Heather Thomas, now 66, rose to fame in the 1980s as Jody Banks on The Fall Guy, and was seen as a rising Hollywood star. But behind her glamorous image, she struggled with drug addiction that began in her teens and worsened during her time on the show.
Her turning point came when her mother lured her off set under the pretense that her father was hospitalized. At the hospital, family and friends staged an intervention, leading to her admission into a detox program. Doctors told her she should have died years earlier due to the damage drugs had done to her body.
Determined to recover, Thomas got clean, married Allan Rosenthal (co-founder of Cocaine Anonymous), but later divorced. After a serious accident in 1986 and several smaller acting roles, she stepped away from the spotlight.
In the ’90s, she married entertainment lawyer Skip Brittenham and became a mother and stepmother. Privacy invasions and stalking also led her to retreat from acting and focus on writing and activism.
Now an advocate for environmental and women’s causes, Thomas reflects on her journey with pride, embracing feminism and personal freedom. Despite the challenges, she’s found healing and purpose beyond Hollywood.