Host: We are back, and today I have the absolute privilege of sitting down with a television legend. Jamie, you wore some of the most outrageous outfits in television history on that show. Did you ever forget you were wearing them when you left the set?

Jamie: Oh, constantly. You have to remember, when you are in a gown for twelve hours a day, it just becomes your normal work clothes. It stops being a costume and starts being your uniform.

Host: So you would just walk around the studio lot in full drag?

Jamie: All the time! We filmed a lot of the outdoor scenes out at the ranch in Malibu, but the interiors were shot right on Stage 9 at the 20th Century Fox lot in Los Angeles.

And that lot was a bustling place. You had executives in three-piece suits, serious dramatic actors, tour groups, everything walking around.

It was the middle of the second season. We had been filming a very long, very hot scene over in the Swamp. I was wearing one of Klinger’s most ridiculous getups.

I think it was a massive, floor-length floral print dress. Complete with a huge feathered hat, a matching purse, and bright red high heels. Oh, and I had my standard thick, dark mustache and a heavy five o’clock shadow.

We finally got a five-minute break while the crew changed the complex lighting setup.

I had drank about three cups of coffee that morning, so I immediately stepped out the heavy soundstage doors and headed straight for the communal men’s room on the lot.

Now, this particular restroom was heavily used by the big-shot studio executives whose offices were right across the alley.

I pushed the door open. The room was perfectly quiet.

I could hear my own red high heels echoing loudly on the tile. Click. Clack. Click. Clack.

There was only one other person in there. A very stern-looking executive in a perfectly tailored charcoal suit, standing quietly at the urinal.

I walked right up to the spot next to him.

And that’s when it happened.

I unzipped my floral dress as best as I could and just stood there, doing my business.

Now, put yourself in this executive’s expensive leather shoes for a second.

He is having a quiet, normal Tuesday afternoon. He is probably thinking about budgets, syndication deals, or upcoming board meetings.

He hears the unmistakable sound of women’s high heels clicking across the men’s room floor.

He slowly turns his head, probably absolutely terrified of what he is going to see.

And right next to him is a hairy, Lebanese man from Toledo, Ohio, wearing a giant feathered hat, a floral gown, and a thick mustache, holding a purse in one hand.

The host of the podcast leans into the microphone, breathless with laughter.

Host: Please tell me you didn’t say anything. Please tell me you just let him process it.

Jamie: Oh, I had to say something! But I didn’t break character as Jamie. I just looked over at him, gave him a very casual, manly nod, and in my deepest, gruffest voice said, “Boy, it is a real scorcher out there today, isn’t it?”

The host erupts into loud, uncontrollable laughter.

Jamie laughs too, the memory clearly as fresh as if it happened yesterday.

Jamie: I have never seen a human being move so fast in my entire life.

The man didn’t even say a single word. His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. The blood completely drained from his face in a second.

He zipped up his trousers with lightning speed, grabbed his leather briefcase off the counter, and bolted for the door. He didn’t wash his hands, he didn’t look back.

The door slammed shut, and I was just left standing there alone in my high heels, adjusting my feathered hat.

Host: He probably thought he was having a total hallucination!

Jamie: I guarantee you he went back to his office and poured himself a very stiff drink.

I finished washing my hands, fixed my lipstick in the mirror just for the fun of it, and strolled casually back onto Stage 9.

I walked onto the set, and Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers were sitting in their canvas chairs, going over the script for the next shot.

I walked up to them and said, “Fellas, I think I just ruined a Fox executive’s entire week.”

I told them the story. Alan let out that famous, booming laugh of his. He laughed so hard he actually fell backward out of his canvas chair.

Wayne was wiping tears from his eyes, pounding his fist on the table.

Gene Reynolds, our brilliant executive producer, walked over to see what the commotion was about. We were supposed to be shooting a rather serious dialogue scene next, but all of us were absolutely hysterical.

When Gene heard what happened, he had to call a hold on production. The camera crew was laughing too hard to keep the frame steady. The sound guys couldn’t stop chuckling into their headsets.

We literally lost about twenty minutes of expensive studio time because nobody could pull themselves together to film.

Host: Did you ever find out who the executive was?

Jamie: Never! He never came forward. Frankly, I don’t blame him. How do you explain that to your colleagues without sounding crazy?

But the best part was how the incident evolved. It became an instant legend on the set.

It turned into a running joke that lasted for years. From that afternoon on, whenever we had a break in filming, Alan or Wayne would stand up and shout to the entire crew.

They would yell, “Lock the lot gates! Hide your executives! Jamie is heading to the bathroom!”

Even the writers got in on it. They started making bets on how many corporate suits I could terrify in a single afternoon.

Sometimes, if I knew a group of studio VIPs were taking a tour of the lot, I would intentionally time my breaks just to walk past them in a wedding dress or a Cleopatra costume, just nodding at them with a straight face.

It was the perfect contrast. Here we were, making a television show about the grim, exhausting realities of a mobile army surgical hospital, and off-camera, we were surviving by holding onto the absolute absurdity of our situation.

You needed those moments of pure, unadulterated silliness to get through the heavy emotional toll of the material.

Host: It sounds like an incredible environment to work in.

Jamie: It truly was the best place in the world. We weren’t just a cast, we were a family. And like any good family, we loved a good prank, even if it was completely accidental.

Working on that show taught me that sometimes the funniest moments aren’t in the script. They happen when real life collides with the ridiculousness of Hollywood.

Have you ever had a moment at work where a completely accidental misunderstanding turned into an inside joke that lasted for years?