Linda Evans accidentally broke Lee Majors' nose while filming The Big Valley

The Big Valley got a little too realistic on set one day.

Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution

As the only daughter in the Barkley Family, Audra Barkley lives quite an exciting life. Though at times flighty and prone to fantastical romances, Audra ultimately has a good head on her shoulders and matures throughout The Big Valley.

While Audra has some very tender moments with Victoria Barkley, played by Barbara Stanwyck, Linda Evans, who played Audra, insisted that the character was closer to her late father.

"No, I think she was a daddy's girl rather than a momma's girl," Evans said during an interview with The Pittsburgh Press. But behind the scenes, Evans and Stanwyck were as close as any two people could be, with Stanwyck acting as a sort of surrogate mother to Evans after her mother passed away.

Evans explained that originally, Audra's character was meant to be similar to a famed character from Gone With the Wind. "They had in mind sort of a Scarlet O'Hara...wealthy...rebellious....spoiled," she said.

With a background in comedic acting, Evans revealed that, while she had a knack for being funny, it wasn't her ideal genre, as she came to realize once she began acting in The Big Valley.

"Naturally, I prefer the drama to comedy," she said. "I feel I can learn so much more from these people...the situation is entirely different."

But drama on-screen can sometimes make for drama off-screen too. In another interview with The Pittsburgh Press, Evans revealed that she accidentally broke the nose of her costar, Lee Majors while filming The Big Valley. Though Majors recovered well, Evans believed that the injury was actually to his benefit.

"Lee has that rugged look now," she said. "I told him I was going to charge him for giving him a new image."

Watch The Big Valley on MeTV!

Saturdays at 12 PM

*available in most MeTV markets
Are you sure you want to delete this comment?
Close

3 Comments

ElizabethBoop 1 month ago
"We can rebuild his nose. We have the technology."
BuckeyeBeth 1 month ago
So very disappointed in this article that they don’t mention how Linda Evans accidentally broke Lee Majors nose. A quick Internet search revealed on one of The Big Valley fan pages that the incident happened while filming the S1E22 episode The Death Merchant.

I do wonder if the interviews mentioned in this MeTV article mentions how it happened. And again I would like to mention it would be really awesome if the MeTV staff could include the links to the articles they are talking about so fans could go read them if they wished. And to be honest it would’ve been nice if they had tried to contact either Linda Evans or Lee Majors to ask about the incident. I would think one of the two would still like to talk about their days on The Big Valley.
Are you sure you want to delete this comment?