At 87, Lee Majors has opened up about the personal cost behind his decades of Hollywood fame, breaking a silence he maintained for years. The man known worldwide as The Six Million Dollar Man has finally spoken in detail about the marriage that looked perfect from the outside but was quietly falling apart, and the small request that set off a chain of events he could never reverse. Majors did not start with advantages. Born Harvey Lee Yeary in Wyandotte, Michigan in 1939, his father died in a steel mill accident before he was born.
His mother was killed by a drunk driver when he was 18 months old. By age two, he was an orphan, raised by an aunt and uncle in Kentucky who never told him the truth about his origins. He discovered it as a teenager, alone in the attic, reading old newspaper clippings. He chose the name Lee Majors from his football idol, Johnny Majors, and became a standout athlete.
A back injury ended his playing career and redirected him toward acting. At 25, he beat out more than 400 other actors, including Burt Reynolds, for the role of Heath Barkley in The Big Valley. Barbara Stanwyck, his co-star, gave him three rules he repeated for half a century: be on time, know your lines, and keep your mouth shut. His first marriage to Kathy Robinson produced a son, Lee Majors II, but did not survive the strain of a young actor in Los Angeles chasing work while his family remained in Kentucky.
The distance between him and his firstborn never fully closed, and he has rarely spoken about it. In 1968, his agent showed him photographs of new clients and told him to pick the best-looking girl. He chose Farrah Fawcett, a 21-year-old newcomer from Corpus Christi, Texas. Their first date went poorly; she became ill after ordering a drink she could not handle.
The next morning, he sent 13 yellow roses. She later told People magazine she melted into a thousand pieces and called it love at first sight. They married in 1973. That same year, he landed the role that made him a global phenomenon: Colonel Steve Austin in The Six Million Dollar Man.
The show aired in more than 70 countries. His face was on action figures and lunchboxes. Children ran in slow motion on playgrounds imitating him. For five years, he was one of the most famous men on earth.
During this period, he used his position to help Fawcett’s career, securing her a guest role on his series Owen Marshall. When Charlie’s Angels cast her in 1976, he was enthusiastic about the opportunity. The show became a cultural event, and Fawcett became the face of an era. The famous poster of her in a red swimsuit sold 12 million copies.
Few people knew that Lee was the one who selected that photograph. “I picked out the poster,” he told People. “The famous one. I picked out the picture.
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But the fame changed their marriage in ways neither anticipated. Their schedules stopped aligning. “There was a year or so when I think I saw her two weeks in one year,” Lee told People in his 80s. “Two weeks in a year.
That is not a marriage. That is two people sharing a mailing address. ”
He encouraged her to leave Charlie’s Angels after one season to pursue film work. That decision led to a $7 million breach-of-contract lawsuit from the producers, and the films that followed were disappointments.
“There are times when I think that perhaps I created a monster,” he said. “But then, deep down, I know that’s just not true. ”
By 1979, the separation was effectively inevitable. What transformed a painful ending into something that left a lasting mark happened in Toronto, where Majors was filming The Last Chase.
He ran into Ryan O’Neal, an old friend from the 1960s. The friendship picked up easily. When O’Neal prepared to return to Los Angeles, Lee made a request he has lived with ever since. “She’s all alone up there,” he told Ryan, according to O’Neal’s memoir.
“Why don’t you take her to dinner one night? ”
O’Neal initially held back, waiting a week without calling. Then a concert came up that Fawcett wanted to attend, and he used it as an excuse. Lee found out about the relationship from the outside.
When he called O’Neal and asked him to back off, O’Neal’s answer was final: “I can’t. I really love her. ”
When People ran a piece on the affair in 1980, Lee said, “I may joke and tease around a lot, but the bottom line is I’m lonely and miserable without her. ” The divorce was finalized in February 1982.
He went to work. In 1981, he began production on The Fall Guy, playing stuntman-turned-bounty-hunter Colt Seavers. He sang the theme song himself, a self-deprecating number that became one of the decade’s most recognized TV themes. The show ran five seasons.
He produced it and invited back former co-stars. It proved he could sustain a career: three hit series across three decades, The Big Valley in the 60s, The Six Million Dollar Man in the 70s, The Fall Guy in the 80s. He married Karyn Velez in 1988. They had three children and divorced in 1994.
He later settled into a quieter life in Florida. In 2002, at 62, he married Faith Cross, a model and writer 30 years his junior. The marriage has lasted more than 20 years, the longest of his four. They live in Houston.
In 2003, he underwent heart surgery for a blocked artery and recovered with the same determination he brought to other obstacles. In 2019, asked about his marriage to Farrah, he told People, “It is a record in Hollywood. ” In 2024, he appeared in a cameo in the film adaptation of The Fall Guy. In June 2009, with Farrah in the final weeks of her life, Lee called her on her 62nd birthday.
They talked for 40 minutes. Farrah Fawcett died on June 25, 2009. Lee released a statement: “She fought a tremendous battle against a terrible disease. She was an angel on Earth and now she is an angel forever.
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When her will was made public, it contained a detail no one anticipated. Farrah Fawcett left $100,000 to Lee Majors. Ryan O’Neal, her partner for most of three decades, who was at her bedside when she died, received nothing. At 87, Lee Majors is still alive, still married to Faith, still appearing at fan events.
He speaks of Barbara Stanwyck with reverence and of Farrah, when he speaks of her at all, with careful warmth. He has never attacked O’Neal, never positioned himself as the wronged party. People who encountered him consistently described him with a single word: gentleman.
