Famous Divers: Lloyd Bridges
As the star of America's most successful syndicated television show Sea Hunt (1957-1961), Bridges introduced scuba diving to millions of viewers across the world.
In 1945, Bridges accepted the role of a deep-sea diver in the film 16 Fathoms Deep, an eerie foretelling of his later success. However, in the early 1950s he was blacklisted for political activism during the McCarthy era. But in 1957, Bridges took the role that changed his career; Mike Nelson, a Navy frogman turned undersea investigator in "Sea Hunt." Amazingly the networks turned down the series as being too limited in scope, so producer Ivan Tors offered it in syndication. Soon it drew bigger ratings than the network shows and it lasted through 156 episodes. "The series certainly brought me more notice than anything I have ever done before as an actor," Bridges said in a 1959 interview. "It has also brought me more money than anything else in my career." He had to learn to dive properly for the programme and it led to a lifetime's love of diving which in turn became a concern for the marine environment. Although the series finished in 1961, Bridges continued to dive until the last years of his life, and both his sons were also trained to dive young. Those sons Beau and Jeff, who started acting as youngsters on "Sea Hunt," became stars in their own right.
Lloyd Bridges was a committed environmentalist, involved in several organizations including the American Oceans Campaign and Heal the Bay, a Los Angeles-based group. He saw some final success in the Airplane films, before dying of natural causes in 1998.
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