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            by Greg Bulmash - Senior Editor<br><br>
            March 24, 1999<br><br>
            Once a month we'll be departing from the briefs format to take a 
            more in-depth look at a single celebrity. This month, our in-depth 
            profilee is Lee Majors, better known to children of the '70s as "The 
            Six Million Dollar Man."<br><br>

            We start with Lee in late 1996 when he was online. To promote 
            Quicken's new insuremarket.com, where you can get quotes and buy 
            insurance online, Lee helped with the roll-out press conference and 
            bought a term life policy online through the site. The coverage 
            amount? Six million dollars, of course.<br><br>

            This was quickly followed with a guest appearance on CBS' "Promised 
            Land" in November of '96. That was followed by a January '97 "where 
            are they now" piece in Entertainment Weekly which sparked a bit of a 
            rumor fest. Within days of the publication of the EW piece, the 
            online gossip column, Cyber Sleaze seemingly maliciously warped the 
            facts of Lee's volunteer work at his daughter's school as a "lunch 
            dad," claiming he was making "a living for himself - as a school 
            cafeteria worker." Considering that Cyber Sleaze took quotes right 
            from the EW piece, it's obvious they'd read it, but their claims of 
            his making a living at it were, in the kindest wording possible, an 
            embellishment.<br><br>

            At the same time that Sleaze was sleazily starting malicious rumors, 
            the EW piece was citing Lee's work in the films Rescue Me (currently 
            on video - with Will Friedle and Jennifer Love Hewitt - airing this 
            Saturday, March 27, on MoMax at 3:30 a.m.) and The Protector (coming 
            to video March 30th - produced by Roger Corman, starring Ed 
            Marinaro).<br><br>

            Also in 1997 he was developing a show in which he played a NASCAR 
            driver, to be shot in Florida where he lives with his family, but 
            the pilot was never picked up to go to series. But he would be seen 
            on TV again quite a bit with the Sci-Fi Channel re-running "The Six 
            Million Dollar Man," Fx re-running "The Fall Guy," and co-starring 
            in the made-for-cable flick The Lost Treasure of Dos Santos. If that 
            wasn't enough, he was also the spokesman for the Bio-Back back 
            support belt, doing an infomercial for it with sports figures Eddie 
            Arcaro and Whitey Ford.<br><br>

            Open 1998 and Lee's in Dallas in January at a trade show 
            demonstrating the Bio-Back from 11-3 daily and making himself 
            available to local journalists for interviews in the off hours.
            We started with Lee's $6,000,000 insurance policy to show that he's 
            got a sense of humor about his cult status, but he went on to 
            downright parody it later in 1998, appearing in a series of 
            commercials for the Colorado State Lottery. Dressed up in his red 
            Steve Austin jogging suit, he jogged around and encountered lottery 
            winners. The concept was that they were also multi-million-dollar 
            people because of their multi-million-dollar wins. An example of 
            this could be found in his encounter with $7 million winner, Bill 
            Pennell.<br><br>


            Majors: "Bill, Bill, Bill. Seven million, huh? I bet you're 
            completely bionic."<br>
            Penell: "No, I don't think so."<br>
            Majors: "Well, there's only one way to find out. Arm wrestle."<br>
            The final shot is of Penell rubbing his arm.<br>
            Majors: "Gee, Bill, I'm really sorry man. For $7 million, I thought 
            you had something."<br><br>

            The series won a number of awards in a recent awards ceremony in 
            Denver for Colorado regional advertising. The one that won for Best 
            of Show was called "Tea." In it, Lee meets up with Mary Cunningham, 
            a $1.6 million winner. His challenge this time... despite all the 
            stuff she's acquired (new house, new car), she still doesn't have 
            her own sound effects. He then makes "beeping sounds."<br><br>

            Most recently Lee popped up on TV in December of last year in a 
            guest shot on "Walker, Texas Ranger" where he played an evil 
            sherrif. And next month, Lee turns 59.<br><br>

            As for the long-rumored theatrical movie adaptation of the series, 
            well, that seems to have fallen into development limbo. When I 
            looked into it in 1997, Richard "Oscar Goldman" Anderson was 
            producing it at Universal. Originally they'd hired Kevin Smith 
            (Clerks, Dogma) to write the script, but for whatever reason, they 
            decided it wasn't good enough. Joss Whedon ("Buffy The Vampire 
            Slayer") was purportedly brought on. And then... There were rumors 
            of another writer taking over from Wheedon, but they were countered 
            with rumors of executive shuffling causing the project to lose its 
            support. Then if you add in the housecleaning they did at Universal 
            after their financially disastrous 1998, plus all the buying and 
            selling of business units going on... I won't pronounce the project 
            completely dead, but it's been buried alive and is slowly 
            suffocating.<br><br>

            We don't have any authorized photos to display here, but if you want 
            then-and-now photos, we do have links to where you can find some.
            Then: The Sci-Fi Channel's official site with bionic image gallery.
            Now: The Bio-Back<br><br>