Star Trek Ladies: Nana Visitor | Deep Space Nine, Part 1

Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, part of the weirding Way Media Network, Eighties Day and so pretty through the city getting the money Man World. Hello, I'm Sharon Johnson and welcome to Eighties TV Ladies. And I'm Susan Lambert HadAM. Looking back at female driven television shows from the nineteen eighties is super fun and a chance to explore the way we were and how we got to the way we are, because I'm not sure how we got here. We're starting a new pop up series today where we look at ladies from all television decades who are truly out of this world.

Welcome to the first Eighties TV Ladies of Star Trek. We're gonna go where no woman has gone before. Okay, a few women, I mean quite a few women. It turns out. I'm really excited to dive into the eighties Star Trek Ladies because there are so many amazing women who worked on the Star Trek franchise, so many of whom also are actual eighties TV ladies.

See how I'm trying out different names here? Listeners, you know what, Please tell us what name you think would be best for this series. So just one, all right now? Sharon, you know way more about Star Trek than I do. Yes, that's true.

I've seen all the series except for Picard. I haven't had a chance to watch all of that yet. I feel like if I don't get to it soon, I should turn in my Star Trek fan card. I've seen all the movies. Yeah, I'm a big fan.

You're a big fan. So you get little stripes, right, So you've got to get your Picard stripe. I think you get a special pin. You get a special pen. Now, what are your favorite Star Trek movies and shows?

It just so happens that when it comes to the TV series, Deep Space nine is by far my favorite for a variety of reasons, not just because of today's visitor no pun intended, nice, but it has long been my favorite. Ratha Cohn and Undiscovered Country are my favorite of the movies with the original cast. I think with the next generation cast, first Contact love that one, and then, of course, we most recently had a trio of movies with a whole new group of actors playing these characters from the original series, with Chris Pine as Captain Kirk et cetera. So, and how do you feel about those I'm fine with them. I know a lot of a lot of fans poo pooed them or had issues.

I'm not that kind of fan. I thought those movies were good, and I had no problem with them taking kind of from the original movies, the original series lore, and using some of that to build these new stories. Yes, and now I'm a huge fan of Wrath of Khan, fan of Voyager and Enterprise, but I didn't see all of them. But I will turn on Star Trek and I enjoy it. You know, lower decks, you know enjoyed Dot and is not the animated series a series paramount Plus I have not watched that yet either.

Okay, but now, ladies, who are your favorite Star Trek? Ladies, who are your favorite characters? Well, again, this is not a coin, this is this just is how it is, just how it is. But it just maybe one of the reasons he spaced nine is my favorite Star Trek is because of all the fantastic ladies, complicated female characters that are on the show, not least of which Colonel Kiara Nourice. And then there's Terry Ferrell, who plays a trill who has a symbiant in her so she has the memories of the other eight or nine people whose bodies, as Symbia also lived in so you got to see her evolve from this kind of not exactly naive but young woman, and then as she begins to really understand and have more experiences and take on the memories of all these other people, just sort of figure out for herself who is she going to be?

Is she going to be more like this one or that one? And she's trying different. It's very interesting, and not least of which Oscar Wynner Louise Fletcher, who plays a recurring character who is a very complicated woman. She's clearly very ambitious, but she also is able to convey a vulnerability that you don't always see underneath any character who you love to hate. She was fantastic and the character was so well written.

And there are several others, including the mother of the Frangie characters on Ferenga Nar which is where Frangis are from. Oh God, thank god you're on the show right now. Women are second class citizens. It's a culture based around business and the men do all the business. It's ill legal for women to make money, like America in nineteen fifty actually more like Handmaid's Tale kind of what I understand, but not with the rape and the stuff.

But their mother has decided not only is she going to get involved in business, by god, she's going to wear clothes because women are not allowed to wear clothes on Ferang Andnar. You know, it's illegal, it's just not done. And they're horrified to see she's walking around wearing clothes. Anyway, So lots of really interesting female characters we see on a regular basis, on a recurring basis, and then you know, and guest starring roles in various times. Such a such a really rich group of women on the show.

And there's course there's men too, and they're interesting, but men too and they're interesting. But you know, and now I'm in Lieutenant Ahura Michelle Nichols, I mean, come on, I mean just and then I'm Captain Janaway. Kate Mulgrew totally totally was like, this is fantastic. I'm in, and I know there was like a captain before. I don't know, we're gonna find it all out because we're going to get to continue this series of Ladies of Eighties, not Star Trek.

I don't know what we're gonna call it okay, Melissa's ladies, your ladies Hurrah. Of course for general cast, you know the people who are on the ship all the time. I love the from the original. They're all great. They're just all great.

There was the one. I didn't look up episodes or anything, but there was one where there's the blind woman who is there with the ambassador. She does two roles and then she comes back and she plays the doctor on Next Gen or a season. Oh oh oh, Dinah Maldauer. Yes, she was also in Law and Order.

She's the one that died falling elevator doors open and she steps in not realizing that's her. That's at a nightmare of mind anyway. Sorry, but yeah, Dinah, she played two roles on the original, and she was excellent and I liked her when she came in and replaced the other doctor for a season, doctor Crusher. Yeah, that's right, she replaced doctor Crusher. All right, all right, cool, I will Is she still alive?

I wish. I don't think so, but I'll look. It would be great to talk to her. All right. So now, for those who may not know the Star Trek franchise, I think we need just a little bit of a catchup, and Melissa thinks there's no one out there that doesn't know, all right, For those of you that don't know, The original Star Trek series ran three seasons from nineteen sixty six to nineteen sixty nine.

It was created by Gene Roddenberry, and it starred William Shatner, Leonard Ni moy To, Forrace, Kelly, Michelle Nichols, George de Kay, James Dohan, Walter Kanig, and Majel Barrett. It was produced by Roddenberry's company, Norway Productions and Desilu Productions, Yes, Lucile Production Company, which she created with Desi Arnez, but she had been running for many years on her own at this time. She's actually responsible for getting it on the air, for saying, yes, we're going to make this show. As you said, she had been running the production company on her own, so when Star Trek came along, she's the one that made the decision, Yes, let's move forward with that. We can thank we can thank Lucy Ovall, thank you.

Absolutely. It spawned eleven that we know of that. I can count TV shows, thirteen movies, including the nineties television show Deep Space nine which we have already talked a little bit about Star Trek Next Generation or next Gen as it's often called RAND and syndication, as did the next three shows from nineteen eighty seven to nineteen eighty nine, Deep Space nine ninety three to ninety nine, Voyager ninety five to two thousand and one, and Enterprise two thousand and one to two thousand and five. Then we're in the streaming and now there are more shows. There's Star Trek Discovery started in twenty seventeen, still going, Picard fairly brand new twenty twenty to twenty twenty three, and this is the final season, I think, yes, and then a Strange New World.

It's amazing. Those are just that they live action, yes, the live action shows, because there are also several animated shows and games. Way too many to touch on here, but just briefly to mention Lower Decks, which is currently streaming on Paramount Plus, on which today's guest, the Now Visitor, reprised her Deep Space nine character Kira Nourice. There. It is all the adventures, many many many adventures, adventures in space final Frontier, explore new world, seek out new life and new civilizations.

Boldly go where no man has gone before. Well, actually, Susan, the Star Trek franchise self corrected and by the next gen, Captain Card actually says where no one has gone before. I'm going to give him prompts. Because the original show was very gender normative, yes, but you know, which was very normal for its time. Yes, But happily over time the Star Trek franchise did evolve in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to gender.

We were all waiting, too, like for the start of that show. It was like, Okay, what's he going to say? At least I was. I was. I was waiting for it, and they said no one, And I'm like, okay, okay, here we go, let's go.

We're on board. Yeah, the new Enterprise. All right, but if you've never seen any Star Trek, I think that's cool too. Yeah. Yeah.

And today, Sharon, we have our very special guest here to kick off our eighties TV ladies of Star Trek. Are you excited? Oh yes, I cannot wait. Do you remember what happened when I told you we were going to be able to interview Miss Nana visitor. I might have screamed a little bit.

Oh yeah, And I was excited too, but I kind of really feel like a major day Oh absolutely. Now I have to admit before we start, I was not a Deep Space nine gal, but I did know of that character Major Kira because she seemed really cool. Major Kiara is very cool and really one of the best female Star Trek characters ever. One of my favorites. Our guest today is Nana Visitor, who is most famous for playing the Bajoran military liaison and second in command of Deep Space nine, Kia Nourice.

But Nana has had an incredible career before and beyond that series. She started in theater as a dancer and became an actress in movies and television in the seventies and eighties. She is like a super cool eighties TV lady because she has guest starred in so many eighties television shows including Hunter, Remington Steele, Scarecrow, Missus, King, Night Writer, Magiver, Highway to Heaven, The Colby's In the Heat of the Night, and so many more. Welcome to eighties TV ladies, Nana Visitor. We are so thrilled to have you join us today.

Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. You know how they say pay attention to why you're wearing, what you're doing, who you're with, when you feel most like yourself, and that's a really good way to guide things and to go Yeah, these conversations, these exchanges, certainly with other women, because back in the eighties, it wasn't a clean certainly for actors. It wasn't a clean exchange. It wasn't friendly for the most part, not in Hollywood.

Okay, well well let's start there. What does that mean? Well, certainly when I came out to Hollywood, you know, there was the either you are going to accept these conditions and what we want from you, or they are ten more behind you. So the ten more behind you became the competition. And who is behind you?

There's going to be one girl on the show, one girl that the lead guy wants, and you're going to have to fight for that. And you know it. When I would go to auditions for a character role, I was a very different room. People were sharing stuff and talking. But you went for a leading lady role and it was like knives out.

It was only one of us can be here. That is so interesting, and you were going out for both. I was I did I think I'm really a character. That's where I'm happiest. But they didn't know what to do with me.

I remember an agent of mine going, you're not pretty, you're not fat. I don't know what to do with you. Okay, you're gorgeous and you're beautiful, you're very sweet. But back then I was not meeting the fair fawcet standard. I still don't meet the standard of what they want a grandmother to be, and that is the box I should be in right now, and I don't meet it.

So they still don't know what to do with me. But back then I had short hair, I was, you know, extremely thin because I'd been a dancer, and they're like, what are you? Don't know, don't know what to do, so you desperately try to make yourself one of the arc types that they're looking for. But they're not really archtypes. They're boxes.

Yes, And we talk a lot about the roles for women and how few there were on any of these shows and how often over seasons it would shift unless someone was actively working to put women center right. So I know that you grew up in New York, Peter, I did all around dancings. Yeah, I was all around dancers. My parents were deep into the Broadway scene. My mother was this very strange, very powerful ballet teacher of all things, except people came to her who weren't interested in learning ballet.

They wanted to hear her speak. They wanted to hear her give them permission to be who they were. So overweight dancers, you know that would be beaten up in other classes. She would take an interest in them and say, pile up your bones, let your energy out, and whatever sticks out in your corporeal body, let it stick out. If it sticks out, it sticks out.

You're dancing with your energy body. So that would free people up and also give them a different perspective on themselves, just in their lives. So she was very interesting and she became a big coach of many of the Broadway stars. And my father was Jerry Robbins's assistant and then co choreographed with Bob Fosse for like twenty five years. Assisted him at first and built up and then he was a choreographer on his own.

But there were always interesting people in and out of the apartment for dinner, and the talk was always, you know, there would be arguments about purouetes. My parents would argue about no, that is not you know, and people would get up and start demonstrating and doing. It was all very passionate about performance and dance. I did work immediately and kept working so I do acting work, which is what I really wanted to do. And then when I was having a dry period and needed money, I would do a coorse job and keep myself going that way.

Although secretly, being in the course of a Broadway show at that time was as glamorous and wonderful as you can imagine. It was one of the best jobs I've ever done. Almost no responsibility. You're backstage, there's an orchestra underneath you. You have enough money to go to Joe Allen's after the show and have dinner and see all the stars.

And you're in it, and you have your dance bag. You're a part of it. So it was it was a great time. I heard that you auditioned for all that jazz. Yeah, please tell us about that.

I have images, which is how I think and how I remember things. That's how I talk. I see the image and then I can describe the image. So I'll tell you that I have images like postcards of Bob Fosse was him and me in one of the typical hideous dirty dance studios off Eighth Avenue, and when I walked in the room, he was by the windows, hunched over smoking. It's like that's more Bob Fosse than looking at his face, that physicality of the dancer with the cigarette.

And he was so kind. Of course I was his you know you were known to him. Yes, I was sent by an agent. He was interested in auditioning me. But I was also my father's and mother's daughter, and he had been in my mother's class and all this history.

Although I didn't really know him, that all predated me. I didn't know him at all. So this was my first introduction. And we danced together. There was no one else there.

It was him and me. He taught me the routine he wanted me to do. We acted together, we sat together. It was hours and hours and hours. And the biggest thing I got from it was when he held my face.

And it was at a time where we were losing people to drugs and he had his own struggles and he held my face and he said, you're not going to get this, You're not right for it, but you are going to work and you will do well, but you have to promise me, don't even try drugs nothing, stay off of it and you'll keep going. And it was Bob Fosse. It was like, you know, one of my how was I not going to listen to that? So I never did anything, never even in the clubs, because I love hanging out at you know, all the discos. Legardain the Hippopotamus at that time was still going all of them, and it was big to like share poppers.

The other dancers, even that weren't with you would try to put it under your nose. And I got really good at girl, No, no nothing. Bob Fossey told me, sob Fossy told me. That's Bob Fossey tells you to not take drugs. That's right.

And when I came out to La I went to a big Hollywood party producer, you know, just like you hear about. And this was before I moved out. I came out with a boyfriend. He was doing a job and we got invited to a party. There were literal bowls, this big of cocaine just set out like party favors.

That's how much it was done. It was all over the place and I'd be like, nope, I know. I don't know how anybody survived that period of time. I'm kidding. I mean a lot didn't, but a lot didn't, and a lot got sidelined by it, and a lot did just fine.

I had a make no. He was a hair person when I was doing forty second Street and he said, you know, coke really helps your voice. But I was like, nope, no, and that served me well. I do like my cocktail. I do like a good margarita.

I'm not like saying I'm not judging anybody. It was just I never did it because he told me so. Back in the day, there would be dancers with to go cup of coffee and a cigarette. That's what everyone lived on to keep your weight down, so everyone smoked. Wow.

All right, So did you watch Fussy Verden? I did, okay and so accurate? Not accurate? What do you think so accurate? Especially her?

It wasn't Gwen, but it was absolutely the essence of Gwen, absolutely the essence. It was hard to watch. It's so but you know what they had, and what my parents had was this laser foaxocus on the work. It was church, it was purpose, it was the most important thing in the world. It took precedence over almost anything.

It was like, you know, my mother called and I said, I'm about to go and say, shit, go It's like boom, work trumps all what you're doing, focus all of that. So, I mean, that's comfortable to be so sure of what's important. You know, once you start questioning that, life isn't so black and white anymore. Yeah. What made you want to take that move though, from dancing into acting?

Was that always what you intended or was there something that happened along the way. Well, dancing was really difficult for me, although I could do it, and I think it was structural things that you know. I remember a chiropractice looking at me when I was very young and going, you don't have to deal with it now, but you will someday. You'll deal with the things that your spine is doing. So yeah, I'm all.

So it was just uncomfortable. It always cost me more. It was like double competency. I couldn't just dance, it was dance through the pain. So I think it was that.

But also I just had this brain that was so interested in people, watching people on buses, trying to figure them out trying to understand going down the street and thinking every light that's on, there are all these complications. People are having fights, loving tears, boredom. The human condition was fascinating, and being an actor was where I studied it. That is pretty amazing because again I think that is a different form of storytelling than dance. Yes, and so interesting that that's where you gravitated too.

And I think so you were the youngest, yes, and so you were just watching these people, you know, ahead of these I remember my mother let me bring my kittens. I had kittens at the time I was eight years old. They didn't have a babysitter. So I went to my mother's class and I would sit there on the floor and I had my kittens. My mother was such a bohemian, and I was so bored.

It was classical music, a pianist playing classical music, and I was so bored. I'd play games, going Okay, why is that dancer better than that one? How come my eyes go to her? And of course it was Gwen Verton and that's why. But once you watched Gwen Verdon dance for a while, you get a sense.

So that really, when I was a teenager. Finally, after sitting and watching class so much, I just got up and danced. I'd practiced it in my head so much. That's interesting. I would have thought that you had started dancing yourself much younger, you know, certainly by the time you rate.

But oh, that's interesting. No, it's and I get it because I think it's a natural thing. I remember my boys being young and you know, looking through for something good to watch on TV and going, oh, there's mama, and it's like, oh, this's boring, and you know, so dance was what my parents did and what I heard about. Oh it's hill, you know, so I and I had to watch. So I never really wanted to get up and do it until I did.

That's amazing before we move into television, because I know we have to get to that. Like you were in Gypsy with Angela Lansberry. Yeah, I was. Can we talk about that? My sister Zan guest did it on Broadway and in England and a tour of it, and I can't remember why, but they decided to have me audition for yet another tour and I did it and I was eighteen years old, and she taught me so much.

She was very generous and taught me how to project, where to look at her, what to do. She was amazing and watching her every night was an education in how to carry a show because you are the guy. You are taking everyone on this trip. When you're a star of a show like that, including the rest of the cast, and you know, it's like being number one on the call. She there's a lot that's up to you.

And she was an artist at that. Wow at eighteen. Such a baby, Yeah, yeah, I was. I was such a baby. I didn't get it.

And after that there was a barrage of movie auditions and it was like, Okay, this girl is something. And I was with the ICM at the time, and I just auditioned for everything. And I remember I did one movie. Hated it so much I pretty much shut down my own movie career. It was like, now directors have too much power, not creatively, just over humans.

And I hated that. I hated that they could do whatever they wanted and get away with it. So I went, Okay, I'm going to avoid that. I still want to act. So TV sounds like it was an abusive situation.

Yeah it was. And I was young and naive and when I went, hey, I don't want to go back and loop this because if he's going to be there. And the casting director, who was a woman, but his friend, said you're going to do that or all black volume. So I went and did that, and I went not interested in this. I'm not interested in this.

I went to Nightigo Bamford School for Girls in New York City, and at that time, in the seventies, they were teaching us all to be powerful women, and it was like being sucked back in time to be a young woman on a movie set. So it was like, you can't fight this. No one's gonna listen if they're ten more behind you. So TV TV sounds good to me. Directors aren't powerful there because yeah, writers are powerful.

Showrunners are powerful, that's right. And they're usually in another building. They're busy, they're very busy. They don't have time to cause trouble on a set. That's right, that's right.

I want to talk about Ryan's hope. Yeah, because you were pretty. You looked like a very young person then I was. I don't know how old I was, nineteen twenty. They did a Broadway show before that.

I think I was twenty one. Broadway show, Ryan's Hope. It's fine, It's fine, I'm twenty one. Anything to stay in New York. Anything this day, New York.

You want to stand. New series called Ivan the Terrible and I played Svetlana and it was a Russian. It was a Russian. All in the Family was the concept. Okay, okay, So we all lived together in two rooms and there were like twelve of us or something.

But there were some incredible character actors. I was gonna say that sounds like a perfectly great concept for a show. Oh my god, it didn't make it, and I've never seen a copy of it, so I can't judge it. But lu Jacobe, phil Leeds, Despo, Maria Carneilova and more. There were just unbelievable actors in this all from the stage.

Wow. And then Ryan's Hope had a lot of pretty amazing actors in it that went on to do a lot of things, yep, including Star Trek. Including Star Trek yep. Although we never worked together. Kate had already left, but she left like a waft of a reputation.

They loved her, they were convinced she was the next big thing. She was very, very dear to not just the actors' hearts, but the grips, the writers. Everybody loved Kate. That's awesome. Yeah, i'mulgrew.

Yeah, in Ryan's hope. The storyline you're doing was you're Jewish and you're in a relationship with someone who's Catholics, so you guys can't be together. Like that's just like, I don't know. It was just such an interesting storyline for the seventies, right is it like wait, is it the eighteen hundred? But you know, but and yet and yet that was going on, there were those separations.

Yeah, that seems like a real good place to take a break. Yes, we'll be back shortly. Welcome back. Let's continue with our conversation. All right, now we got to get into the eighties television, nineteen eighties.

You do so many shows. Some I do, I do? Oh my god. All right, so I have some questions. Yeah, I'm just gonna like list off some of the stuff I tracked down.

YouTube is fantastic. There's a YouTube channel for you. I don't know if it's yours. I don't know if someone made it for you. Someone made that for me.

Isn't that amazing? Wow? That is amazing Yep, it's amazing. It was very handy. Okay, tell us about kissing George Clooney in the television show Baby Talk, spun off of the movie.

Okay, So George was married to my best friend at the time, Talia Balsam. So there's nothing like having your best friend watch you kiss her man. So there was that, right, But George is pretty George's It wasn't hard. It wasn't hard to you know, look into those eyes. It just wasn't.

But we hung out a lot together. We were a little team of actors. Julia Duffy like I was. You know, I've been sort of forgotten about that show. It was one season, right, Yeah, but can we talk about how short my skirt was?

Yes, walking down a spiral staircase, I was like, what I wore that? And that was like normal? It your legs went on for a long time in that skirt, yeah, because it felt like it ended up here at my chest. That skirt. It was unbelievable.

But that's what we did in the eighties. Certainly, if you didn't have hair, you had to show some leg Something had to be going on, something had to be coming on. Well, and I'm thinking of all the rules, right, it's vixen and murderer, and like what the guest star roles for women were dead body, vixen, my body, that's right. Either I was being murdered or I was murdering someone. I found that if I changed my hair color, I could go back and forth.

Murderers tended to be blondes, very light colored blondes, and my victims were brunettes. So I could go through a season as a murderer and then change my hair color and get some other work in there. I just kept going back and forth. It really did work. I was actually very excited that you did three episodes of Mattlock.

Yeah right, and is that crazy? Yeah? And that was the time again that they would bring the same actors back to play completely different characters. That was fun. That part of it was fun.

And I did the same in mcgiver. I came back for mcgiver, And it was always very interesting to go, especially if I got to see a show like first season and then you come back with seasons later and you see how everyone's doing and they are exhausted, and you know they it's like okay, at first, everyone's singing and happy and joking and then it's just like a drag through. It was punishing what we did back then. It was not doable, especially going on location and doing these physical things, long days, twenty six shows, it's crazy, the number of shows and again and you're like, okay, maybe that's why there was cocaine everywhere. Well, yeah, there was something or bad moves or you know, the regular actors.

I think we all know this now that with a certain amount of lack of sleep, it's as if you are intoxicated, you are not yourself anymore, and it's dangerous. And that's where we were in the eighties. We were intoxicated, well me in the nineties too, intoxicated with a lack of sleep. Yeah, because it was like the grind work, that grind twelve fourteen, sixteen hour days. That's right, that's crazy, all right.

I'll cop more to ask about. I want to ask about working with Stephanie Kramer on Hunter, because we get a lot of people that write to us about Hunter and Stephanie Kramer in particular on the show, she was in person even more beautiful, stunningly beautiful woman and smart. And remember how I said there was this competitive edge with women not with her. She was very kind to me and she didn't have to take the time with the guest actress, the girl of the moment, and she did. She was really warm and sweet.

Okay, that makes me happy and warm in side because we want to get her on the show at some point. And again a number of listeners have reached out about Hunter and Stephanie Kramer and her character as being meaningful to them in the AGA because that relationship never went into a romantic relationship and we're friends. They just worked together. They just worked together, and there was clearly some chemistry, but they just worked together. And so I think I think it was one of those places where it was like, oh, men and women can work together and it doesn't have to be about them then getting together and having a relationship.

Yeah, to this day, there's there always seems to be this push on shows or there's a male and female lead that someday they the characters have to fall in love and get together as opposed to just working together, which is what usually happens with people. It's an old trop and it's also I felt like back in the day it was a scare tactic for everyone. See you put men and women together. This is what's going to happen. I want that.

That was definitely thing to go to work with women. Yeah, that was definitely like what that was like the whole military argument, right, like women can be in a military, they'll be having sex everywhere. You're like, yes, yes, I don't know that that's why women want to be in the military. Okay, so a few more shows Working Girl's talk about movie to television? Can we talk about Working Girl?

And again talk about another amazing cast. You're amazing in it. I watched some episodes of that. It's confusing what it is trying to be, but I love that it becomes this working woman show that's literally about working women. I haven't seen it since it aired, so I can't speak to that too much.

But I, you know, and I was playing the stereotypical nasty boss who's scared of, you know, young women. And how old was I Yeah, you know, it's like so weird you look like you were also twenty five at that point. Yeah, it's so funny. As a matter of fact, I think a Father's Homecoming, I played the mother of the actor Billy Morris set and I think I was six years older. Than him.

It's so weird those you know, once you're a woman, you can be a mother of you know, a forty year old man. It doesn't matter. They're going to buy you because they just need you to be a woman and an attractive and now you're the mother and just accept that. There's no because once you're forty five, you're supposed to, you know, be appreciative of what you've had and go and die somewhere off camera. So upsetting, But you were one of the leads of that show, and I actually liked what you were trying to do, even though again I don't think the writing was helping you do it now, which was also be like you didn't want her to win, but then you would let her win, and then you would start this weird friendship.

I mean, like you saw what that show possibly could have been. Yeah, well, here's the thing. Sondra Bullock is not a sitcom person. She was the film actress then that she is today, and it was a tone she did not wish to go to. And the rest of all of us are like, yeah, we'll do it.

Yeah what any We're right there with you, and she's like, you know, just really considering things and being you know, like a movie actress, you know, with a close up. So I think tonally we were all a little out of step. But good on her for doing what she believed she should be doing because it got her, I think where she wanted to go. Yeah, I mean, but I'm just so fascinated by these eighties television shows that again sort of spun off of movies that were sort of female driven. But you know, a little bit surfacy, I don't know, a little bit of a male gaze.

Yes, yeah, that's the male gaze. Yeah. But you were on Scarecrow Missus King, the first show that we covered on this podcast. Wow, Scarecrow and Missus King. I bet for our listeners, Season four, episode sixteen, Do you Take This Spy?

It's the episode where Bruce Boxleitner and Kate Jackson as Scarecrow and Missus King go off and get married secretly and haven't told anybody, but they do his whole case beforehand. That's keeping them from going off and getting married. That involves you and your husband, and it's a confusing storyline. Who's my husband? I don't remember.

I didn't had him, pay an attention to him. No, obviously I didn't either. There's really like, basically, you're married to someone, but you're having an affair, but you're also trying to sell the artwork of your husband's dad. Sounds like a blonde, you know, like a blonde, except I think you were brunette. Really what Wow, which is weird because like, you know, you're thinking, like I'm a bad girl.

You were a bad girl. But it was a little unsure of at first. There was another spy involved, or a friend of Scarecrows, I don't know, but it's really I was like, oh my god, there's a lot of you in it. You're all over it. Wow.

And you go riding on a horse to escape and then and then those were always horrible moments for me because I'm on a piece of wood going like this, and you know, the crew guys are looking at me like we had to rig this because you can't ride a horse. I'm nervous around horses. I'm very nervous. It did a whole series around horses, four seasons, four seasons around horses. I was scared.

I was scared. I never got easy, and I got hit in the head. I know you talked about so this is on Wildfire. Yeah, four seasons ABC Family, two thousand and five to two thousand and eight. Yes, and you are basically the matriarch of the horse ranch that's doing racing.

Yeah, I raise horses. You raise horses. When I get upset, I get on a horse and ride real fast. So you really had to do a lot of acting. Oh my god, you told this very scary story of doing a stunt that you shouldn't have been doing.

Probably, no, no, I shouldn't have been. One of the joys was we filmed in New Mexico and it was beautiful and insane, and I remember another moment. I'm telling all my scary horse stories. But they they put me on one of these Hollywood horses where you know, if I try to tell it to do something, it would go no, no, I know better than you. So I'm not going left.

I'm going right because that's what they want you to do. It would just do it and not knock me off, which was very kind of it. But one time we were in a cottonwood forest and we were filming something and I'm on my Hollywood horse and all of a sudden there's a wild what do you call it? Group? A wild mustangs wild heard yes, yes, and they surround my horse and they start rearing up, and my horse starts getting scared, and there's a crew around.

What are they doing? But that's the thing. We were filming fast and furious and dealing with animals, and they weren't right there. It happened fast, but the horse guys were there and got me out of it. But that was like wild horses suddenly appearing.

It was almost unthinkable to me that that could happen now in New Mexico, that you could be surrounded by wild horses. It was so wild West to me. You know, I don't want to make you relive it. But what happened was we were using racehorses and there were a bunch of racehorses behind me, and I'm supposed to fall back and get injured by the horses. So we did the stunt of me falling back and falling back onto the ground.

And meanwhile, each time I did it, they would excite the horses so that you could see them, you know, prancing and pounding the earth behind me, so that it looked exciting. And I go back and the last time I did it, and I'm telling you he just glanced my head. He just glanced my head and with a hoof, a giant horse with a hoof. The scary thing was the producer who was Michael Pillar's son and who was also an original producer on the show. He showed me the footage because I was in there to loop and he said, I got to show you something really scary and he showed it to me.

And I hit the ground and you see the horses like this, and you just kind of see that, and I go, he hit me and as I sit up, his back feet go boom right where my head was. It was like a second and a half a second and it was like no time at all. So I didn't do any more stunts after that. I went just not not doing it. I always felt like, no, I have to be a part of it.

The only thing that matters is the take. Get the take so that they can use as much of me as they can, and then they'll go to my stunt person, because you always want to use your stunt person anyway, otherwise they don't get paid, so you know they have to have a chance to do it. Never do it again. I'll never do it again, especially with horses. I was going to say, so you didn't end the show going, and then I fell in love with the horses.

You're just like no, I'm good no. And one of the one of the people taking care of the horses, got her arms shattered from these were these were tense. Horses are tense. Yeah yeah, he's strong, hi strong, high strong. So yeah.

But it was all that said, it was amazing to be away from the watchful eyes of a company, to feel like we were on our own, just making this as best we can and hey, yeah, i'll do that. What if this happens? And it was a very creative, interesting time, and it was interesting to work with so many young people. Originally I had a father on this show, Dennis Weaver, but he died after the first season, so it was me basically and a bunch of very young, talented actors, which was fun. It's beautiful.

And you know, we were in New Mexico because my husband was doing a show around that same time in New Mexico, so we knew about your show. Oh wow when it was being filmed, because the line producer was Dennis Murphy, who had worked with my husband a couple of times. Wow. Anyway, it was. It was just sort of like I was very aware of that show because we were also in New Mexico around a similar time, and you moved out there and lived out there with your kids.

Yeah. I mean, because I had two young boys. It was like we were used to setting up camp fast, get them in school, you know, because I wasn't going to not be with them. But what happened was my older son Buster, when we found out that the show was canceled, and the writers' strike had a lot to do with it. It was just unfortunate timing.

I think we could have gone longer. He was like, I want to finish high school in one place because we come back and forth all over the place. So New York, Vegas, California, New Mexico. He was done. So I said yes, and we stayed there and I could have kept going except the work just there wasn't a lot for me to do.

Yeah, you know, but you like New Mexico. Were you in Albuquerque? Corrales Corals, which is a very unique place with it's a very in every sense mixed community. And there was one artist who walked her lama down the roads every day and she had ribbons in her hair and her lama had ribbons in her hair. It was a very unique place.

Some guy had camels. There was an alpaca group that lived right next door to us. It's amazing to get out of your car and see al pacas and not be interested because you're so used to it, because the camel's far more interesting. Yeah. I would travel for the camels and goats.

Just kill me. Goats. I love goats, and a lot of people had goats there, and that was just entertaining to walk past the goats. You know again, I love the art of that northern New Mexico Santa Fe area and all the little towns around that are these really unique towns. There was one grip that was natives there and he saw my struggles.

He saw the guys trying to teach me to ride, and he said, take your horse, go up in those hills, get lost. When you find your way back, you'll know how to ride him. And I thought, oh my god, I wish I had done that, but it was like, no, I'm still too scared. I'm never doing that. But thank you, but thank you.

That was a moment I won't forget. It was so atmospheric of New Mexico. All right, you did an episode of It's a Living, which is a show that we talk about. Do you remember that. I remember that.

I remember that scene because it was one of the few scenes not in the Bonaventure. It's not in the club. You're a secretariat, a big record company guy. Yeah, and the piano player guy thinks he's going to have a big career and you're there kind of to burst his bubble a little bit. Even after his bubble's been burst, it's kind of lovely, yeah, just to end it for him completely.

It was really hard to be a guest star. It's like entering a new high school every day. You know, everybody's got their click and they know how they work together and hear you come and who are you? And it's very much dependent on if people decide to let you in or not to walk as a guest, as a guest and as you know, as a collaborator, are they going to let you or not? And sometimes they didn't and it was or just didn't or we're, like I said before, we're too exhausted to have the wherewithal to give energy to a new person coming in, So it could be really rough.

Night Court was a rough one that I did. They were not particularly kind, some of them, and they were a hit. So there were a few big egos there, but you know, that became part of my toolbox. I'm not going to care. I'm not going to be affected.

I'm not going to expect you to like me. I'm not going to wonder if you like me or not. I'm here to do a job and I'm going to do it. That's such an amazing place to get as an actor, as anybody, but really as an actor. Yeah, a very healthy place and not please.

Yes, it's a really hard place. I think we missed Remington Steelington Steve. That's one of the other shows that we've talked about so far. They were lovely. He was just the opposite of what I said.

I think he was number one on the call sheet and she was number one on the call sheet. But by season four he was also number one in the Yeah. Yeah, and they were both lovely. But he went out of his way to be kind and sweet and to worry if things were working out for me. It's very very giving.

That's great. So that's going to be for our listeners. Season four, episode three, steel Blushing or naked pictures of Laura Halt show up in a magazine and it turns out to have been photoshopped. But ultimately there's all this intrigue that's about you and your husband being on the run for mobsters. I don't know how that matches up.

I think I was on a golf course, mini golf course. I have a very strong memory of that. Yeah, because that's the big finale where they're trying to they figured it out and they're coming to save you from the mobsters that were supposedly the FBI that have been tracking you guys down. The big fight shootout is in the mini putt putt. I think it's the one in Encino or out in the valley.

I think I recognize. I think so too. I think it is the one that's like Van Eyes in Fan Eyes and Sino like it's I know it because I used to work for an organization called Children of the Night and it was one of the places we would take the kids from the shelter and it was really fun, but it was also a little you had to keep track of them. Wow, you can't leave this area. But it was fun to get him.

Once we got him, going on the Putt Putt. It was good. It's always fun, but I love that space. Do you remember someone He was a personality in the eighties. I believe Shadows Stevens.

There's some radio. Yeah, he did some TV. Yes, yeah, I did a pilot with him that was going to be his show. I cannot remember the name, and it may not have been released. It may have been released as a TV movie, as those failed pilots often were, but I remember, Oh my god, I have I can't remember what you call it, hypothermia when you get cold too fast.

I have it to this day because of that show, because they had me. There was a pool unheated, and the thing was I was supposed to be floating looking like I'm dead in it. So they gave me cement blocks and I was in a silk suit and I had a cement block to take me down to the bottom and then I'd count to ten and then let go and float. So I'm in this pool, unheated. Everybody's in parkas you know, the huge parkas it was night and it was cold.

Oh my god, the water was cold. And finally the stunt guy said, get her out of there. She's not okay. Okay, yeah, and to this day like that, I get cold then, And that's what I remember of that show that damn Pool, Oh my god, what And that was crazy the people they were having actors do stunts they should never have been doing right, right, And you know it's a girl. Will you do it?

Yeah? Okay, because you're behind me, right, So I've got to do it. I've got to do the stunt. I got to do what they ask. All right, Well, we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back and talk about some nineties television that you were in.

What could that be about? Stay duned. So obviously our discussion with Miss Nana Visitor continues and is so great. We are making this a two parter. I don't want you to miss a bit of it.

Please tune in next episode to hear part two of our deep discussion with her, where we really do get to more star Trek, and please help us make the show by going to Patreon dot com slash Eighties tv Ladies. Tell us your thoughts at Eighties tv ladies dot com. As always, we hope Eighties tv Ladies brings you joy and laughter and lots of fabulous old and new shows to watch, all of which will bring us closer toward being amazing ladies of the twenty first century. See you next time. Eighties so Bread, through the City, Things, Money, Mad World,