Flying High

1 9 7 8 – 1 9 7 9  (USA)
18 x 50 minute episodes

Pam Bellagio, Marcy Bower and Lisa Benton were three very gorgeous airline stewardesses who worked for Sunwest Airlines based in Los Angeles.

Their plane was piloted by bumbling ladies’ man Captain Douglas March (Howard Platt) while Raymond Strickman (Ken Olfson) was the airline’s PR man.

19-year-old Marcy Bowers (Pat Klous) was the country bumpkin from Sweetwater, Texas, where she had worked on the family farm.

21-year-old Lisa Benton (Connie Sellecca) was the society sophisticate from Greenwich, Connecticut who was tired of living off her wealthy parents’ money and wanted to earn her own way in the world.

22-year-old Pam Bellagio (Kathie Witt) was the city girl who still lived at home in Trenton, New Jersey, with her very large Italian-American family.

The trio shared an apartment in Los Angeles in between flights – which were never uneventful.

Like the one during which Lisa was romanced by a handsome senator while Marcy and Pam experienced some turbulence with a pair of briefcases that were switched by accident, a mysterious news reporter, a lecherous pilot, and two menacing men in a cab.

While the CBS show was a downright copy of Charlie’s Angels, the ratings indicated the audience liked pretty girls in skimpy clothes and well-constructed packages. Accordingly, more was seen of the girls in their off-duty attire than their flight garb.

Marcy would inevitably dispense some down-home wisdom, such as; “Lahk mah daddy always says, you cain’t teach a mule to lay aigs, but you can always make a pig squeal by twisting his tail”.

Unlike most comedies, this one ran the length of a flight from Pittsburgh to New York: 50 minutes minus commercials.

18 episodes were filmed but only 13 aired.

Lisa Benton
Connie Sellecca
Marcy Bowers
Pat Klous
Pam Bellagio
Kathryn Witt
Captain Doug March
Howard Platt 
Raymond Strickman
Ken Olfson