Las Vegas Weekly

March 23, 2009 · 8:56 AM

Photo Gallery: Knight Rider Festival features TV stars and scrapped KITT stunt

By Robin Leach

Catherine Hickland, Justin Bruening and Morgan Brittany.

Photo: Erik Kabik/Retna/www.erikkabikphoto.com

Everything was set for a spectacular ski-jump stunt to kick off the Knight Rider Festival at Fremont Street Experience downtown. Our Mayor Oscar Goodman was ready to go flying in the famous TV stunt car to make his grand entrance. New Knight Rider star Justin Bruening was ready to switch out with a stunt double. Veteran Hollywood producer Glenn Larson and actresses Catherine Hickland, who starred in the original TV series with ex-husband David Hasselhoff, and Morgan Brittany flew into town for the weekend of fun and action.

However, in a morning rehearsal on the pebbled pedestrian-only Fremont Street, the original TV series car lost traction at jump speed, slipped, slid and then overturned. The stunt was immediately canceled out of concern for the mayor, the driver and the spectators behind the safety barriers!

Instead, the stunt was performed atop a nearby parking garage and Justin drove the mayor safely onto the 1st Street staging area in the actual KITT Attack Mode Vehicle used on the NBC program. The two other “film” Ford Mustangs also were on display. The alternate stunt was the first time it had been attempted and re-created since the 1982 TV series stunt!

Entertainer Paul Casey, who organized the weekend-long event, hosted a party for the celebrities at the Gold Diggers lounge in the Golden Nugget that overlooked the stage area. Among those attending were famed custom car builder George Baris, who created the Knight Rider cars, which were built here by Shelby Autos out at the Las Vegas Speedway.

Our contributing photographer Erik Kabik was on scene for our photo gallery, and I used my digital camera for a couple of shots for my 15-year reunion with longtime friends Morgan and Catherine.

I filmed several episodes of my old series Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous and Runaway With the Rich & Famous with Morgan, who is married to top Hollywood stunt expert Jack Gill. Morgan starred on Dallas for three seasons and is widely known as the scheming woman who vanished after the attempted murder of Bobby Ewing, played by Patrick Duffy.

It also was time to catch up with longtime One Life to Live actress Catherine, who appeared on the original Knight Rider series and was married to David Hasselhoff from 1984 to 1989. I had filmed them at home for Lifestyles, too.

It’s a major coincidence that in real life, Catherine was married to fellow soap opera actor Michael E. Knight, the name of Knight Rider’s lead character, and that new Knight Rider star Justin portrayed her son on One Life to Live before he landed the role of Michael Knight in the new TV series! I hope I explained that without complicating the issue!

Catherine, who has been on OLTL since 1998, told me she’s been working as a hypnotist with her own new stage show and has authored a best-selling book, The 30-Day Heartbreak Cure: Getting Over Him.

Mayor Goodman told me: “I’d have done the stunt without thinking twice. It would have been a wonderful experience and great publicity for the City of Las Vegas. But after the spinout, they decided it just wasn’t wise for them. Maybe some people would have liked to see me do it, but the stunt guys had control, so I agreed to their demand for safety first.”

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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