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| Tom Bosley and Patricia Carr on Happy Days. |
Toward the end of its fifth season in the spring of 1978, Happy Days went on hiatus for a couple of months. In March and April of that year, only one semi-new episode aired -- a rather modest clip show called "Richie's Girl Exposes the Cunninghams" -- and even this was scheduled in an out-of-the-way Friday night time slot rather than the sitcom's usual Tuesday night berth. The reason for the popular sitcom's mysterious, weeks-long disappearance was a sad one. Jean Eliot, wife of actor and Happy Days patriarch Tom Bosley, had died. Trouper that he is, though, Tom came back to finish out Season 5 and was his usual, jovial self on-camera. Viewers may never have even suspected anything was wrong.
There's a happy coda to the story, though. Two and a half years later, Tom married a Los Angeles actress named Patricia Carr, and the two stayed together until Tom's death in 2010. Patti even guest starred on a Season 8 episode of Happy Days called "Howard's Bowling Buddy." As you may have guessed, Patti plays the title role: a ten-pin temptress who tries to steal Howard Cunningham (Tom) away from his wife Marion (Marion Ross).
Does she succeed? Is the episode any good? Find out when we review "Howard's Bowling Buddy" in the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.