There’s a good reason why audiences didn’t see much of Heather Thomas, star of The Fall Guy, after the show went off the air in the ’80s. The actress, who costarred with Lee Majors on all five seasons of the ABC show that aired from 1981 to 1986, made fewer and fewer appearances in Hollywood before leaving altogether.

“I actually did some work after The Fall Guy,” Thomas said on a recent episode of Still Here Hollywood hosted by Steve Kmetko. “I did a lot of movies and then I was just getting so many stalkers and really, really bad. Really bad — at least two a week. I had tons of restraining orders.”

The action-comedy series told the story of a film stuntman who worked as a bounty hunter at night. It was the basis of the 2024 movie that starred Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, with Blunt portraying the character of Jody Moreno. Thomas made a cameo as her character from the series, Jody Banks, alongside Majors as Colt Seavers.

“I had two little girls, and a guy’s jumping our gate with a giant buck knife,” she explained. “In those days — I don’t know if this is true now — but people would fixate. You could be in a soap commercial, and they would fixate on you, and there weren’t a lot of stalker laws. And I just needed to be home anyway. There was one year where I was home two months, and that’s not gonna raise kids.”

As for the laws against stalking, the 1989 death of My Sister Sam actress Rebecca Schaeffer and the 1991 trial of the man who hunted her down and killed her at her apartment in West Hollywood, Calif., spurred anti-stalking laws that wouldn’t have been in place yet during the time Thomas described.

“Mine was scary. Mine was really scary,” Thomas said. “I remember someone sent me a box of bullets.”

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She also recalled receiving funeral wreaths. She said she kept a bodyguard at her house because she didn’t want to come home to darkness.

“I know I had one guy, one night cut my screen in my bedroom and got in,” Thomas said. “I shot him with rock salt and birdshot.”

When asked, Thomas said she didn’t know if the man had gone to jail.

Now 67, Thomas said she stayed away “for a while.” She’s made three appearances since 1998, according to IMDb.

Listen to the full interview below, with the conversation about stalkers beginning about 6:50.