Oscar Goldman
Encyclopedia
Oscar Goldman is a fictional character created by Martin Caidin
and introduced in his 1972 novel Cyborg
. In the 1970s, he was portrayed by Richard Anderson
in both The Six Million Dollar Man
and The Bionic Woman
television series which were based upon Cyborg. He served as the bionic heroes', Steve Austin
and Jaime Sommers
, immediate superior.
, High Crystal
and Cyborg IV
Goldman was the head of the Washington, D.C.
-based Office of Strategic Operations (OSO), an American government intelligence agency which recruits former Vietnam War
pilot and astronaut Steve Austin as an agent after rebuilding the man with bionic limbs following the crash of a test aircraft.
. When this television film, titled The Six Million Dollar Man, proved to be a hit, ABC commissioned a sequel, Wine, Women & War (an original story not based on a Caidin work) which aired on October 23, 1973. McGavin and Spencer were dropped and the agency was renamed the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI), a fictitious organization not to be confused with the real-life Office of Scientific Intelligence
that operated under the Central Intelligence Agency
. The character of Oscar Goldman was reinstated, with Richard Anderson cast in the role. (The opening credits to Wine, Women & War perform retconning, establishing that it was Goldman, not Spencer, who authorized the operation to turn Austin into a Cyborg.)
Anderson's portrayal of Goldman was that of a warm, fatherly figure—though he could also be a calculating bureaucrat
when the need arose. (This differed from McGavin's portrayal of Oliver Spencer who was cold hearted and referred to as little more than a robot by Austin.) Following a third TV film, The Six Million Dollar Man became a weekly series in 1974 and Anderson remained with the show throughout its run. He also played the role in the subsequent Bionic Woman spin-off series. Richard Anderson is one of the few actors to portray the same character in two different television series running concurrently on two different networks, when Bionic Woman was moved to a rival network, NBC
.
During the series, Goldman and Austin develop a close, if occasionally testy friendship, with Goldman frequently referring to Austin as "pal". Perhaps the ultimate illustration of the men's friendship occurred when Goldman agreed to his friend's request to have bionic surgery performed on Jaime Sommers
in order to save her life, despite the cost involved (although this friendship was tested soon after when Austin resisted Goldman's orders that Sommers subsequently be recruited by the OSI). Despite sending Sommers on dangerous missions, Goldman was particularly protective of her, and bristled when a Senator repeatedly mispronounced her name. Goldman usually referred to Sommers as "babe". Goldman's position within the OSI was considered so important that Goldman arranged standing orders to be killed in the event he was captured to prevent him from being interrogated or converted into a double agent
if he was released or rescued (these orders were revealed in the three-part Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman crossover arc, "Kill Oscar"). However when this situation arose, Steve Austin disobeyed the order and rescued Goldman, unaware that he actually extracted an android imposter. Eventually after the imposter was discovered and defeated, the real Goldman was rescued in defiance of his own orders.
Oscar Goldman was a snappy dresser, who had a propensity for loud patterns (which were in style at the time). His briefcase featured in many episodes, as he would often just open it to produce a solution to various problems. Goldman, who served as head of the OSI under six presidents, wielded considerable influence in the Federal government, and was able to get the Secretary of State on the telephone on short notice.
Although never explicitly stated during either series, it was implied that Oscar is Jewish. In one episode of The Bionic Woman, he used a pseudonym when travelling to a Middle Eastern country because he thought the “Goldman” name would not make him any friends. In another episode, the king of the fictional El Alamein told Sommers he would never deal with a man named “Goldman”.
Anderson reprised the role of Oscar Goldman in three highly rated two-hour TV movie sequels to the series that aired in the late 1980s and early 1990s: The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, Bionic Showdown, and Bionic Ever After, indicating that, in the Six Million Dollar Man universe, Goldman remained in a high-ranking position with the OSI well into the 1990s.
The character of Oscar Goldman is absent from Bionic Woman
, a remake of the 1976 series which aired on NBC
starting in September 2007. Goldman has been replaced by a new character, Jonas Bledsoe, played by Miguel Ferrer
.http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-pilotcasting-miguelferrerbarrybostwick,0,1902401.story
named a chicken Oscar Goldman in a 2006 episode called "Where in the Fuck is Oscar Goldman?" The chicken was part of Trinity's science project, which Ricky states that he helped name, "The Birth of Oscar Goldman". http://www.tv.com/trailer-park-boys/where-in-the-fuck-is-oscar-goldman/episode/683218/summary.html
In the movie 40 Year Old Virgin, the main character makes reference to owning an Oscar Goldman action figure.
Martin Caidin
Martin Caidin was an American author and an authority on aeronautics and aviation.Caidin wrote more than 50 books, including Samurai!, Black Thursday, Thunderbolt!, Fork-Tailed Devil: The P-38, Zero!, The Ragged, Rugged Warriors, A Torch to the Enemy and many other works of military history...
and introduced in his 1972 novel Cyborg
Cyborg (novel)
Cyborg is the title of a science fiction/secret agent novel by Martin Caidin which was first published in 1972. The novel also included elements of speculative fiction, and was adapted as the television series The Six Million Dollar Man and also inspired its spin-off, The Bionic Woman.-Plot...
. In the 1970s, he was portrayed by Richard Anderson
Richard Anderson
Richard Norman Anderson is an American actor in film and television, known to TV audiences as Steve Austin's and Jaime Sommers' boss, Oscar Goldman, in both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman TV series and their three subsequent TV movies: The Return of the Six-Million-Dollar Man...
in both The Six Million Dollar Man
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Six Million Dollar Man is an American television series about a former astronaut with bionic implants working for the OSI...
and The Bionic Woman
The Bionic Woman
The Bionic Woman is an American television series starring Lindsay Wagner that aired for three seasons between 1976 and 1978 as a spin off from The Six Million Dollar Man. Wagner stars as tennis pro Jaime Sommers who is nearly killed in a skydiving accident. Sommers' life is saved by Oscar Goldman ...
television series which were based upon Cyborg. He served as the bionic heroes', Steve Austin
Steve Austin (fictional character)
Steve Austin is a fictional character created by Martin Caidin for his 1972 novel, Cyborg, who later became a 1970s television icon as portrayed by Lee Majors in the 1974-1978 series The Six Million Dollar Man.-Background:...
and Jaime Sommers
Jaime Sommers
Jaime Sommers may refer to:* Jaime Sommers , the main character in the original 1970s television series The Bionic Woman* Jaime Sommers , the main character in the 2007 television series Bionic Woman...
, immediate superior.
Cyborg Novels
In the original novel by Caidin, and subsequent sequels Operation NukeOperation Nuke
Operation Nuke is the title of the second book in the Cyborg series of science fiction/secret agent novels by Martin Caidin which was first published in 1973, just prior to Cyborg being adapted as the television series The Six Million Dollar Man...
, High Crystal
High Crystal
High Crystal is a science fiction/secret agent novel by Martin Caidin that was first published in 1974. It was the second sequel to Caidin's 1972 work Cyborg, which in turn was the basis for the television series The Six Million Dollar Man...
and Cyborg IV
Cyborg IV
Cyborg IV is a science fiction/secret agent novel by Martin Caidin that was first published in 1975. It was the fourth and final book in a series of novels Caidin began in 1972 with Cyborg, profiling the adventures of astronaut Steve Austin, who becomes a spy for the American government after an...
Goldman was the head of the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
-based Office of Strategic Operations (OSO), an American government intelligence agency which recruits former Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
pilot and astronaut Steve Austin as an agent after rebuilding the man with bionic limbs following the crash of a test aircraft.
Television
When Cyborg was adapted for television in 1973, the character of Oscar Goldman was replaced by that of Oliver Spencer, played by Darren McGavinDarren McGavin
Darren McGavin was an American actor best known for playing the title role in the television horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker and his portrayal in the film A Christmas Story of the grumpy father given to bursts of profanity that he never realizes his son overhears...
. When this television film, titled The Six Million Dollar Man, proved to be a hit, ABC commissioned a sequel, Wine, Women & War (an original story not based on a Caidin work) which aired on October 23, 1973. McGavin and Spencer were dropped and the agency was renamed the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI), a fictitious organization not to be confused with the real-life Office of Scientific Intelligence
Office of Scientific Intelligence
Office of Scientific Intelligence was the name of a department of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1963, it was incorporated into the Directorate of Science & Technology.-Pop culture:...
that operated under the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
. The character of Oscar Goldman was reinstated, with Richard Anderson cast in the role. (The opening credits to Wine, Women & War perform retconning, establishing that it was Goldman, not Spencer, who authorized the operation to turn Austin into a Cyborg.)
Anderson's portrayal of Goldman was that of a warm, fatherly figure—though he could also be a calculating bureaucrat
Bureaucrat
A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy and can comprise the administration of any organization of any size, though the term usually connotes someone within an institution of a government or corporation...
when the need arose. (This differed from McGavin's portrayal of Oliver Spencer who was cold hearted and referred to as little more than a robot by Austin.) Following a third TV film, The Six Million Dollar Man became a weekly series in 1974 and Anderson remained with the show throughout its run. He also played the role in the subsequent Bionic Woman spin-off series. Richard Anderson is one of the few actors to portray the same character in two different television series running concurrently on two different networks, when Bionic Woman was moved to a rival network, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
.
During the series, Goldman and Austin develop a close, if occasionally testy friendship, with Goldman frequently referring to Austin as "pal". Perhaps the ultimate illustration of the men's friendship occurred when Goldman agreed to his friend's request to have bionic surgery performed on Jaime Sommers
Jaime Sommers
Jaime Sommers may refer to:* Jaime Sommers , the main character in the original 1970s television series The Bionic Woman* Jaime Sommers , the main character in the 2007 television series Bionic Woman...
in order to save her life, despite the cost involved (although this friendship was tested soon after when Austin resisted Goldman's orders that Sommers subsequently be recruited by the OSI). Despite sending Sommers on dangerous missions, Goldman was particularly protective of her, and bristled when a Senator repeatedly mispronounced her name. Goldman usually referred to Sommers as "babe". Goldman's position within the OSI was considered so important that Goldman arranged standing orders to be killed in the event he was captured to prevent him from being interrogated or converted into a double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
if he was released or rescued (these orders were revealed in the three-part Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman crossover arc, "Kill Oscar"). However when this situation arose, Steve Austin disobeyed the order and rescued Goldman, unaware that he actually extracted an android imposter. Eventually after the imposter was discovered and defeated, the real Goldman was rescued in defiance of his own orders.
Oscar Goldman was a snappy dresser, who had a propensity for loud patterns (which were in style at the time). His briefcase featured in many episodes, as he would often just open it to produce a solution to various problems. Goldman, who served as head of the OSI under six presidents, wielded considerable influence in the Federal government, and was able to get the Secretary of State on the telephone on short notice.
Although never explicitly stated during either series, it was implied that Oscar is Jewish. In one episode of The Bionic Woman, he used a pseudonym when travelling to a Middle Eastern country because he thought the “Goldman” name would not make him any friends. In another episode, the king of the fictional El Alamein told Sommers he would never deal with a man named “Goldman”.
Anderson reprised the role of Oscar Goldman in three highly rated two-hour TV movie sequels to the series that aired in the late 1980s and early 1990s: The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, Bionic Showdown, and Bionic Ever After, indicating that, in the Six Million Dollar Man universe, Goldman remained in a high-ranking position with the OSI well into the 1990s.
The character of Oscar Goldman is absent from Bionic Woman
Bionic Woman (2007 TV series)
Bionic Woman is an American science fiction television drama created by David Eick, under NBC Universal Television Group, GEP Productions and David Eick Productions that aired in 2007...
, a remake of the 1976 series which aired on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
starting in September 2007. Goldman has been replaced by a new character, Jonas Bledsoe, played by Miguel Ferrer
Miguel Ferrer
Miguel José Ferrer is an American actor and voice actor who is often cast as a villain. His notable roles include Bob Morton, a supporting character in RoboCop , the short tempered FBI agent Albert Rosenfield in Twin Peaks, and Dr...
.http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-pilotcasting-miguelferrerbarrybostwick,0,1902401.story
In Popular Culture
The Canadian television show Trailer Park BoysTrailer Park Boys
Trailer Park Boys is a Canadian comedy mockumentary television series created and directed by Mike Clattenburg that focuses on the misadventures of a group of trailer park residents, some of whom are ex-convicts, living in the fictional Sunnyvale Trailer Park in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The...
named a chicken Oscar Goldman in a 2006 episode called "Where in the Fuck is Oscar Goldman?" The chicken was part of Trinity's science project, which Ricky states that he helped name, "The Birth of Oscar Goldman". http://www.tv.com/trailer-park-boys/where-in-the-fuck-is-oscar-goldman/episode/683218/summary.html
In the movie 40 Year Old Virgin, the main character makes reference to owning an Oscar Goldman action figure.