Bill Bixby And Raising Eyebrows

 As mentioned in my first blog, I have a funny little anecdote to tell about my exercise of raising my eyebrows that took place long ago in my early days of modeling in San Francisco.

It was in the late 50’ when I was sent by my agency on a photo shoot and the male model chosen for the shoot was the actor Bill Bixby!  This was before his acting career.  For those of you too young to remember or are not familiar with Bill, he was the star of several hit TV shows in the 60’s and 70’s, including My Favorite Martian, Eddie’s Father and The Incredible Hulk.  Do Google him!

Unfortunately I do not have the ad of us that was published in the newspapers  those many years ago but here is a photo of both Bill and me around that time in the 50’s.

The job was for a full page newspaper print advertisement, I cannot remember who it was for, but the premise of the ad was that I, a petite girl-next-door type, had just bested my male companion at golf and was showing him my golf score triumphantly!  (Remember this was the 50’s when beating a guy at any game was unthinkable!!)

Anyway, it was quite a production with not just the photographer and his team, but all the ad company bigwigs hovering around, overseeing every detail!  Think of the TV show “Mad Men!”. The pressure was on everyone to get it right – but especially me, and I felt it.  I was nervous.  This was one of the major ad companies and it could lead to other jobs and maybe commercials.

Once in position that the photographer set up the shot,  the ad person in charge took over.  I was to stand on Bill’s left and raise my left eyebrow while looking at the score card rather haughtily. OMG, that’s when I realized (too late) that I could raise my right eyebrow but not my left!!   I tried and tried but I could not get my left eyebrow to do what it was told.  Here I was contorting my face every which way in desperation, feeling and looking ridiculous, while all involved grew more impatient with me.

That is, all except Bill.  He could not have been more supportive and perhaps a bit amused!

Just as it was looking like a total disaster and I was sure to be fired… I could feel myself welling up with tears…Bill suddenly spoke up and insisted he change places with me, saying he could get the same message across even better if he was making a face of bewilderment and surprise as he looked at the scorecard while I looked straight at the camera…raising my right eyebrow, of course with the same cocky expression.  Everyone was beyond very happy with his spontaneous “idea” and Bill saved the shoot and me.  I can still remember the tremendous relief and gratitude I felt in that moment.

Anyway, he took me out afterwards, told me he had gone to Lowell High School and City College but wanted to be an actor.  We became good friends and dated until he left for LA to pursue his dreams in Hollywood!  He asked me to meet him there which I did  much later on when I was there shooting a car commercial.  But that’s another story to tell.

It was no surprise to me when Bill would go on to play the role of extremely decent, likeable heroes in his TV series…because that is clearly what he was in real life.  And maybe his turning that photo shoot around was prophetic because later in life he became a director and was equally successful at that.

Needless to say, it took me quite a lot of work but I made it a point to stand in front of the mirror and teach myself to raise my left eyebrow as well as my right, and, as I do it to this day as a facial exercise I often think of Bill – a really good guy who sadly died quite young.

There will be many more stories so stay tuned…