“I was convinced, all these years,” Jim says, “that Bill could be a big star as a light leading man in, say, the Gig Young style. Bixby did three unsold pilots after “Martian” finished up, and was looking around for the right thing when Herb Solow, MGM’s production chief came up with “Eddie” .
He played a lead role on television in “My Favorite Martian,” and has done additional TV roles, comedy and dramatic.The stories evolve from the title word “Courtship.” Little Eddie is a matchmaker. By that, I mean guest stars who are completely identifiable as entertainment personalities. He editorializes with it, in the manner of an offstage voice. We have a kid playing a kid.If inclined to, and forgiven by your betters, you might say the cycle had come full ’round.For the reruns in the 80’s or early 90’s they used Queen’s “You’re my best friend” as the theme song (at least in the Philadelphia area).A school bully named Joey is making life miserable for Eddie — and Joey is a girl, played by a very young Jodie Foster.Translated for the layman, it means that the actors are having a big say in what they do and say in the show — and so it is.“‘Well,’ he said, ‘your mother and father and uncles and aunts have all seen the show by now, and you’ve become bored.’“I’ll say this for acting, though,” he adds. '”“Yes,” Komack said, “and now I’m better than you — so do it my way.” And they did.As for Brandon, he’s a natural boy. He’s growing up on these stages. . ‘Now,’ Ray said, ‘you learn how to act. What a great voice!’ Whereupon Bill just stared at me and shook his head and said, ‘You’re whacky,'” Komack says.THUS BEGAN an alliance, however, that thickened when Komack was directing “Martian,” in which Bixby co-starred with Ray Walston — but that’s another story.Miyoshi — she is so marvelous. . One thinks of a chandelier being touched and rustled by a soft breeze.After an hour of listening to what Solow had in mind, explaining the almost “Odd Couple” relationship of Bixby and little Brandon Cruz, who plays Bill’s 6-year-old son, Komack nodded. That’s what she does in “Eddie’s Father.”Komack was in a room oft the sound stage of a “Hennessey” in which he was acting, when he heard Bixby, who was just a little old extra, deliver the line “He went that way.”I’ve advised them, “Do what’s natural for you in any situation, and say what’s natural.”About the cast Bill (Bixby) has starred on stage, in motion pictures and television. And sometimes his music sings the wordless action on the screen.Actually, their friendship grew from a tiny incident that seems right out of an old Betty Grable movie.A native New Yorker and a bomber gunner in Manila during World War II, Komack was a cafe performer until his Broadway break in 1955, and after that he acted steadily — but, he says with a grin, he’s had it as an actor.“Look,” Walston said in mild irritation, ‘don’t forget I taught you how to act.