Anna Daniels
On paper, ABC’s first pick for Jill seemed sound. The first version of the Home Improvement pilot starred dramatic actress Frances Fisher as the Taylor family matriarch. At the time, Fisher’s most famous on screen role was her five-year stint as Detective Deborah Saxon in ABC’s long-running crime drama/soap opera The Edge of Night. Off screen, she was best known as Clint Eastwood’s girlfriend — she dated the actor-turned-director for almost six years after meeting him on the set of the film Pink Cadillac in 1989, in which she had a small part.
However, Fisher’s stellar dramatic record didn’t quite translate to the boisterous jokes of Home Improvement. Richard Karn, who played Tim’s long-suffering Tool Time co-presenter Al Borland, said the writers changed their minds about Fisher just three days into rehearsals. After the pilot didn’t fly with audiences, they scrambled to replace her. “Frances is a great actress, but in this role with Tim, she came off more as a victim to him than his equal,” Karn recalled.
Fisher probably isn’t dwelling on her loss, though. While Hollywood won’t cast Tim Allen anymore, his would-be screen wife has appeared in episodes of top-rated TV shows including The X-Files, ER, Grey’s Anatomy, and Fargo, had recurring roles in Masters of Sex and HBO’s Watchmen, and played a madam in Eastwood’s Oscar-winning Unforgiven. Most famously, she played Rose’s (Kate Winslet) icy mother Ruth Dewitt Bukater in Titanic. Not much room for improvement.
Written by: Looper
