American actor who charmed two generations of viewers in five TV series that included “My Favorite Martian,” 1963, “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” and “The Incredible Hulk,” In the ’90s, he successfully took the other side of the camera, directing the hit sitcom “Blossom.”
Off screen, his script has not been as fortunate. He was married to actress Brenda Benet in 1969 for ten years; in 1981 their six-year-old son Christopher, whom he adored, died suddenly of a rare respiratory ailment while waiting treatment in an emergency clinic. Bixby went into a devastating six-month depression, moving to the beach and sitting inside the house for four months before even walking on the sand. A year after their son’s death, Benet shot herself to death.
Immersing himself in work, Bixby took up golf and gradually began dating again. He remarried, former secretary Laura Michael, in January 1991. A few weeks later he began having pains in his right hip. Tests confirmed prostate cancer and he immediately had his prostate removed by the end of January. As prostate removal sometimes causes loss of sexual potency, Bixby had additional surgery that restored his sexual abilities, but not his fertility. Michael filed for divorce in June 1992, about the same time that he learned that his cancer had returned.
Bixby grasped another chance at happiness, finding a new relationship with Judith Kliban. In 1993, struggling with medications and treatments and seeing the end approaching, they married on 10/03/1993. Bixby died a month later, 11/21/1993, Studio City, CA.
Link to Wikipedia biography