59 Fun Facts About The Six Million Dollar Man

The Six Million Dollar Man's opening narration promises 'Better, stronger' and which third word?

Faster. The irony is how the show displayed it: Steve Austin's top-speed runs were filmed in slow motion, the series' signal that his bionics were in use.

The Six Million Dollar Man was based on which 1972 novel by Martin Caidin?

Cyborg gave the show its hero, but a harder one: Caidin's Steve Austin killed freely, while the TV version was softened until he rarely used deadly force.

Steve Austin was injured in the crash of what kind of aircraft?

An experimental lifting body: the crash in the opening credits is real NASA film of test pilot Bruce Peterson's 1967 M2-F2 accident, which he survived at the cost of the sight in one eye.

Which of Steve Austin's body parts were replaced with bionics?

Right arm, both legs and left eye, on TV at least: in Martin Caidin's novel the bionic arm was the left one, and the eye was a hidden camera he could not see through.

What did the initials OSI, Steve Austin's employer, stand for?

Office of Scientific Intelligence, the usual name on screen, replaced the OSO of Martin Caidin's novels and the first pilot film; the CIA had a real office of that name.

Which US Air Force rank does Steve Austin hold in The Six Million Dollar Man series?

Colonel. The first pilot film had made him a civilian, but the second TV movie gave him back the Air Force rank he held in Martin Caidin's novel.

What was Barney Miller, The Six Million Dollar Man's second bionic man, before his rebuild?

Racing driver: after a bad accident, Monte Markham's Barney Miller is rebuilt in 'The Seven Million Dollar Man' as a backup in case Steve Austin can no longer do the job.

Which actor played Oscar Goldman, director of the OSI?

Richard Anderson later revived the franchise himself: he took the idea for a reunion movie to Universal in 1986 and helped produce the films that followed.

Which actor played Dr Rudy Wells only in The Six Million Dollar Man's first pilot movie?

Martin Balsam played him only in that first film: Alan Oppenheimer took over from the second TV movie, and Martin E. Brooks replaced him in season three.

Which TV movies followed The Six Million Dollar Man's 1973 pilot?

Wine, Women and War / The Solid Gold Kidnapping: both were made under executive producer Glen A. Larson and gave Steve Austin a James Bond gloss that the weekly series dropped.

Which singer performed the theme song of The Six Million Dollar Man's 1973 TV movies?

Dusty Springfield sang it over the credits of the second and third TV movies; Glen A. Larson wrote the song, and the weekly series dropped it.

Which jazz saxophonist composed the instrumental theme of the weekly Six Million Dollar Man series?

Oliver Nelson's theme replaced the pop song used on the TV movies, and he went on scoring the show until his sudden death from a heart attack in 1975.

In The Six Million Dollar Man's 'The Secret of Bigfoot', who turns out to have built the creature?

Visiting aliens: a torn-off arm reveals Bigfoot is a machine, built to guard explorers from another world who live inside a California mountain.

According to the speed gauge in the opening credits, how fast could Steve Austin run?

60 mph flashes on the gauge in the credits, but the series never settled his true top speed: later gauges and the reunion films pushed it higher.

Which built-in device was Steve Austin's bionic arm shown to contain early in The Six Million Dollar Man?

A Geiger counter, revealed in 'Doomsday, and Counting', when Steve must stop a nuclear explosion at a quake-hit Soviet installation.

Which environmental condition could shut down Steve Austin's bionics?

Extreme cold: the first weekly episode established that sub-zero temperatures made his bionic limbs fail, though they recovered once he warmed up.

The Six Million Dollar Man's 'dit dit dit' bionic sound was first used not for Steve Austin but for which opponent?

A robot double: in 'Day of the Robot' thieves kidnap Steve's friend Major Fred Sloan and send a mechanical copy in his place to steal an anti-missile device.

Which Star Trek actor guest-starred on The Six Million Dollar Man as Josh Lang, an astronaut changed by a space flight?

William Shatner played him in 'Burning Bright': an electrical field in orbit leaves Lang able to communicate with dolphins, but his mind is slipping.

What had astronaut Steve Austin famously done before the crash that made him bionic?

Walked on the Moon, and he even went back: a two-part story in the final season sends a bionic Steve Austin there to stop a deranged scientist.

What was Jaime Sommers' profession when she was introduced in a 1975 two-part episode?

Professional tennis player: a top-ranked pro and Steve Austin's old sweetheart, she was written to die after two episodes, until viewers protested.

How did Jaime Sommers suffer the injuries that led to her bionic implants?

A skydiving accident: her parachute failed on a jump with Steve, who then had to plead with his reluctant OSI boss to save her with bionics.

Jaime Sommers's first operation gave her a bionic arm, legs and which other part?

A right ear, sensitive enough to hear across great distances: she could crack a safe just by listening to its tumblers.

Jaime Sommers 'died' at the end of her first storyline; how was she later revealed to have survived?

An experimental cryogenic procedure: doctors chilled her body to buy time to repair the clot in her brain, but she woke with no memory of loving Steve.

Which California town was the home town of Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man?

Ojai, a real town: on screen a highway sign hails it as the 'home of American astronaut Steven Austin', and he goes back to buy a ranch, only to fall for Jaime Sommers again.

Who first played Bigfoot in The Six Million Dollar Man, in the 1976 two-parter 'The Secret of Bigfoot'?

André the Giant wore the suit only for that first story; when Bigfoot returned, Ted Cassidy, Lurch of The Addams Family, took over the role.

In The Six Million Dollar Man's 'Death Probe', Steve Austin battles a runaway Soviet probe built to explore which planet?

Venus: built from a new alloy to survive that planet, the probe crashes in Wyoming and ploughs on as if it had arrived, threatening a small town.

Lee Majors was born with what name?

Harvey Lee Yeary took his stage surname from his boyhood hero Johnny Majors, the University of Tennessee football star.

What ended Lee Majors' college football career at Eastern Kentucky University?

A severe back injury ended his college playing days; by most accounts an NFL tryout offer came anyway, but he ended up in Los Angeles, acting.

Before bionics, Lee Majors played Heath Barkley in which 1960s Western series starring Barbara Stanwyck?

The Big Valley was his big break: he beat a field of young hopefuls that included Burt Reynolds to play Heath Barkley.

Lee Majors starred as Colt Seavers in which 1980s series?

The Fall Guy: Majors also sang its theme song, 'Unknown Stuntman', and returned for a cameo when Ryan Gosling played Colt Seavers in the 2024 film.

Which future Charlie's Angels star, then married to Lee Majors, appeared in four episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man?

Farrah Fawcett, billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors, guested once in each of the first four seasons, starting as an astronaut Steve Austin has to rescue from orbit.

Which producer of the weekly series went on to produce Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan?

Harve Bennett was brought in to make Star Trek's second film, wrote its outline himself and revived Khan, a villain from a 1967 TV episode.

Jaime Sommers creator Kenneth Johnson later made which 1983 alien-invasion miniseries?

V began with no aliens at all: Johnson was adapting Sinclair Lewis's anti-fascist novel It Can't Happen Here until network executives suggested invaders from space.

In 'Deadly Ringer', the story that won Lindsay Wagner her 1977 Emmy, who takes Jaime Sommers's place?

A surgically altered double: Lisa Galloway, remade by plastic surgery to pass as Jaime, breaks out of prison and has the real Jaime locked up in her place.

The Bionic Woman moved to which network for its third and final season in 1977?

NBC picked the show up when ABC cancelled it, so the two characters it shared with The Six Million Dollar Man were regulars on rival networks at once.

Which future Breaking Bad star had a small role as a doctor in the 1987 Six Million Dollar Man reunion film?

Bryan Cranston plays Dr. Shepherd, two decades before Walter White, in a film built as a backdoor pilot for a new bionic series that never came.

What was the name of the bionic German Shepherd introduced in The Bionic Woman's third season?

Max was short for Maximillion, a nod to the million dollars his bionic jaw and legs cost; a planned spin-off for the dog never got made.

Which word for a female robot was popularised by the Bionic Woman episode 'Kill Oscar'?

Fembot: in 'Kill Oscar' a former OSI scientist builds female androids to kidnap the agency's director, and the Austin Powers films later borrowed the word.

Which future Oscar winner played villain Lyle Stenning in the 1987 Six Million Dollar Man reunion film?

Martin Landau's Lyle Stenning, put in prison ten years earlier by Steve Austin, escapes to lead his paramilitary group Fortress against him.

Which future star played new bionic woman Kate Mason in the 1989 Six Million Dollar Man reunion film Bionic Showdown?

Sandra Bullock's Kate Mason was meant to lead a bionic series of her own, but the spin-off never happened; five years later Speed made her a star.

What finally happens in the last Six Million Dollar Man reunion movie, shown in 1994?

Steve and Jaime marry at last, closing a story begun in 1975, when her bionics failed just as the couple were planning their first wedding.

OSI agent Jim Castillian in all three reunion films was played by which relative of Lee Majors?

His son: Lee Majors II played the agent in all three films, the first of which also gave Steve Austin a grown son who is rebuilt with bionics after a jet crash.

Which director's unshot Six Million Dollar Man screenplay became the 2011 comic The Bionic Man?

Kevin Smith says a studio executive dismissed his 1998 script as 'more like a comic book than a movie', so he made it one with Dynamite.

Which star was cast as Steve Austin in 2014 for the long-delayed film The Six Billion Dollar Man?

Mark Wahlberg signed on with director Peter Berg, but directors and release dates came and went, and in August 2024 he was still only hoping to get it made.

In Israel, The Six Million Dollar Man was retitled 'The Man Worth Millions' because 'six million' evoked what?

The Holocaust: six million is the figure most often given for its Jewish victims, so Israeli television took the number out of the title.

In which country were appointed, un-elected senators and governors nicknamed 'bionic' after The Six Million Dollar Man?

Brazil: when the military regime's 1977 'April Package' created indirectly chosen senators, its opponents mockingly named them after the show's hero.

Which toy company made the popular Six Million Dollar Man action figures of the 1970s?

Kenner's Steve Austin doll, with a bionic eye a child could look through, was in such demand at Christmas 1975 that shops could not keep it in stock.

Before the famous electronic effect, which sound marked Steve Austin's bionic running in early Six Million Dollar Man episodes?

A heartbeat: the show wanted a cue that his bionics were in use, and tried this one under the slow-motion runs of its first weekly episode before the electronic sound took over.

What award did Lee Majors win from TV Land in 2003?

Superest Superhero came at the first TV Land Awards, 25 years after the show ended; in its heyday his Golden Globe nomination for the role had gone unrewarded.

Which future Rocky star played one of the kidnappers in the Six Million Dollar Man episode that Lee Majors directed?

Carl Weathers, a former pro linebacker himself, joins a gang that kidnaps a star running back played by NFL great Larry Csonka.

Which 1964 space novel by Martin Caidin became a 1969 film starring Gregory Peck?

Marooned put one Mercury pilot in peril in the 1964 book; when the film used a three-man Apollo crew, Caidin rewrote his own novel to match.

In Martin Caidin's original novels, which weapon was built into one of Steve Austin's bionic fingers?

A poison dart gun: the TV Steve Austin never had one, so a tie-in novel of 'Love Song for Tanya' ends with him killing an agent the episode merely captures.

What halted the 2007 remake Bionic Woman after eight episodes?

A writers' strike: the 2007-08 Hollywood walkout stopped filming, and with ratings low the remake, starring Michelle Ryan, never came back.

Which actor played Oliver Spencer, Steve Austin's OSO boss, in The Six Million Dollar Man's 1973 pilot film?

Darren McGavin, TV's monster-hunting reporter Kolchak, played the part only once: from the second TV movie the agency had a new name and a new boss.

Which two-part title was The Six Million Dollar Man's 1973 pilot film given when re-edited for the weekly series?

The Moon and the Desert stretches the 1973 pilot over two parts with clips from other episodes; the original film has none of the electronic bionic sound effects that later defined the show.

In France, The Six Million Dollar Man's title translated as 'The Man Who Was Worth' how much?

Three billion: France called it L'Homme qui valait trois milliards, while French-speaking Quebec kept the title at L'Homme de six millions.

In The Bionic Woman, Jaime Sommers is shown outrunning which vehicle as it does 100 mph?

A race car: in 'Winning Is Everything' its speedometer hits 100 while she keeps ahead, far beyond the top speed the shows usually claimed for bionic legs.

What exposure in space made Steve Austin's bionics malfunction in The Six Million Dollar Man's first season?

Cosmic radiation: his bionics fail during a spacewalk on a rescue mission, and the cure was an extra layer of shielding in his artificial skin.

The 1970s Oscar Goldman doll from the Six Million Dollar Man toy line came with which gadget?

An exploding briefcase: open it the wrong way and it sprang apart to show a wrecked interior, though the doll itself had no bionic features at all.