Lindsay Wagner hates athletics and her favorite activity is sleeping but she's worth a million dollars as TV's superwoman.


HOLLYWOOD-Facing the room, stunt woman Rita Egleston teeters on the narrow window ledge as though preparing to do a back flip into a pool. Then she calmly steps backward and plummets feet first into an air bag filled with Kapok.

The crew applauds as she lands graceful­ly 20 feet below. Immediately afterwards, the TV tape of the fall is reversed and that simple kind of television magic will be enough to convince 30 million avid viewers of "The Bionic Woman" that they're watching Lind­say Wagner leap from the ground to the win­dow ledge.

Actually, it's hilarious to think of Lindsay involved in anything even remotely suggest­ing unusual agility. She's the non-athletic type, the kind of klutzy woman who gets pooped merely walking around. And she dis­plays about as much enthusiasm for strenu­ous sports as Orson Welles would.

It doesn't ruffle Lindsay in the least that she's far removed from the superwoman she portrays. When you're starring in the nation's number five-rated television show and earn­ing close to a million bucks a year, such trifles are easily ignored.

Still, most strangers instantly identify Lindsay as an "outdoors girl." With her long ash-blond hair, healthy glow and California look (she was born in Los Angeles) she would seem in her element riding horseback, hit­ting a golf ball, hiking for miles. Yet she doesn't participate in any of those activities, even though the series depicts her as an ex­-professional tennis star.

"I'd rather sit home concentrating on my music and art," she says. "The only physical thing I do these days is take an occasional dip in my pool."

Her big problem is she lacks the energy required for any vigorous endeavor. She's constantly dragging. It's as though someone had sabotaged the circuits in her bionic setup. Maybe the scientific geniuses behind "The Bionic Woman" should have pumped her full of Geritol instead of all those elec­tronic doodads.

"This show exhausts me," she says. "I get up each morning at 4:40 and often work until midnight. When I arrive at the studio each day, I stagger into the makeup depart­ment. One of these days, they're actually going to have to feed me while putting on the makeup. I'm so tired."

Her idea of paradise, is to snooze 14 hours or more a day. Sometimes it's possible on a Saturday, but more often she's laboring over a hot bionic stove that day, too. There's no denying that the heavy workload is affecting Lindsay. She's much thinner than she ap­pears on television. In fact, if she gets any skinnier her batteries and wires will show.

"I used to diet before I got this role," she says. "Now it's completely unnecessary. But I'm not fretting over the fact that I'm lean. Television adds 10 pounds to your figure, and that's just about right for mine."

She shrugs off the fatigue, too, since she is compensated so handsomely. Besides the million dollars that lands in her bank ac­count, she also has the option of making a major motion picture every year. In addition, there will soon be a bionic doll resembling Lindsay, and the actress will share in its sale as well as all other "Bionic Woman" market­ing items.

It's not true, incidentally, that if you wind the doll it says: "I hate, Lee Majors!" though it is certainly true that she and Lee aren't overly fond of one another.

Few people had ever heard of Lindsay Wagner prior to her two appearances on Lee's "Six Million Dollar.Man" series. She had been featured in a couple of films, "Two People" and "The Paper Chase," without at­tracting notice. Her guest shots on TV had been unsensational. And so when she was given the role of Jaime Sommers on "The Six Mil­lion Dollar Man," not much was supposed to come from it. She'd play Lee's girl friend, who is turned into a bionic woman after suf­fering a near fatal sky-diving accident. A bionic malfunction would occur in the sec­ond installment, and she would die, and that would be the end of Jaime Sommers and Lindsay Wagner.

But TV audiences loved the concept, and adored Lindsay. They didn't want her dead and they let television stations around the country know it. Bringing her back to life didn't pose any problem to the writers. They would revive her, and explain that she hadn't really perished but fallen into a deep coma.

Universal executives rubbed their hands over the intriguing prospect, but their joy was premature. Lindsay refused to come back as the bionic woman unless given many inducements, including a fantastic salary, freedom to make movies and a slice of marketing profits.

Universal had no choice. They had released Lindsay following her stint on "The Six Million Dollar Man," and now they needed her. They agreed to Lindsay's terms, and as it turned-out her salary topped Lee Majors'. She also wangled a better off-TV deal. Ac­cording to insiders, Majors was infuriated by the news. His contract has since been rene­gotiated, reportedly to bring it more in line with his bionic counterpart.

Up to now, Lindsay hasn't had the time to go on spending sprees; though she pur­chased an expensive house on Mulholland Drive (complete with pool, of course). And after she crashed her MGB into a tree some months ago, she bought a new Jaguar.

"I don't think you need money to be happy," she says. "Of course, it gives you a certain mobility. The fact that I have money will let me look for acting roles I really like. I want to undergo experiences on screen that people can identify with for themselves."
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Even with her abundance of ready cash, she is still borrowing clothing from the "Bion­ic Woman" wardrobe. "I just haven't had the time to buy even a pair of jeans," she says. "Clothes mean nothing to me. I'd never buy anything unless I really liked it. It's true I have expensive taste. I used to buy a gown for $200, and then wear old clothes for a cou­ple of years. The quality of things is much more important than the quantity. I won't fill my closets with clothes just to have them."

As a youngster growing up in Los An­geles, and for a time (ages 15 to 18) in Port­land, Ore., Lindsay experienced little but poverty. Her parents were separated and then divorced when she was quite young, and Lindsay lived with her mother and grandparents.

"We went through some bad times," she says. "My mother worked nights, and I would spend much of the time taking care of my baby sister. When I turned 13, I started modeling and was quite successful for five years. The money came in handy at home since I was making $50 an hour."

Lindsay's greatest asset in her youth was the fact she never looked her age. "Everyone always assumed I was much older," she says. "At 13, I was modeling college-age clothes. Being tall helped give the impression that I was older. And, of course, I was quite sophis­ticated. I give credit for that to modeling, which gave me poise."

Though a mediocre student, she enrolled at the University of Oregon. "I wanted to see if I could get interested in a higher education," she says. "But after a year, I discovered it was hopeless. I just wasn't into school. My thoughts were constantly on becoming an ac­tress. I knew what I was going to do, and a college education didn't fit into my plans."

Except for a couple of years in which she studied acting with James Best, she had no formal dramatic training, and never appeared on stage. Yet she has given considerable thought to her role in "The Bionic Woman."

"I want to keep my character as human as possible. It would be boring if I had to rely on the bionic element. I like the series be­cause it gives Jaime an opportunity to use her head occasionally to solve problems, and not always depend on superhuman qualities."

Lindsay feels that much of what happens on the series falls within the realm of reason, including the idea of her having a bionic arm, ear and legs. Though she doesn't understand all the technical mumbo-jumbo behind bion­ics, she believes electronic aids for humans are definite possibilities for the future. She also argues that it's not unthinkable to bring people back from the near dead.

"I definitely don't rule out the possibility of an after-life, or reincarnation, either," she says. "Metaphysics interests me a lot. Three years ago, I took a 40-day course in some­thing called Eureka Training. It stressed meditation and bringing your life into bal­ance when things get rocky."

She was brought up as a Baptist and was "intensely religious" from 7 to 17: "No one ever had to drag me to church. I didn't always go to Baptist churches, either. I'd walk into a Catholic or Methodist church and be equally happy."

But then she drifted away from the church, and today she's not a member of any organized religion, though "very heavy with positive thinking." She's even positive about 'marriage despite the breakup of her first union, with publishing company executive Allan Ryder, after only two years.

"I'll marry again as soon as I find the right person and the right time. 'But now would be a bad time to get married and have kids. I don't think viewers would appreciate seeing the bionic woman bounding around with a huge belly."

A prime candidate to be her next husband is actor-writer Michael Brandon. They cur­rently live together, and he has written a two-­part episode for her series. And it's quite probable that the story line might involve a horrifying car crash. In fact, when she drove her MGB into a tree in Coldwater Canyon, Michael was sitting alongside her and was almost killed.

She walked away from the totaled car with a wicked gash on the forehead and deep cuts on and over her lip. Her hair covers the forehead scar, but nothing can hide the mark over her lip. It has no effect on her looks, however, and she still bears a startling resemblance to the young Lauren Bacall.

The accident didn't affect her sense of humor, either. Her explosive laugh could be heard across the set when crewmen sidled up and said: "Don't worry, Lindsay, you can always get a bionic lip!"

Bob Lardine