But the series took an unexpectedly sad turn when Hyland was diagnosed with breast cancer and died just as the show began to air. The late actress was only able to film a few episodes before her death on March 27, 1977, at age 41. The Bradford matriarch's death was written into the script, but not directly addressed until Season 2.
In the script, Tommy Bradford (Aames) finds a present that his late mother had wrapped and hidden for him. In an emotional scene, Van Patten’s character reads the inscription in the book, which is an EE. Cummings poetry collection.
Van Patten and Aames both broke down in tears during the scene, as did the other cast members as they gathered for a group hug.
View this post on Instagram“I don't know about you guys, but it doesn't really look like most of those actors are acting. Those look like real tears, red nose, labored breathing,” one fan wrote.
“Even as a kid, this scene killed me,” a third recalled.
Aames once addressed the Eight is Enough Christmas episode, noting that it was one of the highest-rated in the series' five-season run. Speaking with Media from the Heart in 2016, Aames said, “We were one of the first examples of what they would eventually call a ‘dramedy’ on television where we approached realistic issues."
"We did a Christmas show, which has been mimicked several times, where I find my dead mother’s present that she’s hidden for me," Aames continued. "And that show actually received a fifty-one share, and that’s huge. If a show gets a thirteen share these days, it’s a qualified hit. Which basically means that fifty-one of the households were watching that particular show. And it happened to be my show. I was definitely known on Eight is Enough for drama.”
Original 'Eight is Enough' cast members. (Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)Photo by ABC Photo Archives on Getty Images
“She was great,” Van Patten said in an interview with the Television Academy Foundation. “After the eighth show she died, and I thought that would be the end of the series, but instead they wrote it into the script that I become a widower and then….I marry Betty Buckley.”
“No, we did not, we did not, no, absolutely not,” the actor said. "I was with her when she died. I was with [her boyfriend href=" parade.com/968403/parade/questions-to-ask-a-guy/"] John Travolta, the two of us were sitting by her bedside, and we were the last two people with her. And then I said to John, I said, ‘We should get a priest.’ He was so upset he wasn't thinking straight…I said I'll get a priest, and I called up a friend of mine, a priest, and he came over and gave her the last rites.”
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