According to television star Lee Majors, people used to refer to him and his ex-wife Farrah
Fawcett as the “Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie” of their time.
Like that more recent celebrity pairing, the marriage between Lee and Farrah didn’t work
out.
At the time that the two got married, Lee was the much bigger star.
As the marriage went on, Farrah would grow to eclipse her husband in fame thanks to her
work on Charlie’s Angels.
Many people have been curious over the decades why Lee and Farrah separated.
Join Facts Verse as Lee Majors confirms the sad reason for Farrah Fawcett's divorce.
Lee Majors Almost Wasn’t The Six Million Dollar Man
Today, Lee Majors is an actor that’s most fondly remembered for his work on the seminal
action series The Six Million Dollar Man.
At the time that the series had come on the air, Lee had already found a modicum of success
on television.
However, his work as the titular character in the aforementioned series would rocket
him into the stratosphere.
Given how much The Six Million Dollar Man ended up meaning for Lee’s career, it may
surprise many fans to learn that the actor was initially hesitant to play the part.
There were numerous reasons why Lee wasn’t anxious to join the cast of The Six Million
Dollar Man, including parts of the show’s concept that the actor didn’t vibe with.
When Lee Majors expressed his distaste for the concept of The Six Million Dollar Man,
his words didn’t fall on deaf ears.
The concept of the show was tweaked considerably thanks to Lee’s creative input.
There were a few stipulations that Lee had when it came to joining the cast of the program.
For one thing, Lee didn’t like how much emphasis was being put on the main character’s
bionic abilities.
At the time that Lee Majors was offered to play the titular character on The Six Million
Dollar Man, the show was going by the working title of Cyborg.
The lack of humanity wasn’t appealing to Lee.
The actor requested that the character be more human, and the show’s name was changed
to The Six Million Dollar Man.
The title of the show and the titular character’s lack of humanity weren’t the only problems
that Lee Majors had with the original concept for The Six Million Dollar Man.
The show was largely influenced by the 1960s Batman series, which was incredibly campy.
Lee was hesitant to join a series with a similarly campy tone, but he was promised that The Six
Million Dollar Man would be a good deal more serious than it’s comic-book predecessor.
Before the series proper came on the air, The Six Million Dollar Man got it’s start
via a pair of made-for-television features.
The second of these features included a theme song performed by Dusty Springfield.
The Six Million Dollar Man Was a Huge Success The Dusty Springfield theme song that was
recorded for The Six Million Dollar Man was similar in tone to the opening-credits songs
that were being used in James Bond features around the time.
This was another aspect of The Six Million Dollar Man that Lee Majors found a little
bit cheesy.
Thankfully, after the two made-for-television features were successful enough to warrant
a series, Lee was able to convince those involved to eschew the cheesy theme song.
Another stipulation that Lee Majors had when it came to The Six Million Dollar Man is that
he didn’t want the show to feature bad guys dying.
Instead, he simply beats them up.
The Six Million Dollar Man became a major success, and it was obvious that Lee Majors
deserved a fair amount of the credit.
Not only was Lee the perfect actor to portray the titular character, but the aforementioned
creative control he had in regard to the show’s concept paid off immensely.
Without Lee’s creative input, The Six Million Dollar Man arguably wouldn’t have struck
a chord with audiences in the same way that it did.
Two years into the show’s five-season run, Lee Majors came up with another stipulation.
After two seasons of The Six Million Dollar Man, Lee Majors thought that it was time to
shake things up.
His character had yet to have a love interest on the show, and Lee felt that this was a
shame.
An actress by the name of Lindsay Wagner was hired into the series to play a new romantic
interest for the titular hero.
Lindsay was hired onto the series in 1975.
Then, in a special two-part episode, her character was killed off.
The death of her character made fans so upset that it eventually had to be undone.
Lindsay’s character was brought back to life, and given her own spin-off!
That spin-off was called The Bionic Woman.
Though it didn’t last as long as The Six Million Dollar Man, it was a minor success.
It lasted two seasons, from 1976 to 1978.
Why The Six Million Dollar Man Came to an End
The Six Million Dollar Man proper aired from 1974 to 1978, though the first made-for-television
feature based on the concept premiered in 1973.
All in all, three made-for-television features and five seasons of the show were produced.
According to Lee Majors, he was surprised when the show was taken off the air after
only five seasons.
The show was still incredibly successful, but the hefty budget made the studio feel
as if producing more episodes wasn’t feasible.
They felt that there were more than enough episodes to keep the show on the air via syndication.
Though Lee Majors wasn’t expecting The Six Million Dollar Man to end so soon, he wasn’t
too upset about it.
For five years, working on the series had eaten up the majority of the actor’s free
time.
This was made all the more cumbersome when you consider the fact that Lee had just married
his second wife in 1973.
During the years that Lee was working on The Six Million Dollar Man, he was also trying
to make his new marriage work.
The woman that Lee was married to over the course of The Six Million Dollar Man’s filming
was Farrah Fawcett.
When Lee and Farrah married, Farrah wasn’t a star in her own right.
However, she was a model.
When Lee and Farrah married, the intended arrangement was that Farrah would stay at
home and prepare Lee’s meals while Lee would continue his career as a television star.
Farrah could do her modeling work in her spare time, and it wouldn’t interfere with how
much time she got to spend with her husband.
Even if Lee had to work long days due to his television commitments, Farrah would still
be available whenever he was done.
However, not long after the marriage started, Farrah started becoming a major celebrity
in her own right.
In 1976, Farrah was cast to play one of the leads on the hit series Charlie’s Angels.
Why Lee Majors and Farrah Fawcett Got Divorced After Charlie’s Angels became a big success,
the dynamic of the marriage between Lee Majors and Farrah Fawcett changed considerably.
Now, the two were barely able to see each other whatsoever.
Lee wasn’t upset at his wife for her newfound success.
Instead, he was simply sad that he was hardly able to see her anymore.
Farrah felt the same way, but she was also incredibly grateful that she was becoming
a star in her own right.
When The Six Million Dollar Man came to an end, Lee may have envisioned that he was finally
going to be able to spend more time with Farrah.
However, this didn’t end up being the case.
Farrah was still busy.
In fact, by the time of The Six Million Dollar Man’s cancellation, Farrah had grown to
eclipse her husband in terms of fame.
After Farrah Fawcett announced that she and Lee Majors were separating and before the
divorce officially went through, the two stars spent a romantic day together in Atlanta,
Georgia.
The romantic getaway was part reunion, part farewell.
However, it shows that there was truly no bad blood between the two performers once
they decided to call it quits on their marriage.
The two even stayed the night together, which is something that the majority of couples
would have a hard time when preparing for a divorce.
After divorcing from Farrah Fawcett, Lee Majors took a hiatus from the entertainment industry
and traveled around the world.
According to him, he was surprised to see what a major impact his work on The Six Million
Dollar Man had on people across the globe.
Eventually, he returned to the world of acting.
At the age of 83, Lee still shows up in the media every once in a while.
Sadly, the same can’t be said for Farrah Fawcett.
Farrah passed away in June of 2009.
At the time, she was 62 years old.
Upon Farrah’s passing, Lee had plenty of kind words to share about his ex-wife.
Lee and Farrah Both Moved On Besides Farrah Fawcett, Lee Majors has had
three other wives over the course of his lifetime.
Though Farrah Fawcett was only ever married to Lee, she had a couple of other serious
relationships during hers.
Prior to Farrah, Lee was married to a woman by the name of Kathy Robinson from 1961 to
1964.
After Farrah, Lee was married to a Playboy model named Karen Velez from 1988 to 1994.
Today, Lee is married to a much younger woman by the name of Faith.
Faith is over three decades younger than Lee, and the May-December romance turned plenty
of heads when the two married in 2002.
However, the fact that Lee and Faith are still married after two decades shows they love
each other.
Though Farrah Fawcett never remarried after divorcing from Lee Majors, she did have another
serious romantic partner.
After Lee, Farrah became romantically involved with movie star Ryan O’Neal.
Aside from a brief separation in the late 1990s due to Ryan’s infidelity, the two
remained together until Farrah Fawcett’s death.
Before meeting Lee Majors, Farrah dated a football player named Greg Lott.
Lee Majors and Farrah Fawcett seemed to have truly loved one another, but they couldn’t
make their relationship work because they didn’t have enough time together.
Now it’s time to hear from you: did you know that Lee Majors is married to a woman
several decades younger than him and that he and Farrah Fawcett commemorated their divorce
by spending a romantic night in Atlanta?
Comment down below!