Before he called himself Bill he was Wilfred Bailey Everett Bixby III born during the Great Depression in the Golden Gate City. His great love affair with the theater began for him when he attended San Francisco's Lowell High School, he would then pursue acting at Berkeley, ultimately landing roles in various situation comedies beginning with Hennessy, a short lived series that starred fellow actor Jackie Cooper. Bixby, with his boyish good looks would moonlight as a model. In 1963, the actor's first substantial role would ensue with the science-fiction comedy series that has since become a cult favorite, My Favorite Martian, it is here that Bixby plays newshawk Tim O'Hara who shares house with an extraterrestrial (Ray Walston ) who pretends to be his dear Uncle Martin. My Favorite Martian would catapult Bixby to stardom.
On the heels of his success with My Favorite Martian, Bixby would star in subsequent television series, more notably were The Courtship of Eddie's Father, based on the Vincent Minnelli's eponymous feature in 1963 and the one season 1973 sleeper series The Magician, where the actor uses no sleight of hand and actually performs all the magic himself - in the preamble for the series , it is announced that all of the magic is performed by Bixby without any such use of trick photography. In fact when in pre-production where it was suggested that trick photography be utilized, the actor vehemently insisted that he would learn all the tricks himself under the tutelage of technical advisor and 'magic' consultant Mark Wilson, Wilson would also appear intermittently on the series as one of Tony Blake's assistants.
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| Bixby is Daddy Dearest - From The Courtship of Eddie's Father with Brandon Cruz. |
Following the cancellation of The Magician, Bixby would go on to host exclusively for the NBC network, Magic extravaganzas, appositely timed during the mid-Seventies where there was a growing interest in the Magic arts. Another highlight for the actor was the five-season series The Incredible Hulk (1978-1982) where Bixby portrayed Dr David Banner, the series although a success and having a moderate shelf-life, would be much to the chagrin of comic book purists, yet it would also become the series most synonymous with Bixby. But the actor did possess more range than most realized, and ironically would showcase his expansive abilities best when he was the guest star of various crime shows from the golden age of televisual detectives. In a standout episode from the fourth season of Quinn Martin's The Streets of San Francisco, titled Police Buff, Bixby portrays the protagonist who has a toxic obsession with the boys in the blue and in fact disguises himself as one of them; there is a memorable scene where Bixby's character has dialogue with a dummy clad in his police uniform, a scene that was on par with Laurence Olivier's Prince of Denmark. In another unforgettable guest appearance on the first series of Barnaby Jones, in the episode titled To Denise With Love, a transfixing Bixby is Alex Chandler, the kept husband of a millionairess who finds himself involved in a deadly affair, yet another of the many guest-starring roles the actor would pull off all precision and aplomb.
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| Maybe David Banner just had a bad case of food poisoning (The Incredible Hulk) |
During the early 1980's Bill Bixby would both produce and star in a short-lived but acclaimed one season series (1983-1984) vis-a-vis Mariette Hartley. Bixby had a hankering to direct again, his first forays were an octet of episodes from The Courtship of Eddie's Father. And directing again he would do, there were a few one-off series and television movies to helm until at last he would secure a steady gig with the popular NBC comedy series Blossom starring Mayim Bialik , which he worked on the third and fourth season and laudably, never one to let even terminal illness slow him down - straight until a week before his premature death at the age of 59 in 1993, Bixby is survived by his third wife, artist Judith Kliban who in her recollection of Bixby conveys that very early in the days of their courting, Bixby suffered a severe infection that nearly resulted in a coma, he made a brief recovery and it was then that Kliban had a proposition for the actor; ' If you live, I'll marry you.' Although sadly their marriage would last but six weeks until his death, Kliban was quite the tonic for Bixby who lovingly expressed in his last days regarding the importance of Kliban's love and devotion- 'I don't feel like I'm hanging on to life by my nails anymore;that's the difference it has made to me.'
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| The original party line - they're all connected, with Ray Walston and Pamela Britton (My Favorite Martian) |
Both actor Hugh Jackman who hosts a certain ironic resemblance to the late Bixby,and producers at the TNT television network have expressed interest in producing bio-pics of the life of a one most indomitable Bill Bixby.