Return to "Knots Landing"

Since departing "Knots Landing" over two decades ago, Constance McCashin has rarely looked back. She's consistently said no to reunions, even when begged by producers of the '80s primetime soap. "I just didn't want to do it. It's kind of like 'Jurassic Park 6.' Who needs it?" quips McCashin, who lives in Newton with her husband, "George of the Jungle" director Sam Weisman. So when we heard that the "Knots Landing" gang is being honored next month at the TV Land Awards in LA, we assumed McCashin would again be MIA. (So did fans of the show, one of whom posted this comment on a "Knots" message board: "It will be interesting to see if the ever-absent Constance McCashion is there. I wouldn't hold my breath.") Well, she will be. McCashin, who works as a psychotherapist at Brandeis these days, tells us she's flying out for the April 19 taping, joining fellow castmates Michele Lee, Ted Shackelford, Joan Van Ark, Kevin Dobson, William Devane, and Donna Mills. McCashin says she's always been grateful to "Knots" creator David Jacobs for casting her as Laura Avery. "It changed my life," she says. But she also admits it ended badly eight years later, in 1987. "I was very hurt the way I was let go for financial reasons," she says. "I wish they'd handled my demise better...It was a big fat brain tumor. Sam says I was an homage to chemotherapy. Everyone with cancer should look so good." McCashin will make the trip with west with Weisman and their 26-year-old son, Daniel, who was just 11-weeks-old when he joined the "Knots" cast. "It was brilliant casting," says McCashin. "He played my son."

Caption: Val Ewing (Joan Van Ark) and Karen MacKenzie (Michele Lee) on "Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-De-Sac," a four-hour mini-series reunion in 1997.