So get this. Actress Linda Purl, in one of her early roles, portrayed Gloria on the TV show Happy Days. Gloria was the occasional girlfriend of Ron Howard’s character Richie on the show. Then she would return to the series eight seasons later to play Ashley, who was Fonzie’s steady girlfriend for that year. One wouldn’t automatically assume that Linda Purl was involved in some complex and bizarre plot to stalk her former TV boyfriend Ron Howard merely based on that information.
But the kicker was that Linda Purl would later go on to portray Charlene Matlock, daughter of Ben Matlock, the character portrayed by Andy Griffith, who had been the TV father to Opie, who was played by Ron Howard, who had played Richie, the guy she once dated. This is a tougher case to crack. In the TV world, this is akin to being more than mere coincidence. In some bizarre way, Linda Purl had dated Ron Howard, then became the steady girlfriend of his best friend, then in a last-ditch effort, became his sort-of-TV-brother-in-law.
In any case, Linda Purl was still looking good at age 55 when she appeared at the Chiller Theatre show in Parsippany, New Jersey, on April 30, 2011. I plunked down the standard autograph and photo op fee in order to obtain both. I asked her to remind me again who she had played in Happy Days and she just simply said “Fonzie’s girlfriend.”
Even as a one-time TV lawyer, she has trouble explaining the bizarre Richie/Opie circle.
Celebrities of the Spring 2011 Chiller Theatre Show will continue…
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