Fans of The Fall Guy might remember Heather Thomas as the stunning stunt double-turned-bounty hunter who shared the screen with Lee Majors in the ’80s.
Besides being an actress, Thomas was also a model who graced posters in bedrooms and dorms across the country. However, once The Fall Guy wrapped in 1986, she slowly pulled back from Hollywood and eventually stepped away from acting completely at the age of just 41.
Recently, gorgeous Heather Thomas opened up of the reasons that led to the decision to end her acting career.
Speaking on Still Here Hollywood podcast with Steve Kmetko, she explained that her role of Jody Banks came with a toll—a flood of stalkers that simply wouldn’t leave her alone.
The former actress revealed that the situation was “really bad” and that at one point, she was dealing with “at least two a week.”
“I had tons of restraining orders,” she further shared, adding: “I had two little girls, and a guy’s jumping our gate with a giant buck knife. In those days, I don’t know if this is true now, but people would fixate. You could be in a soap commercial, and they would fixate on you.”
She explained that at the time “there weren’t a lot of stalker laws, and I just needed to be home anyway.”
Thomas recalled: “Someone sent me a box of bullets, and people would send me funeral wreaths they stole from a graveyard,” and that she “always had a bodyguard in the house because that’s where I didn’t want to come home to a dark house.”
She shared one specific incident where she was forced to shoot one of her stalkers. “I had one guy one night cut my screen in my bedroom and got in, and I shot him,” she revealed. The gun didn’t have any real bullets but gun salt, and she never learned if the perpetrator was ever jailed.
During her time on The Fall Guy, Thomas took on a role in the 1982 teen comedy Zapped! with Scott Baio and guest-starred on The Love Boat and T.J. Hooker. Later, she appeared in films such as Cyclone (1987), several TV movies, and smaller projects, including Red Blooded American Girl, with her final film being My Giant (1998).
In 1992, Thomas married entertainment attorney Harry Marcus “Skip” Brittenham.
The couple have three daughters, Shauna and Kristina from Brittenham’s previous marriage, and daughter India whom they welcomed in 2000.
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