Actor Jamie Lee Curtis recalled meeting Robert Carradine on live TV for the first time, happy moments living in LA’s Laurel Canyon and scenic drives along Mulholland Drive in a heartfelt tribute to the late actor.
In a post Tuesday on Instagram, she described that first memorable encounter when Carradine. The son of actors John Carradine and Sonia Soreal, and Curtis, whose parents are actor Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, both appeared on an episode of “The Dinah Shore Show.”
“I woke up to the news that Robert Carradine died,” Curtis, 67, said in her post. “I met him live on television on the Dinah Shore show when they had a bunch of second generation actors… Bobby and I came on last and Bobby rearranged where we were all sitting so that he could sit next to me and he kissed me, live on television.”
Curtis also recalled meeting Carradine’s daughter, Ever, moving into a house in Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon in the 1970s, and rides in Carradine’s Corvette on scenic Mulholland Drive overlooking LA and the San Fernando Valley, one of which came with a striking realization.
“Bobby was a racecar driver and he drove fast and furious in a Corvette on Mulholland,” Curtis said. “It’s a miracle we weren’t killed. One day I remember the sun hitting his face and me turning and looking at him and saying, ‘Wait, were you in the movie “The Cowboys?” Were you Slim?’ He was my first crush in the movies and I didn’t realize it.”
Carradine’s first film role was Slim Honeycutt in the 1972 film “The Cowboys,” which starred John Wayne and Roscoe Lee Browne.
Carradine also portrayed Lewis Skolnick in the “Revenge of the Nerds” films in the 1980s and 1990s. He was introduced to younger audiences asd Sam McGuire, the father of Lizzie McGuire from the Disney Channel hit “Lizzie McGuire.”
His manager and brother Keith Carradine said in a statement Tuesday to NBC News that the 71-year-old actor had “succumbed to bipolar disorder after fighting it for almost 20 years.”
Ever Carradine paid tribute to her father in an Instagram post, saying, “My sweet, funny dad, who’s only 20 years older than I am, who never missed an opportunity to drive me to the airport or tell me how much he loved my homemade salad dressing, is gone.”
Curtis said she remained friends with Carradine after their break-up and stayed closed with Ever, 51.
“Growing up in the 70s and 80 with a single dad in Laurel Canyon is not exactly the recipe for a grounded childhood, but somehow mine was,” Ever Carradine continued in her Instagram post. “Whenever anyone asks me how I turned out so normal, I always tell them it’s because of my dad. I knew my dad loved me, I knew it deep in my bones, and I always knew he had my back. I think it’s partly because we basically grew up together. Twenty years age difference really isn’t that much, and while I never ever thought of him as a sibling, I did always think of him as my partner. We were in it together. I never wanted to let him down, and I wanted him to trust that I had his back the same way that he had mine.”
Born in Los Angeles, Carradine made his television debut in a 1971 episode of the NBC Western “Bonanza.” Carradine reprised the role of Slim Honeycutt in the 1974 ABC adaptation of “The Cowboys.”