Can This Really
Be The End?
Bill Bixby returns
with "The Death of the Incredible Hulk"
By Les Wiseman.
TV Guide. Feb
17-23, 1990. (pp 6-11)
Transcribed by
Mark Rathwell
The guy is amped. He
crackles with energy that effects the surrounding crew members.
Wherever Bill Bixby goes, the speed of conversation accelerates.
Eyes go frantic and wild and brain cells used to loafing struggle
to keep pace with the chief. Bixby wears white running shoes and
runs from setup to setup in Vancouver's cavernous Bridge Studios,
where his directing and starring in "The Death Of The Incredible
Hulk" (February 17th on CTV, February 18th on NBC).
"We really painted movies yesterday," says Bixby. "This is dynamite.
I'm creating here." The crew stand around like grinning apes,
accepting due praise for their work. Bixby gets a grip on himself
and laughs. "What I'm creating is another day's work." He heads
off to check out some lighting.
Bixby promises the most dramatic and emotional Hulk adventure
ever. And here at the Bridge, a former construction site for bridge
spans and one of the world's largest sound stages, he has room
to allow the over-sized character of the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno reprises
the role he created) to stretch out.
A successful series from 1978 to 1982, the Incredible Hulk returned
two years ago in a TV-movie in which the testy behemoth met fellow
Marvel Comics superhero the Mighty Thor.
In early '89, Bixby took over the director's chair and brought
the production to Vancouver for "The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk,"
in which the hounded Dr. David Banner (Bixby) met another Marvel
hero, Daredevil, played by former teen idol Rex Smith. Then, in
less than four weeks in late '89, "The Death Of ..." was shot
around Vancouver for a budget of "in excess of $3 million," though
Bixby claims the local crew's contributions make it look like
a $12 million feature.
In early January, Bixby sits at the picture window of an 18th
floor suite at Le Meridien hotel, sipping a glass of wine.
"The Death of ..." is in post-production, and Bixby is waiting
for his dinner date, a stunning local woman he has been seeing.
He is tan and wears a crisp white pin-stripe shirt, ironed, faded
blue jeans and suede cowboy boots. When he calls business associates,
he punches up their phone numbers on his digital watch's microchip
memory. Fashionable black wire-rims underline his high, wide forehead
and meticulously styled metallic charcoal-grey hair. Like many
actors that the camera loves, his head is large in proportion
to his body.
Just days before his 56th birthday, Bixby has thrown his back
out and is wedged into a chair fitted with an orthopedic back
support. Even in pained repose, he positively effervesces with
deal. "It'll be the best thing I've directed in 20 years," he
enthuses. "I believe this to be the best of my work as an actor,
director, producer. This is much better than Rich Man, Poor
Man [Book II], for which I was nominated [as best TV drama
director by the Directors Guild of America]."
Isn't that a bit hyperbolic for what some might consider a glorified
cartoon? Bixby thinks not: "It was never a kids' show. People
have grown up with the Hulk. We've been around for 11 years. There's
a new audience that wants to see the Hulk, but those who
followed him before will be back. We're making it for them, and
they're adults now. We're not talking down to them. We're handling
this as a straight drama. It's 'Frankenstein'."
The Banner character has developed more of a tragic depth over
the decade as well. Originally a scientist investigating supranormal
bursts of strength, such as a mother lifting a car off her child,
Banner lost his wife when he could not pull her from a burning
car wreck. Then, with an accidental overexposure to radiation,
he developed all the strength he could ever use. However, he couldn't
control that Herculean might, and while the creature wrestled
with his turmoil, spectacular destructive rampages inevitably
followed.
"Eleven years of struggling with this torment and not being able
to get rid of it has destroyed his life," stresses Bixby. In "Death
of ..." the fugitive Banner, a former geneticist, seeks out another
geneticist whose experiments parallel the work Banner was doing
when he was tragically transformed. From scientific journals,
Banner realizes he must intervene to prevent a recurrence of the
mishap. Infiltrating the lab, Banner helps the scientist correct
the equation on his computer. Then, while restrained, Banner undergoes
a controlled "Hulk-out" -- after which he and the geneticist realize
they have the cure for Banner's "delicate condition."
With life suddenly looking up, Banner falls for a young woman
with a shady past -- played by 1982 Miss America Elizabeth Grayson.
The geneticist, meanwhile, convinces Banner to implement the cure
by undergoing a second controlled "Hulk-out" while restrained
in the lab. And then all heck breaks loose. And the Hulk is killed.
For real? "Yes," answers Bixby. Banner too? "Of course." Like
not just resting? "He actually dies." Well isn't this sorta like
killing the giant that laid the green egg? Aren't a number
of young Hulkamaniacs going to be left in mourning? Won't cuddly,
trusting little shavers who idolized the verdant venturer be left
sulking in the sandbox for weeks after?
"That's unfair," retorts Bixby. "Now you're saying I'm picking
on kids. I'm doing drama. This is tragedy. Hamlet dies in the
end; is Shakespeare required to speak to all the 10 year olds
out there? No, that's life. We're all going to die. Within the
fantasy there are deaths, too. We're not hiding anything under
a bushel basket. It's called "The Death of the Incredible Hulk'."
But he smiles sneakily.
When Bixby left town after completing the previous Hulk movie
last year, he was heading off to a number of projects. One of
them was a half-hour sitcom to be called The Bill Bixby Show,
for ABC. But even a bankable veteran like Bixby is buffeted by
network whims, and the pilot was suddenly canceled. "It was too
sophisticated," says Bixby. "And they couldn't find a place for
it in their current lineup of sitcoms."
Bixby retains the script, about an elegant gadabout reunited with
his estranged daughter, and wants to produce it down the pike.
What the networks did want was a medical show. Thus he is working
on a pilot for NBC called The Oath, a medical drama scripted
by his longtime partner, Gerald DiPego, writer of this "Hulk"
and the previous one. In The Oath, Bixby plays a surgeon
who specialized in burn cases. After the death of his wife, he
opts for the less stressful aspects of private practice in cosmetic
plastic surgery, until in an emergency he is pressed into being
a major hospital's head of surgery.
If the show is approved, Bixby wants to bring the production to
Vancouver, where he has already scouted locations and has a crew
in place. "I'm trying to bring everything I do here," he says.
"I want to bring my company up and firmly entrench myself. I'd
like to start a company of players here, and I'm definitely thinking
of getting a place here."
Bixby is obviously driven to maintain his pace of producing, directing
and acting; on the surface he is motivated purely by a deeply
held ethic: "I'm a workaholic," he bubbles. "I love what I do.
I'm so privileged to be in this business. If you can be in this
business and not have a great time, get out. It's a privilege
to walk in this air, to have people give you these tools, invest
all this money and trust you with it and say, 'Make something
that will entertain us'."
It's not much of a stretch though, to see Bixby as someone creating
a busy present and future to forget aspects of his past. The big
brow knits, and behind the spectacles, the eyes fill with tears
as he explains the loss of his son Christopher nine years ago.
Bixby had been divorced from actress Brenda Benet for a year;
he took their son on weekends. "He was with my wife in the country
and he got epiglottis, which is an infection of the throat that
closes out breathing -- but can be dealt with if handled properly.
She got him to the emergency hospital, and one doctor was taking
the splinter out of the hand of another doctor and they had him
wait in the waiting room -- and he suffocated to death. He was
6 years old." A year later, Christopher's mother committed suicide.
"I went through a six-month depression where I couldn't move.
I was four months at the beach and never laid a foot on the sand,
never left the house. I didn't talk to anybody. I was just numb.
It comes back in waves. I can be watching TV and one of those
charming commercials with a child will come on, and you just get
this wave. But I can go through that now and know that I have
a life, that I'm not going to go into a depression and not be
able to move."
"I was hurt and angry and mistrusted medicine -- all the institutions
that were supposed to be there and supportive were my enemies.
I was so furious that I was consumed with it. And it was wrong
-- but natural. It was nine years ago, and I've really just gotten
out from under that. I've really come to terms with it."
Three years ago, Bixby prescribed himself and unusual therapy:
"I took a year off and did nothing but play golf. That's all I
did, every day, seven days a week for one year. I was always the
last one off the course -- the only one there Christmas day till
the sun sank. I did no work, considered no job. I invested that
time in me, and I'm glad I did, because just before we started
"The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk" something clicked. I just knew
something had lifted a weight off my mind. I knew I wasn't going
to have a depression anymore."
More recently he edited together his videotapes of his time with
Christopher. "I never had the courage to do it before," he says.
"So I think now I have Christopher in a peaceful place."
When he decided to reenter the entertainment world, there were
projects aplenty. There has been room for Bill Bixby since he
burst on the scene with his hare-brained Tim O'Hara character
on My Favorite Martian in 1963. Throughout his roles --
most notably The Courtship of Eddie's Father from 1969-73
and 1973-74's The Magician -- he has had a chameleon-like
adaptability. He allows that part of it is the physicality he
was born with: "I really don't have any unique features. I don't
have strikingly good looks, no scars down the middle of my cheek
-- just this blob of normalcy that hangs there." Bixby parallels
the most heartfelt desires of David Banner when he sums up all
he really wants out of life: "I get to go to work and I get to
go home. What greater privilege could you ask for in life?"
And whither the Hulk? Well, true believers, suffice it to say
that even Frankenstein was revived. And temper your sorrow with
this thought: The laboratory set where the Hulk's body lies in
state is not being torn down.
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