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Athlete
Superstar Lee Majors - The Bionic Man |
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Superheroes come cheap, some of
them. Take Superman. He finds he's got special powers, whips into
a telephone booth, changes his clothes and flies out. Eureka! Captain
Marvel's an ordinary guy until he utters the magic word Shazam! then
Ka-pow! He's the cloaked avenger! And the cost? Nothing. |
Not so with the Six Million Dollar Man,
no way. When Steve Austin, ex-astronaut and test-pilot came a blinder
and put his plane down harder than he'd bargained, his battered, mutilated
body was caught up by the most secret of America's secret service branches
and pu through the most intricate, ultra modern rehabilitation programs
as half man half machine. Capable of feats that would have made an
Olympic athlete blanch. Capable of running at 60-plus miles per hour.
Capable of jumping undreamed of heights. Capable of seeing further
than the most sophisticated telescope, and virtually- thinking more
speedily than most computers. And capable of such strength that the
strongest of strong room doors might just as well as been made of plywood |
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The
Many Faces of Majors...as Roy Tate in The Men from Shiloh...and
with his wife Farrah. |
| And so this Superhero in the seven figure bracket is a
record holder as the most expensive righter of wrongs ever created. An
investment of the Office of Strategic Operations beyond anything that
ever went before. |
| He is also needless to say, a collosal investment fot the
film company that bought him into being. |
| The Six Million Dollar Man himself started out as virtually
nothing. An ordinary Americn kid growing up in an ordinary American town.
It wasn't till he was 13 years old that he- like many another kid- found
himself alone in the house and began poking around in the attic, just
out of sheer curiosity. What he found in a trunk up there, included a
bundle of newspaper clippings. They all concerned a Mr and Mrs Majors.
It seemen that the woman had been run over and killed by a drunken driver,
and since the Mr Majors had died two years previously in a mill accident.
Their only child, Lee, had been given for adoption to relatives, a Mr
and Mrs Harvey Yeary of Kentucky. There was no need for instinct to play
to play a part. Young Lee had been living with the Yearys for a long
time, and now he knew the truth. |
| "I dont remember what my reaction was,"
says Lee. "Except that there was a sort of numbness and confusion.
I also felt a kind of guilt. You see, the family I had grown up with
had made a lot of sacrifices for me, and I somehow felt I wanted to prove-
from that moment- that I was a somebdy to the world. |
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As
Andy Crocker in the film The Ballad of Andy Crocker... and as he
appeared in the film Will Penny. |
| Perhaps it was the realisation that made the Majors boy,
despite his light build, become a local football hero. He made something
of a name for himself as a member of the Kentucky All State High School
athletics team- and won a scolarship in athletics as a result, to Indiana
University. |
| Lee Majors recalls that at the time were to
become a teacher and football coach. |
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