do. For example, he could jump two storeys high but not three, and could jump down no more than three storeys. The implants have a major flaw in that extreme cold interferes with their functions and can temporarily disable them.
Lee Majors was married at the time to Farrah Fawcett, who appeared in the series three times. Majors would have liked her to play Jamie Sommers, the Bionic Woman, but the part went to Lindsay Wagner instead. The Bionic Woman first appeared in an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man in 1975. She was a professional tennis player who rekindled an old romance with Austin, only to experience a parachuting accident that resulted in her being given bionic parts similar to his. However, her body rejected the parts and she died. The character was very popular, however, and the following season it was revealed that she had been saved by an experimental cryogenic procedure, and she was given her own spin-off series.
The show was very popular during its run and introduced several pop culture elements of the 1970s, such as the show's opening catchphrase ("We can rebuild him; we have the technology", voiced over by Richard Anderson in his role of Oscar Goldman). Children saw Steve Austin as a role model which led to problems with some children deliberately trying to seriously injure themselves in the hopes of getting bionic parts. In one case, the producers and Lee Majors had to write a letter to one kid the tell him it was purely fiction.
In France, the show was called L'homme qui valait 3 milliards or "The Man Who Was Worth 3 Billion". In Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, the series was known as El Hombre Nuclear "The Nuclear Man". In Israel, the number six million is associated with the Holocaust, so there the show was called The Man Who Is Worth Millions.
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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