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In the 1980s, she became famous as the striking blonde stuntwoman on a popular TV series, often diving into peril alongside her partner and captivating audiences with her charm and allure.
Her pivotal role achieved legendary status, eventually leading to a 2024 Hollywood blockbuster featuring two top-tier stars, in which she made an endearing cameo.
However, behind the glamour, the shadows of fame loomed. As her celebrity status rose, the number of stalkers escalated, pushing her to withdraw from the limelight by the late ’90s.
Even after stepping away, the obsessive attention lingered for years.
Today, she’s traded the big screen for writing – reinventing herself as a political activist, screenwriter and even released a debut novel in 2009.
Can you guess who she is?
She shot to fame in the 1980s as the stunning blonde stuntwoman on a hit TV series – often leaping into danger alongside her partner and stealing scenes with her charisma and beauty
Her breakout role became iconic, eventually inspiring a 2024 Hollywood blockbuster starring two A-list powerhouses – where she made a nostalgic cameo appearance
It’s Heather Thomas!
The 67-year-old former actress still radiated that unmistakable bombshell energy and kept her iconic blonde locks as she stepped into the hot California sun for a cigarette break in Los Angeles.
Dressed casually in a wide-brimmed straw hat, camo tee, crisp white jean shorts and white sneakers with neon green accents, Thomas stood on a stone walkway, unfazed by the heat.
She was soon joined by a friend in a breezy blue-and-red coral-patterned dress as the pair shared a relaxed moment together as they chatted.
It marked the first time Thomas has been spotted out and about in two decades outside of her occasional podcast appearances and rare red-carpet cameos.
Born and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut, Thomas began her acting career at 14 years old when she was one of the teen hosts that interviewed celebrities on the NBC series, Talking with a Giant.
Thomas began pursuing acting early and landed her first role at just 14, hosting Talking with a Giant on NBC, where she interviewed celebrities as a teenage correspondent
Her major role was on The Fall Guy where she played Jody Banks, a stunt double turned vigilante alongside TV legends Lee Majors and Douglas Bars
Heather Thomas was seen for the first time out-and-about in 20 years as she stopped to soak up the California sun in Los Angeles and have a smoke break
She then took on small roles and tried her hand at series that would end up being cancelled until she landed her biggest role as Jody Banks in the hit The Fall Guy.
Starring alongside TV legends Lee Majors and Douglas Bars, the show ran from 1981 to 1986 and followed the trio as stunt performers who also work as bounty hunters.
Throughout the series, she won over audiences – not just with her looks, but with her character’s evolution from sidekick to a confident, capable force of her own.
But when the show was abruptly axed in 1986, Heather Thomas’s meteoric rise brought with it an unexpected price: the loss of her privacy.
She continued to chase roles, landing parts in films like Zapped! (1982), Cyclone (1987) and Against the Law (1997).
But the darker side of fame caught up with her. A relentless wave of stalkers ultimately drove her to step away from Hollywood altogether by the late ’90s.
The former actress was joined by a friend in a breezy blue-and-red coral-patterned dress as the pair chatted
The bombshell’s beauty and charisma made her a fan favorite, but also a target. After stalkers sent her a box of bullets and tried breaking into her home, she left Hollywood to escape the danger
‘Really bad, at least two a week. I had tons of restraining orders. I had two little girls, and a guy’s jumping our gate with a giant buck knife,’ she recalled on the Still Here Hollywood podcast in March.
‘In those days, I don’t know if this is true now, but people would fixate. You could be in a soap commercial, and they would fixate on you, and there weren’t a lot of stalker laws, and I just needed to be home anyway.’
Her situation became ‘really scary,’ as she was sent darkly suggestive items like ‘a box of bullets’ and ‘funeral wreaths’ that her stalkers ‘stole from graveyards.’
She divulged: ‘And I know I had one guy one night cut my screen in my bedroom and got in and I shot him, and yeah, with rock salt and birdshot.’
Even after she withdrew from show business, ‘a couple of years’ went by before the frenzied attention from stalkers finally died down.
Thomas now has three daughters – Shauna, Kristina and India – with her husband, entertainment lawyer Skip Brittenham, whom she married in 1992.
She would come back into the public eye in 2014 with a small role in a movie, but by then she had switched paths and became an activist, screenplay writer and even released her debut novel in 2009 called Trophies
Thomas returned to the red carpet in 2024 for The Fall Guy premiere – making a cameo in the film starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, which was loosely inspired by the original series that made her famous
She would come back into the limelight in 2014 to appear in a small role in the musical comedy Girltrash: All Night Long.
But by this point she had shifted her attention to activism, serving on the advisory boards of the Rape Foundation and Amazon conservation Team.
Thomas also wrote her debut novel, Trophies, in 2008 and wrote a screenplay called School Slut.
It wouldn’t be until 2024 that she would appear once again on the red carpet, after making a cameo appearance on The Fall Guy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, which was loosely inspired from the original TV show.
While attending the move’s premiere, she joked that she was ‘geriatric’ and was ‘happy I can walk the red carpet at this point,’ via The Hollywood Reporter.
She also delivered a paean to real life stunt performers, praising them for ‘the risks they take, the training they have to go into and the real-life hits they take.’
