People

"I'm a terribly private person," confides the ruggedly handsome Bruce Boxleitner. A phenomenal overnight star as Luke Macahan in ABC's smash hit series, HOW THE WEST WAS WON, Bruce struggles to hold on to his real self.

"I'm so pushed and have so little time to myself that I'm afraid I might really change—that scares me."

Casually dressed in a tight jean outfit, he rests his lean athletic frame in a soft-backed yard chair. His beautiful wife Kathryn Holcomb (who plays his younger sister Laura on the show) sits beside him. Behind them, their recently purchased Studio City home snuggles behind spacious trees.

"My privacy is no longer my own," complains the normally easy going actor. "I really hate losing it. No matter where I go, I'm recognized." Then he laughs. It's not all bad, there are wonderful things too.

"I remember the time I found this homemade envelope," he recalls fondly. "It was attached to a tiny present and suspended from our backyard gate. It was from a little girl who wanted my autograph. So I wrote it and left it there. The next morning it was gone."

He shakes his head. Kathryn laughs brightly. Bruce continues, a gleam in his eyes, "To this day I don't know how that little girl ever managed to sneak in our yard—twice!"

There are moments in Bruce's life that were not funny. There was a time, not too long ago, when he was in the deepest of depressions.

"New York almost killed me. I had just finished a Broadway flop and couldn't get work. Than Jan-Michael Vincent beat me out for the lead in BUSTER AND BILLIE. I became hopelessly depressed."

He pauses and looks away. His normally animated face quickly hardens. His eyes lower and become sad.

"The worst thing that happened to me in New York was that I turned away a fellow human being that needed my help," Bruce confesses. "One night I found a drunk on my doorstep. I was living in the seamy part of Manhattan. I had no choice but to put him with the overfilled garbage cans to be picked up in the morning. It was a horrible, gruesome sight.

"I sat on my doorstep not believing what I had just done. A human being put out like so much trash."

He jabs a firm finger in the air. "I was not raised that way. That's what New York did to me. It made me cold. Not long after that I went to Hollywood."

Born 28 years ago, in Elgin, Ill., Bruce's childhood was spent on the gentle rolling plains of a farm. "It was idyllic. That's the only word for it. It was a wonderful, blissful time."

Athletically inclined, he liked the individual competition of track and field. "Team sports, like football, never turned me on." He soon found, however, a new love and his dream of a sports career faded fast. "I discovered drama and everything else fell by the wayside." Excitedly Bruce adds, "Somebody had said that there were cute girls in it and that was that. I was never the same."

Much to his Dutch-German parents' dismay, school and studies were soon neglected. To this day Bruce regrets this. "I found high school to be a crashing bore. I was a very bad student. Nothing, except drama, inspired me.

"Once a teacher wrote a note to my mother saying, 'Bruce would be a fine student if he could quit looking out the window."

Sadly, only one high school teacher was able to bring out the tremendous creative abilities that Bruce had within himself. "Mrs. Lekowitz, my drama coach, gave me confidence. I don't think I would have made it as an actor if it hadn't been for her."

From that point on Bruce knew what he wanted out of life. "I can't remember not wanting to be an actor or having something to do with the music business." His humble high school beginnings included Agatha Christie's TEN LITTLE INDIANS, a Mexican version (yes) of ROMEO AND JULIET (as Mercutio), and he even played Sir Thomas More in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS.

Next it was on to nearby Chicago where he enrolled in the famed Goodman Theatre. Bruce remembers, "For three years I did children's shows there. It was fantastic training. Chicago is where I began to pay my big city dues as an actor."

Chicago also provided something else for this promising young actor. "It gave me my first break." Bolstered by his rising confidence, he auditioned for and best out 10 other struggling hopefuls for an understudy role in the hit comedy play STATUS QUO VADIS which was playing at the prestigious Ivanhoe Theatre.

"A week later I won the lead when the actor playing the role began causing the company trouble. I was ecstatic. I couldn't believe it." Showcasing Bruce's talents, the play ran a phenomenal 10 straight weeks in Washington, D.C.

However, New York City proved to be an impersonal, cold, concrete jungle to the warm, affable Boxleitner. "I could never have taken that city again. I never even figured out the subway system. I felt if I was going to struggle why not California."

The lure of the fabled land of Hollywood soon proved equally cold and uncaring. "When I got here the people I was suppose to stay with suddenly decided I couldn't.

"Even though I was down and out, my first apartment in North Hollywood had a swimming pool." He laughs good naturedly, slapping the table with his hand. "For the first two months I was always in it."

He leans back in his easy chair totally relaxed, like the simple, tasteful surroundings that dot his new home. His early, painful days in Hollywood seem far, far away. Nearby his beautiful Persian cat, whom he jokingly refers to as "The Mighty Hunter," frolics in the grass with the dog.

What about this early period in Hollywood? Bruce becomes serious and confides, "During that time I would've done anything to get a few lines on a show. I must've driven my agent crazy. I did anything I could find. Finally, I got five lines on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, and I got my actor's union card."

Talking about it now all seems so simple, but Bruce is well aware of the harsh realities of the business. "I am no stranger to struggling." He eventually had small roles on GUNSMOKE, BARETTA, HAWAII FIVE-O, and POLICE STORY, usually as heavies, that kept driving him on. "I just wouldn't give up. I knew I could make it."

He takes a long slip from the soft drink his wife has just brought him. "Then there was HOW THE WEST WAS WON. Auditioning for that series was the biggest thing in my life. I remember going through a month of auditions and two screen tests. It was all very nerve racking. I knew my career rested on it!"

He eventually won the choice role of Luke Macahan. "I was beside myself." But the series had yet another fantastic surprise for him. "Little did I know what else was going to happen."

On the show he met his future wife Kathryn Holcomb (he affectionately calls her "my Miss Kitty"). Like Bruce, she has no long theatrical history. She began her career in commercials, then landed a co-starring role in HOW THE WEST WAS WON.

"I was introduced to Kitty when we were about to leave for location in Kanab, Utah." Lovingly, she takes Bruce's hand and gently caresses it. They both continue to laugh at how they first met. "I was ecstatic about the project that all I could say was a quick hello to her, and away I went."

Once on location Bruce and Kitty became good friends. Bruce confides, "We were both terribly scared about doing our first TV pilot, and we found a common bond in that. However, their much publicized romance didn't start until the last week of shooting. "She was involved with another fellow and I had just broken up with a girl. I was looking, she wasn't."

Eventually, Bruce won out. "Our on camera romance lasted almost three years. As far as I know, it's a television first."

Finally, they decided to take that final step. "I wanted to get married in a special way. I didn't want a church wedding. I have nothing against one. It's just that I had a vision of how I always wanted to get married.

What was that vision? "I wanted a grand party with all of my friends." So on May 28, 1977, the huge celebration began. Halfway through the festivities, Bruce married the beautiful blue-eyed blonde from Houston, Texas.

At home the loving couple lead a very quiet life. "We love horse back riding and working around the house. We're not part of the Hollywood scene."

Bruce himself is very much a modern day cowboy. "I'm an avid collector of guns and Wetern memorabilia. The time period really fascinates me."

But it doesn't stop there. He's also a member of The Buckskinners, a group interested in the West, which goes backpacking and camping. The catch? "We only use tools that were used in the old West days."

Like many who are burdened with celebrity status, Bruce has found that fame has its problems. "My friends have changed in their attitude toward me. This is something I deeply regret."

Even his family back in the Midwest is perplexed on how to address TV's newest star. Sadly, he notes, "My family really doesn't know how to treat me anymore. They're in awe."

The part of his life Bruce doesn't like is the time spent away from home. "After five weeks in a hotel room, I've had enough. My wife and I are on location so much that the months we can stay home we appreciate a lot." But this indeed is a small price to pay for the sky rocketing career he now has.

The last few years have been very good to Bruce Boxleitner. In fact as he puts it, "I'm the luckiest guy in the world."
 

Thanks, Claudia!