Lindsay Wagner's Main TV Roles Show Character(s) Warehouse 13 Dr. Vanessa… The Six Million Dollar Man Jaime Sommers The Bionic Woman Jaime Sommers Jessie Dr. Jessie … Whodunnit? Lindsay Wag…

Main Movie Roles

BIOGRAPHY:

Lindsay Jean Wagner (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Jaime Sommers in the 1970s television series The Bionic Woman (for which she won an Emmy Award), though she has maintained a lengthy career in a variety of other film and television productions since.

Wagner was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Marilyn Louise (née Thrasher) and German American William Nowels Wagner. When she was seven years old, her parents divorced and her mother moved with her to the northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Eagle Rock, near Pasadena. Another move with her mother and Ted Ball, brought Wagner to Portland, Oregon, where she attended David Douglas High School and appeared in a number of school plays. Wagner was a graduate student at the University of Oregon.

Wagner's first career was as a model, but she soon grew to hate it and turned to acting, guest-starring in such television shows as Night Gallery (1970), The Bold Ones: The Lawyers (1969) and Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969).

Although she starred in the critically acclaimed The Paper Chase (1973), stardom beckoned when she guest-starred on The Six Million Dollar Man (1974). Her appearance was so well received that she was offered her own show, The Bionic Woman (1976), even though her character Jamie Sommers died on the The Six Million Dollar Man. Fortunately for Lindsay, Universal Pictures--the studio that made SMDM--had let her contract lapse, and she was able to cut a lucrative deal for herself. She went on to win an Emmy Award for The Bionic Woman (1976), and her talent, beauty and popularity enabled her to parlay that show into a career as the "queen" of made-for-TV movies and miniseries, starring in 30 of them. Besides her Emmy award, she has been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and a Cable Ace Award.

Wagner continued to act in the 1990s and 2000s, though in less prominent roles, such as a small part in the action movie Ricochet (1991). Her most recent projects have included the 2005 telemovie, Thicker than Water with 'Melissa Gilbert', Buckaroo: The Movie (2005), and Four Extraordinary Women (2006). In 2010, Wagner began a recurring role as Dr. Vanessa Calder in the SyFy channel's hit drama Warehouse 13, and played the character again in its Syfy sister show Alphas in 2011.

In the fall semester of 2013, she began to teach at San Bernardino Valley College in southern California (Acting and Directing for Television and Film, Motion Picture Production) as an adjunct faculty member.

Wagner stars in a new Hallmark Channel Original Movie The Thanksgiving House (2013). She plays Abigail Mather.

Prior to being married, Wagner lived with Captain Daniel M. Yoder (USAF), until he went to Vietnam. She has been married four times. From 1971–3, she was married to music publisher Allan Rider. From 1976–9, she was married to actor Michael Brandon. In 1981, she married stuntman Henry Kingi, whom she met on the set of The Bionic Woman. Wagner had two sons with Kingi; Dorian (b. 1982) and Alex (b. 1986), but the couple divorced in the late 1980s. Wagner then married TV producer Lawrence Mortorff in (1990), but they too divorced a couple of years later.

Dallas star 'Linda Gray' was once married to Wagner's uncle, Ed Thrasher. Wagner and Gray also played romantic rivals in the television movie The Two Worlds of Jenny Logan (1979).


TRIVIA:

• Father Bill Wagner was a school photographer.
• Since she was a teen, has always hated her legs (especially her knees) and has done everything possible to avoid showing them on film or TV.
• Was born on the same day as 'Meryl Streep' (qv).
• Lived in Portland, Oregon and attended David Douglas High School as a teenager.
• Daughter of 'Marilyn Ball' (qv), a retired building contractor and production consultant on daughter Lindsay's, _Police Story: Burnout (1988) (TV)_ (qv) and _The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story (1988) (TV)_ (qv).
• Niece of 'Linda Gray (I)' (qv)
• Mother, with ex-husband/stuntman 'Henry Kingi' (qv), of two sons: Dorian (born 1982) and Alex (born 1986). Her stepson is stuntman 'Henry Kingi Jr.' (qv) (born in 1970).
• Is a long-practicing vegan who wrote "The High Road to Health: A Vegetarian Cookbook"