{"id":347,"date":"2014-08-18T02:06:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T02:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/?p=347"},"modified":"2015-01-05T22:03:05","modified_gmt":"2015-01-05T22:03:05","slug":"terry-bradshaw-pittsburghs-biggest-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/08\/18\/terry-bradshaw-pittsburghs-biggest-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Terry Bradshaw \u2014 Pittsburgh\u2019s biggest star"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bradshaw <\/a>
Bradshaw waves goodbye to fans in 1975. (Robert Pavuchak\/Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Bradshaw <\/a>
Bradshaw and wife JoJo Starbuck celebrated victory in Super Bowl XIII in 1979. (Associated Press photo) <\/div> <\/div>
\"Mercury <\/a>
Mercury Records released this image of Bradshaw as a country music singer in the mid 1970s. <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Boys <\/a>
Boys from the local press and Bradshaw in a snowball fight in 1976. (Pittsburgh Press photo) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Bradshaw <\/a>
Bradshaw clowning with a Bengal mascot in 1972. (Pittsburgh Press photo) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Bradshaw <\/a>
Bradshaw clowned with first wife Melissa in 1972. (Pittsburgh Press photo) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Clean <\/a>
Clean cut Bradshaw when he first came to Pittsburgh in 1970. (Pittsburgh Press photo) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

One day in 1970 Terry Bradshaw walked into the LaMont LeMont Restaurant on Mt. Washington with Miss Teenage America on his arm.<\/p>\n

Everyone in the place yelped and applauded.<\/p>\n

Bradshaw was amused.<\/p>\n

Later someone suggested the applause was for the beautiful young woman in his company. \u201cHey,\u201d Bradshaw said. \u201cI never thought of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was Bradshaw. Cocky, but in a manner that was endearing instead of annoying. It was his schtick.<\/p>\n

Bradshaw came to us with a twinkle in his blue eyes and a sort of goofy \u201caw, shucks\u201d innocence. Didn\u2019t smoke, didn\u2019t drink. At the Roosevelt Hotel, he ordered grits and scrambled eggs for his pre-game meals. He was a southern boy, you know.<\/p>\n

And he was photogenic. His yellow hair, square face and dimpled chin drew the attention of a Harper\u2019s Bazaar magazine editor, who flew him to New York for a fashion shoot. He wore his new Steelers jersey, delivered in person by an executive from the team\u2019s front office.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoy, that\u2019s pretty, that really is,\u201d Bradshaw said when he held up what was, at the time, considered one of the NFL\u2019s ugliest uniforms.<\/p>\n

It seemed he was a star everywhere but back home in Louisiana. A car dealer there paid him $400 to make an appearance at a dealership to sign autographs. Four people showed up.<\/p>\n

In Pittsburgh, he got 20 to 30 pieces of fan mail each day. He replied to each by sending a signed 6×9 picture of himself poised to throw a football.<\/p>\n

Someone wrote to him, \u201cYou\u2019re as cocky as Joe Namath\u201d and that drew a reaction from Bradshaw. \u201cI musta said something along the line that people associated with cockiness,\u201d he told a sports writer. \u201cI hate for them to get such ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surely he winked when he said it.<\/p>\n

Pictures in the PG archives reveal Bradshaw as a guy who loved to have a good time \u2014 and be photographed. He clowned with mascots, got into snowball fights with boys from the local newspapers, struck silly poses in the locker room.<\/p>\n

In 1975, he told music agent Tilleman Franks he liked to sing. Sang solos in church, sang along to country records at home. \u201cAnd you ain\u2019t heard nothing, boy, till you\u2019ve heard me.\u201d His cover of the Hank Williams classic \u201cI\u2019m So Lonesome I Could Cry\u201d was released in 1976 and became a Top 20 hit on the country charts. On Youtube, you can view his lip-synching gigs on those awful \u201870s TV variety shows.<\/p>\n

TV producers asked him to sing the tune during a special \u201cAll Star Salute\u201d the night before Super Bowl XIII in 1979. His then-wife Jo Jo Starbuck would skate while Bradshaw crooned. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time.<\/p>\n

Then, beginning in the late 1970s, came the movies \u2014 among them the Burt Reynolds comedies \u201cHooper,\u201d \u00a0\u201cThe Cannonball Run,\u201d and \u201cSmokey and the Bandit II.\u201d On television, he mostly played himself on shows like \u201cMarried \u2026 with Children\u201d and \u201cEverybody Loves Raymond.\u201d<\/p>\n

His football skills landed him in the sport\u2019s Hall of Fame. His antics before a camera got him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.<\/p>\n

Bradshaw has got to be laughing at that last honor. We can laugh, too. We\u2019re all in on the joke.<\/p>\n

(Watch Bob Dvorchak\u2019s take on the Bradshaw years in this week\u2019s edition of Sports \u2018n \u2018at<\/a><\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Terry Bradshaw: cocky, but in a manner that was endearing instead of annoying. It was his schtick.<\/p>\n

Look at the picturesTerry Bradshaw \u2014 Pittsburgh\u2019s biggest star<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[944],"tags":[1059,1016,1030,1035],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/tumblr_nadbf6kGza1rr5swxo1_1280.jpg?fit=1008%2C1005&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1865,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2013\/04\/19\/steelers-draft-terry-bradshaw\/","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":0},"title":"Steelers draft Terry Bradshaw","date":"April 19, 2013","format":"gallery","excerpt":"It is hardly a stretch to say that the Pittsburgh Steelers owe everything to a coin flip.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/tumblr_mlgl23yTgo1rr5swxo2_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C813&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2658,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2012\/08\/07\/jan-6-1980-steelers-quarterback-terry-bradshaw\/","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":1},"title":"Terry Bradshaw at Three Rivers Stadium","date":"August 7, 2012","format":"gallery","excerpt":"Terry Bradshaw represented a captivating image of concentration.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/tumblr_m8fv5uVN0r1rr5swxo1_1280.jpg?fit=1022%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9751,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2020\/01\/27\/50-years-ago-the-steelers-came-dangerously-close-to-not-drafting-terry-bradshaw\/","url_meta":{"origin":347,"position":2},"title":"50 years ago, the Steelers came dangerously close to not drafting Terry Bradshaw","date":"January 27, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry to give you all a collective anxiety attack, Steelers fans, but you deserve to know exactly how fortunate it is that Pittsburgh both drafted and kept Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw. 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