A tragic diagnosis; a years-long struggle with addiction; the early loss of a
parent. "Married… with Children" spent 11 seasons making light of family dysfunction,
but the real life experiences of the show’s cast are anything but funny.
Katey Sagal embodied Peg Bundy with panache and zeal.
"Hey, did anybody hear any noises last night?" "Well, your father had gas…"
But behind the snazzy leopard print outfits and outrageous bouffant lay a deep sadness.
Katey is the daughter of director Boris Sagal. In 1981, he was tragically killed
in a helicopter accident when filming the TV movie "World War III." According to UPI,
at one point, he turned towards the rear of the helicopter, where he was caught
up in its blades and severely injured. He died several hours later, aged 57.
Reflecting on the loss, Sagal told ABC News that she was shocked when she heard of her
father's death, as she had only spoken to him the day before. In her memoir, "Grace Notes,"
she details how she did not get to see him in hospital before he died; by the time she had
arrived in Oregon, where he was hospitalized, he succumbed to his injuries. Sagal wrote:
"The whole thing was surreal. Just like that,
he was gone, just as he and I were starting to get to know each other."
"My way of dealing things, in the moment, was to very much check out."
Despite the magnitude of the loss, Sagal has been able to find comfort through
the realization that her father is always with her, reflecting:
"I have become him in so many ways. Truly, daddy's girl."
As Kelly Bundy, Christina Applegate personified peroxide blond '90s chic,
becoming one of many it-girls of the era. Applegate played Kelly with aplomb,
even when faced with some of the cruder put-downs directed at the character.
"They took my creative virginity!"
"She's got a point there, Dad, she coulda still had that."
In 2008, eleven years after "Married... with Children" ended, a then 36-year-old Applegate
was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy. She told Oprah Winfrey:
"It can be very painful. It's also a part of you that's gone,
so you go through a grieving process and a mourning process."
"Not that many people know that that happens to women my age,
or women in their 20s, and so this is my opportunity now to go out and fight."
Applegate's mom, actor Nancy Priddy, is also a breast cancer survivor and
a carrier of the BRCA gene. Poignantly, Applegate decided to take some nude photos
prior to having her breasts removed, as she explained, "so I can kind of remember them."
Unfortunately, the invasive surgery did not end there for Applegate. In 2017,
she revealed to Today that she'd elected to have her fallopian tubes and ovaries removed,
noting that her cousin died of ovarian cancer. She told the outlet that she
fears for her daughter's future; due to the BRCA gene, Applegate revealed:
"The chances that my daughter is BRCA
positive are very high... It breaks my heart to think that's a possibility."
Applegate is now cancer-free and raising awareness of the disease via Right Action for Women.
Poor Bud was always the butt of the joke on "Married... with Children."
Despite his intelligence, the teen just couldn't catch a break. Since playing Bud,
David Faustino's career has ebbed and flowed, appearing in bit parts on TV shows,
and truly cementing his typecast status with a stint on series "Celebrity Boot Camp" in 2002.
"Bud Bundy, right?"
"Yes sir!" "You gotta be kidding me."
One might assume Faustino would be set for life thanks to the sitcom, but that isn't exactly the
case. He told Access in 2009 that he receives zero residuals from "Married... with Children," saying:
"We got really screwed over. I mean, the show [...] was on for 11 years, and we all
made really good money while we were doing it. [...] But residuals — we all got screwed over."
This was due to the fact that Fox, then being a cable channel and thus under
a cable contract, was not obligated to pay residuals. Faustino conceded:
"'Married... with Children' has made over a billion dollars,
and we didn't really get a piece of that."
Though he hasn't landed any other megahit sitcoms since "Married... with Children,"
Faustino has kept working. He has a number of voice acting credits,
he hosted a radio show called "Old Scratch Radio," and he and fellow
TV star Corin Nemec star in the "Curb Your Enthusiasm"-esque web series "Star-ving."
There's perhaps no sitcom character who encapsulates the misery of working a job
you hate better than Al Bundy. While Ed O'Neill earned big bucks for the role,
his early life was anything but prosperous.
"10am on Thursday, I've gotta come up with a small fortune.
Well, let's see what we got here, uh, free money for fools? Nope, nothin' here."
As O'Neill explained to Wealth Simple, he was raised in a working class family in Ohio:
"We lived in a ramshackle apartment building on the north side of town,
between the train tracks and public housing projects."
Both of his parents worked, but money was tight, and as O'Neill explained,
it wasn't always a given that they'd be able to afford basic necessities. Like utilities.
His father worked in his hometown's steel mill, and O'Neill eventually began working there, too.
The gig was tough; the conditions in the mill were hazardous at best. He divulged to Wealth Simple:
"You could only stay inside a furnace for five minutes at a stretch, because you'd
literally catch on fire. You could feel the graphite in the air singeing your lungs."
Discussing his upbringing in an interview with Capital and Main,
O'Neill revealed that his time at the mill highlighted to him the importance of
unionization. Having faced unemployment after a brief stint as a footballer,
he decided to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He mused:
"You had to assert yourself, because otherwise they weren't gonna give anything to you. [...] So,
I've always been, in my heart of hearts, a teamster, a union guy."
Having survived cancer, Christina Applegate was faced with yet another illness over
a decade later. In 2021, she revealed that she had been diagnosed with the neurological
disease multiple sclerosis . The illness causes pain and mobility problems, though severity
varies. On Twitter, Applegate reflected on her diagnosis with good humor, sharing:
"It's been a strange journey. But I have been so supported by people
that I know who also have this condition. It's been a tough road. But as we all know,
the road keeps going. Unless some a--hole blocks it."
She sought comfort in another actor living with MS: Selma Blair, who wrote to Applegate:
"Loving you always. Always here. As are our kids. Beating us up with love."
During a twitter Q&A with fans,
Applegate opened up about her illness and pondered the fact that both she and Blair,
her co-star in 2002 comedy "The Sweetest Thing," share the diagnosis. Recalling the great time she
had on set with Blair, she conceded that it was, quote, "sad both of us have MS."
In Season 6 of "Married... with Children," both Peg and
her neighbor Marcy announced they were pregnant, much to everyone's surprise.
"This is truly a joyous day for us all."
The writers decided on this storyline for Peg because Katey Sagal became
pregnant in 1991. In the episode "Al Bundy, Shoe Dick," however,
the plotline was revealed to be a dream. It was a decision the writers
made out of respect for Sagal, who ended up suffering a stillbirth during filming.
During an appearance on "The View," she opened up about the
intense guilt she felt after the tragedy, saying:
"It was a very difficult thing. I lost a child at almost eight months."
"I just couldn't let go of the control, of somehow I had done something wrong."
She revealed that the loss took a toll on her mental health and she struggled
to leave the house afterwards. A year later, she was able to regain control
over her life thanks to some wise words offered by a Buddhist friend.
"Sometimes we have these little souls that come in and out, and that their mission is completed."
When Sagal released her debut album, "Well..." in 1994,
she paid tribute to the baby she lost on the song "Can't Hurry the Harvest."
After "Married... with Children," Katey Sagal enjoyed further sitcom fame on "8
Simple Rules." Soon, however, tragedy would strike. In 2003, Sagal's onscreen husband,
comedy mainstay John Ritter, began feeling unwell while rehearsing on set,
per Today. He was sent to the emergency room and died soon after, at the age of 54.
Although his death was deemed a heart attack, the actor's widow, Amy Yasbeck, believed that it could
have been prevented. Yasbeck claimed that doctors had misinterpreted Ritter's medical results,
leading to his untimely death. Accordingly, she filed a lawsuit. As reported by People,
Sagal was devastated by Ritter's passing and testified in his wrongful death trial, telling
the jury as she wept that she "loved John." The doctors were ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing.
Ritter's death was poignantly written into "8 Simple Rules," showing both the
cast and the Hennessy family dealing in real time with the tragic loss. Opening
up about her friend's passing, Sagal told EW that she was grateful for being given
the opportunity to grieve on screen, stating that it wouldn't have felt
right to continue with the show without addressing the tragedy. She reflected,
"What I loved about that job was John Ritter. John was an amazing person. I'll never forget
when I had to audition for that job, [...] John whispered to me while I was in there,
'You're my favorite. You're the one I want.' Which was so, so sweet."
"Off you go."
In her memoir, "Grace Notes," Katey Sagal opened up about her history of alcohol and
drug use. She recalled befriending Lorna Luft, daughter of Judy Garland, when she was a kid,
and claimed that the two of them would take their mothers' prescription pills.
It wasn't long before she didn't have to swipe someone else's meds. Sagal wrote:
"When I was fourteen, our family doctor prescribed me diet pills,
and so I had pills of my own. I got the message: if you feel bad, take a pill."
"I definitely took to those diet pills."
Sagal eventually came to terms with her struggles with addiction. As she recalled to ABC News,
it was thanks to an encounter with someone in recovery on a
TV set that she decided to get sober. Suddenly, she realized that sobriety,
something she had long deemed an impossibility, was a reality entirely within her grasp.
Speaking with Bustle, Sagal revealed that the death of her father motivated her to
try to quit drugs and alcohol. Then, just two months after getting clean, she scored
the role of Peg Bundy on "Married... with Children." She told the outlet:
"I stayed sober, and watched all the people around me, and I learned how to do what I do now."
Sagal has now been sober for over 30 years.
Katey Sagal's mother lived with heart disease for many years,
and these health struggles would be the cause of immense pain for both herself and her
daughter. In her memoir, Sagal reflected on the agony of witnessing her mother,
Sara Zwilling, suffer from the disease. She wrote in a harrowing admission:
"Even then as a teenager, I knew there was only so much I could do;
that hers was a fragile life, and that it was only a matter of time before there would be an exit."
Tragically, Zwilling's health struggles led to her attempting suicide on more than one
occasion. Then, when Sagal was just 21 years old, her adolescent sisters discovered that
Zwilling had died in her sleep from a heart attack. Sagal, however, believes that her mom
actually died by suicide, hypothesizing that the family doctor may have claimed Zwilling's
heart condition was the cause of death as a way of sparing her and her sisters' feelings.
Sagal told ABC News that since her mother had been sick for a long time, her death,
while devastating, wasn't that surprising.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter,
Sagal said that writing her memoir was beneficial to re-evaluating her
relationship with her parents and learning to truly appreciate them. She reflected:
"It allowed me to miss them. [...] To revisit them is just a way for
me to acknowledge how much I love and miss them."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts,
please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.