I didn’t tune into Eight Is Enough all that terribly often, but you can bet that even at a young age I had my opinion on the ladies of the Bradford family. Mary had that older/wiser thing going; Joanie was the smart, nerdy one; Susan was a delightfully cute freckle-faced redhead; Connie was on the verge of blossoming into a looker; and Nancy was just plain hot. Nancy was played by Dianne Kay, and during the run of the series, she’d also appear in the Steven Spielberg film 1941. Other than that, most of her other roles were sadly relegated to guest spots on such TV shows as Starsky & Hutch, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, and Murder, She Wrote.
A little less than a year later, I’d meet Kimberly Beck, who had played the role of Nancy Bradford in the pilot of Eight Is Enough – but my meeting with Dianne Kay came first – on October 8, 2011. Not only was she extremely hot in her day, she was stunningly sweet some thirty odd years later. Clearly she was getting rid of some of her memorabilia because her table had all sorts of items including Eight Is Enough scripts, or even just pages from the scripts that could be purchased separately (some of them included handwritten notes that she made during production).
She made me a sweet deal on the combo of one of her adorable portraits, signing my cast shot that had already been signed by Willie Aames and Dick Van Patten, and posing for a photo with her. The total for this was $25 – and she even threw in one of those original signed script pages out of the kindness of her heart.
It was a real pleasure meeting Dianne and she really showed through her friendliness that kindness is Kay…er, key.
Celebrity encounters of the Fall 2011 Hollywood Show will continue…
Thank you for mentioning her appearance on “Starsky & Hutch.” As I recall, she also had a role in an episode of “Jake & The Fat Man.”
Peter
September 12th, 2012