Amanda Bearse came to prominence as an actor on the long running and hugely popular comedy series Married… with Children.

Amongst a sea of 80s family sitcoms like Silver Spoons, The Cosby Show, Who’s the Boss?, Charles in Charge, Family Ties and Growing Pains, the show headed in the opposite direction showing the dysfunctional Bundy family.

With dad Al Bundy, big haired mother Peg, and their kids – dimwitted daughter Kelly and smart-aleck son Bud, the show made its actors including Ed O’Neill, Katey Sagal, Christina Applegate and David Faustino world famous.

In the show Bearse played neighbour Marcy Rhoades, during the series run her character remarried to become Marcy D’Arcy.

At the time there were few actors who publicly shared that they were gay or lesbian and allowing the public to know such information was often seen as a career ending move. So, when Bearse told the world she was a lesbian in 1993 it was a big deal.

While friends and colleagues had always known about Bearse’s sexuality, after her daughter was born, she worried about being outed by tabloid magazines. She decided to take away the fear by telling the world and she had the support of the show’s cast and crew.

Bearse also moved into directing and helmed many episodes of the show during its eleven-year run. In recent interviews she’s commented on the show’s legacy and said it’s a product of its time.

“It was a mean-spirited and misogynist show,” Bearse told News.com.au during a 2018 interview. “It was just so completely inappropriate. Today I don’t think the show would be produced because it’s so globally offensive. Even then it wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea but for some reason it’s had this amazing longevity.”

Married…with Children ran from 1987 through until 1996. After the shows run came to an end Bearse continued working as a director of comedy series.

She’s directed episodes of Reba, Dharma and Greg, Veronica’s Closet, Sabrina, Two Guys, a Girls and a Pizza Place, and The Jamie Foxx Show.

In the 90’s Bearse pulled back from acting, but did it appear in Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation. More recently she’s appeared in Drop Dead Diva and the feature film Bros.

Culture Club released one of their biggest albums in 1983

Culture Club’s Colour by Numbers album, one of the most successful hit-records of the 1980’s was released on this day. The British band really hit it big with their second album when it came out in 1983.

Their debut record Kissing to Be Clever came out just one year earlier in October 1982, and at first it struggled to score any hits. Their first two singles flopped completely, but the band’s fortunes picked up with later releases Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, Time (Clock of the Heart) and I’ll Tumble 4 Ya. 

Riding a wave of success, the band were quickly back in the studio recording their follow up album, and it contained their biggest ever hit.

The album opens up with Karma Chameleon, a song that Boy George wrote while on holiday in Egypt, and none of the other band members were particularly fond of. The harmonica filled tune with a country vibe became the band’s signature tune, and they now always close their concerts with the song.

Other hits from the album include Miss Me Blind, It’s a Mircale, Victims, and Church of the Poison Mind.

The original version featured 10 tracks, but in 2003 an extended version was released with five additional tunes that have served as b-sides to the album’ singles.

The album spent six weeks in the number 2 position on the US charts, kept from being a number one by Michael Jackson’s long running success with Thriller. It made it to the number one spot here in Australia though where the band had a huge fan base.

Two of the backing singers on the record would go on to have successful pop careers of their own. Helen Terry, whose soulful vocals were an essential part of the Culture Club sound would bring out her debut single Love Lies Lost the following year, while Jermaine Stewart would score his biggest hit in 1986 when he released, We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off.   

Image: Amanda Bearse at GalaxyCon Louisville in 2019, Published under a Creative Commons 2.0 license. Image created by Flickr User Super Festivals. Image has been cropped and blur has been added.