Before working on the third and fourth seasons of “Yellowjackets,” Hilary Swank began her long and successful career as a guest star on “Harry and the Hendersons,” a sitcom spin-off of the 1987 film of the same name.
Both the sitcom and the original film are about the Henderson family, who accidentally hit a sasquatch with their car. They subsequently adopt him and name him “Harry.”
Swank appeared in the 13th episode of the first season as Chelsea, a friend of the Hendersons’ teenage daughter Sarah (Carol-Ann Plante). Chelsea arrives at the Hendersons’ house as Sarah’s parents George (Bruce Davison) and Nancy (Molly Cheek) are leaving for dinner, leaving Sarah to babysit her younger brother Ernie (Zachary Bostrom). Chelsea convinces Sarah to stop making pies for a bake sale and accompany her to a local pizza joint where their crush works. Despite Chelsea’s protests, Sarah brings Ernie with them, leaving Harry alone to ransack the house (and the pies).
Swank was struggling before appearing on the sitcom
While Swank’s role on the sitcom was brief, it helped her break through in Hollywood.
Before appearing in “Harry and the Hendersons,” the teenage Swank and her mother Judy struggled with homelessness. After Judy separated from Swank’s father, she moved her daughter to Los Angeles to help her get into acting. Before finding an apartment, the two were forced to sleep in an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.
She recounted this time in her life to The Wall Street Journal. “When we weren’t sleeping in the car, we stayed at the house of a new friend my age whose family had just moved out and were trying to sell their home. We slept on an air mattress.”
Swank soon hired agent Bonnie Liedtke to represent her, and she landed her inaugural role in “Harry and the Hendersons.” She would appear in shows such as “Growing Pains” and Burt Reynolds’ “Evening Shade” before going into films.
