After starring on “The Fall Guy,” as Jody Banks, Heather Thomas got her breakthrough. As the show aired from 1981 to 1986, she rose to fame. After the show was over, Thomas was struggling with problems which led her to leave the spotlight behind and focus on herself.
During the show, Thomas became a household name. Sadly, she was already using drugs before her career started, since she was in middle school. “I was taking acid and making straight A’s,” Thomas said.
After starting to work in the Hollywood, her drug abuse rose too. She had no other way to deal with the pressure she was feeling under. She used diuretic Lasix to keep her body slim, but later it turned into cocaine, and she was completely lost. “It enabled me to stay up all night and then work all the next day,” Thomas said.
While she was on the set, she insisted that she was not using anything. It was a secret addiction. “Cocaine is not approved of on sets,” Thomas said.
In the end, her family intervened to stop Thomas from ruining herself. After the season finale of the show, her mother arrived on the set and told Thomas that her father was hospitalized.
As she rushed to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, she found out that it was a trick to keep her for rehab. She was directly taken into the hospital’s detox program.
She fell in love with Allan Rosenthal, a therapist for addiction, and co-founder of Cocaine Anonymous, where they met at a dinner party after her rehab was over.
They married four months later in Las Vegas, where “I’m infinitely happier,” Thomas said. “I have someone who totally supports me and loves me unconditionally.”
Thomas quitted all her bad habits while she was with Rosenthal. He also helped her to take her own financial matters on hand. “I would let the business manager do it,” Thomas said.
“I’d just go out and buy furs and Jaguars and things.”
As their relationship ended, Thomas married Harry M. Brittenham as she fell in love once again.
They married in 1992, and Thomas had two stepdaughters. Later she welcomed her own daughter too. She was already stepping out of the spotlight as she was afraid of her past.
Also, a stalker caused her to step away. “I was getting so stalked,” she later explained. “I had these two little girls, and they desperately needed raising, so that was that.”
“I yearn for acting,” the actress said, “but I wanted to write something without anyone sticking their fingers in it for a while.”
She then released her novel, “Trophies,” and had no idea that her scripts would turn into a production.
As she spent decades away from the spotlight, she later decided to return. She had a cameo in the 2024 movie adaptation of “The Fall Guy,” which her fans were surprised and shocked to see her.
There were comments like:
“Sad… she destroyed her face,”
“In season 1, she was the prettiest woman in the world. Now you don’t recognize her. How sad.”
“It looks like some mad scientist worked on her face. What a shame.”
“OH MY GOD STOP SURGERY THAT’S HORRIBLE… She was so beautiful when she was young.”
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