As much as she disliked being labeled "perky," Pam's bubbling and buoyant personality was as responsible for the instant phenomenal success for the show as Robin Williams' zaniness.
The offbeat comedy about an alien who comes to Earth in an egg-shaped
spaceship to observe human life blindsided TV audiences like a full-force
tsunami. Although Williams deserves credit for his wild improvisational
comedy talent, Pam, the brown-haired former model, was his perfect foil.
"Mork and Mindy" creator Garry Marshall raved, "(Pam) appealed to both women and men. Women weren't intimidated by her and men thought she was just lovely and wonderful."
In one of the oddest casting situations in TV history, Pam was handed the part of Mindy without auditioning or even meeting Williams. In fact, her surprised agent called to break the news that she would be working on a new TV series.
Here's how it happened:
Marshall, who also created “Happy Days,” noticed her in the ABC commissary eating lunch, thought she looked cute and remembered her as the star in the TV pilot “Sister Terry,” playing a street-wise nun but the show never got off the ground.
Using footage from “Sister Terry,” Marshall pitched the idea of “Mork and Mindy” to ABC without Pam's knowledge. Pam learned that ABC had bought the show when her agent called and read from “Variety” that Marshall and the network announced a new show "about an alien who moves in with a girl and the series would star Robin Williams and Pam Dawber."
When they finally met, according to Marshall, “She said, 'Who are you? I never auditioned for you.'”
“Garry hands me this tape,” Pam said. “And I sat there watching that 'Happy Days' tape [of Williams playing Mork], laughing out loud. I said, 'Where do I sign up?'”
Pam didn't even meet Williams until they shot publicity photos for the show. Williams spoke to her in a thick Russian accent, prompting her to ask a crew member, in all seriousness, if he was Russian.
Born in Detroit, Pam became an automobile-show model as a teen-ager. She progressed to fashion shoots for Detroit department stores and dropped out of community college to become a full time model.
When a girlfriend moved to New York to model, 21-year-old Pam went along, and on her first day she was hired by the famous Wilhelmina modeling agency. She appeared in magazine ads and TV commercials, and she used her modeling money to take acting and voice classes.
Pam's impressive work in a stage production of the musical comedy “Sweet Adeline” in Connecticut earned her several movie auditions,
She auditioned for a role in Warren Beatty's “Heaven Can Wait,” and although she didn't get the part, she later said that Beatty gave her great advice to advance her acting career.
She earned a role in Robert Altman's “A Wedding,” in 1978, and ABC was so impressed the network signed her to an exclusive contract.
After becoming a blockbuster hit its first season, “Mork and Mindy” took a huge fall in the ratings. For the second season ABC moved it from Thursday to Sunday night – against the popular “Archie Bunker's Place” – and added more characters. The show dropped to No. 27 in the ratings. Even after the series was moved back to Thursday, the ratings declined in the third (No. 49) and final (No. 60) seasons.
After “Mork and Mindy,” Pam starred on Broadway in the 1982 production of “Pirates of Penzance.”
Four years later she was featured in and produced the TV series “My Sister Sam,” playing a San Francisco photographer whose little sister moves in with her. Despite its No. 16 rating, the series was canceled during the middle of the second season in 1988. Pam's young co-star Rebecca Schaeffer was murdered by an obsessed fan the following year.
Pam married actor Mark Harmon in 1987 and stayed busy raising a family. In the past 20-plus years Pam has done little acting. She starred with John Ritter in the 1992 movie “Stay Tuned,” parodying her role of Mindy.
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Classic TV Beauties 1970s Countdown
PAM DAWBER as Mindy McConnell in "Mork and Mindy"
Director Howard Storm said Pam was brilliant playing the “straight man" for Williams.
“She loved playing with him and he loved playing with her,” Storm said. “That kind of chemistry is what a director or writer dreams about.”
“Mork and Mindy” was spun off from a “Happy Days” episode in which Williams introduced Mork as an alien who attempted to take Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard) back to his planet Ork. “Mork and Mindy,” the No. 3 show in 1978-79, became a television smash; American viewers walked around imitating Mork's greeting of “Na-Nu Na-Nu.”
