Jaime was the secret government agent with bionic parts giving her superhuman strength. As the women's movement of the 1970s was gaining momentum, she was a role model for young women to strive to achieve their goals.
Jaime first appeared in a two-part episode of “The Six Million Dollar Man” as an old flame of Steve Austin (Lee Majors). In the first part, Jaime and Steve went skydiving and when Jaime's parachute malfunctioned she crashed to the ground, suffering tramatic injuries.
At Austin's insistence, Jaime's body was reconstructed witjh bionic parts, including a bionic ear and two bionic legs that allowed her to run up to 60 mph. Jaime's new parts, however, were rejected by her body and she died on the operating table.
The character was so popular with viewers that ABC brought the character back to life with some medical hocus-pocus and spun off a new series for Jaime. Lindsay said that the network “chased me forever and kept throwing money at me” until she agreed to reprise the role.
“For me it didn't have enough to grab me. For me the acting was about an ability to communicate through story things that are important to me.”
Jaime was a groundbreaking character, an independent woman who had strength but also showed her vulnerabilities, and Lindsay believed that the character was instrumental in progressing the women's movement of the 1970s.
No. 26
Classic TV Beauties 1970s Countdown
LINDSAY WAGNER as Jaime Sommers in "The Bionic Woman"
.“This was the beginning of a whole gender cultural revolution. And those [young viewers] became the first wave of women to take positions that'd never been taken by women in the business world, in the political world.
“In that generation when they got to their thirties, the women started coming to me: 'You have no idea how much that show meant to me.' They'd tell stories about how they pushed through.”
Although Jaime was a role model for young females, the blonde beauty also attracted her share of young male viewers.
Lindsay told the blog Retroality TV:
“So many men have told me, ‘I used to lie to my friends, that I had to go home because my mom wanted me to go home, because I wanted to see “The Bionic Woman” but I didn’t want to tell anyone. I would tell them that I wanted to go home to see “The Six Million Dollar Man,” but I had to hide the fact that I’d go home to watch “The Bionic Woman.”'”
In a 2011 article in LA Yoga magazine, Lindsay said she pushed the writers to develop the characters and the plot beyond the good cop/bad cop formula so prevelant on TV.
“I was challenging the writers and producers to go deeper with the stories beyond the typical black and white, good and bad cop in a skirt. I was happy because everyone loved the challenges of trying to make complex stories work within the formula of the series, even when we were under the gun because we were the cutting edge of technology at the time, with a lot of stunts and usually only one camera.”
While many actors dislike being known for one particular character, Lindsay said being associated with Jaime her entire career was never a problem for her.
“We put so much of our heart and soul into that and trying to make something meaningful, that to me it just says it worked,” she said in an interview with www.tvtango.com. “It doesn’t say to me that I’m stuck in that image, because I went on to do all kind of things, playing all kinds of different characters.
“The show was never a hindrance to me... that character was so much learning for me about the industry, about how to tell a story and how to put things in it.”
“The Bionic Woman” aired three seasons (1976-78), 58 episodes. It was canceled the same season that “The Six Million Dollar Man” was dropped.
Born in Los Angeles, Lindsay moved with her family to Portland, Oregon and appeared in high school plays. After high school she attended the University of Oregon.
“I started taking acting classes when I was 12. It turned out to be sort of like therapy for me,” she told the website www.teentalkingcircles.com. “I was working on a good case of ulcers from the time I was 14 until I was 20. When I started acting…it was like someone had taken a knife and lanced this huge swollen wound inside me. Finally I had a place where I could express my pain and I felt safe… I think acting kept me alive back then.;”
Lindsay moved back to LA and worked as a model. She made her first TV appearance as a hostess in “Playboy After Dark.” As a contract player for Universal Studios, she made her prime-time TV debut in “Adam-12” and then appeared in episodes of “Marcus Welby, MD” and “The Rockford Files.”
Before “The Bionic Woman,” Lindsay acted in three films, most notably “The Paper Chase” in 1973.
Since the series ended, Lindsay has starred in more than 40 TV movies.
“What always interested me about film and television is the ability to tell a story that would not only entertain but possibly help someone,” she said in the LA Yoga magazine article. “For me the passion is communication. I am grateful for the good fortune to have the power to choose my projects and work with the scripts to enhance the potency of the issues being explored in the film.”
