Trivia: Only mentioned in one episode early in the series, Steve Austin's least-referenced superhuman power was his ability to hold his breath for extraordinary lengths of time. Steve's phenomenal breath-holding ability was due to the fact that, even though he had two normal lungs, he had a much smaller circulatory system than a normal human being. Also, the Steve Austin in Martin Caidin's original book, "Cyborg," had an entire array of weapons, flares, communications gear, retractable swim fins, and scuba tanks built into his bionic body.
Trivia: The narrator who says, "Steve Austin, astronaut, a man barely alive" during the opening sequence is the series producer, Harve Bennett.
Trivia: Longtime TV actor Lee Majors was extremely influential in the overall development of the "Six Million Dollar Man" series. Although he had already appeared in the 3 successful made-for-TV pilot movies in 1973, Majors was very skeptical of entering into a weekly series, and he wanted a guarantee that the show would not devolve into a campy superhero series (like "Batman"). Majors further stipulated that there should be no blood and no violent death on the show. Executive producer Harve Bennett, producer Kenneth Johnson, and ABC Television immediately agreed. Majors also thought the original "Six Million Dollar Man" theme song (sung by Dusty Springfield) was embarrassingly bad, so composer Oliver Nelson wrote the iconic instrumental theme for the series. Two years into the hit show, Majors then became concerned that his character, Steve Austin, would be perceived as gay because he never had an onscreen love interest; so Majors essentially demanded that a female character be added to fill that role. The producers complied without question. According to Lee Majors: "People were really getting to the point where it was like, 'When's this guy [Steve Austin] going to come out of the closet here?' That's when we brought in Lindsay Wagner to be the first love interest."
