I've Never Been HAPPIER

The veteran TV star shares his favorite showbiz memories with Closer

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As a boy, Bruce Boxleitner couldn’t wait for the next John Wayne western or science fiction creature feature to come to his local drive-in. So it was perhaps destiny that two of his greatest successes took him back to the old west on How the West Was Won and into space on Babylon 5. Bruce, who turned 75 on May 12, is also contemplating a real-life journey to the stars. “Just the other day I spoke with Bill Shatner about him having gone up in space [in 2021 at age 90] aboard the Blue Origin rocket,” Bruce tells Closer. “He inspired me so much. I just have to find out how to do it.”

In the immediate future, the actor, who recurs on the INSP network series Blue Ridge, is looking forward to a long-overdue reunion with his Scarecrow and Mrs. King co-star Kate Jackson at The Hollywood Show in Burbank, CA, from June 6-7. “I haven’t seen Katie physically since 1987 and I can’t wait!” he says. “It’s going to get a little emotional.”

What was your childhood like in Illinois?

I grew up in a town called Crystal Lake, like the camp in the Friday the 13th horror movies. We lived by the cornfields in a little box house that was part of post-WWII G.I. housing. My grandparents’ dairy farm was not quite an hour away, so I was raised around farm animals. And I literally had a collie dog named Lassie.

When did you get the acting bug?

When we got a TV, I remember Davy Crockett and Zorro were my first TV heroes. I got a kitchen knife and carved a Z in our door like Zorro did. My mother and father freaked out. But it wasn’t until high school that I drifted toward the drama guild.

Did you go to the movies a lot as a kid?