She said she kept on calling them, but they didn’t return her calls. The irony for Bach winning the role was that her agency had dropped her. She said she gave him a tour of Los Angeles. “Two weeks later, I was sitting in Georgia.” “Dukes of Hazzard” filmed on location in Georgia.īach also met John Schneider, who was cast to play her cousin Bo Duke, that first day at auditions. “He said, ‘We’re going straight to the network in two days, so be ready,’” she said. Bach said the day she went to audition there was a huge flu outbreak and all of the “big shots” were out the day she auditioned, leaving it on the shoulders of Waldron to choose his Daisy Duke. I said, ‘You’re right.’ And the rest is history.”īach said she met Waldron, who she calls “a dear friend to this day.” It was Waldron who made the call that Bach would be Daisy. “She said, ‘Just go, you never know who you’re going to meet on the way in or the way out. It took some convincing, though, for Bach to go to the Warner Bros. Her friend convinced her to go to the audition for “Dukes of Hazzard.” But when her friend passed, Bach said she didn’t want to shop alone. She said she rarely visited Beverly Hills, and wanted her friend to go shopping with her. However, it was a lunch in Beverly Hills with the director of her play that led Bach’s life back to acting. That play landed her a contract to do movies of the week with ABC. So Bach, who studied English literature and creative writing in college, wrote a one-act play that was well received. In the meantime, Bach said she had been on the sidelines of acting because she had been told she was “too exotic for television.” She is half Mexican. “And he had a particular person he was looking for.” “The rest of the characters in the show are based in reality -there was a real Boss Hogg, there were a real Bo and Luke Duke - but Daisy Duke was a creation of the creator,” she said. And because of that, Bach said, she steered away from trying out for the show.
Gy Waldron, who wrote the 1975 movie “Moonrunners,” which the show was based on, had what Bach describes as an infatuation with Dolly Parton.īach said Daisy was created basically to be a Parton lookalike, down to blonde hair. “I made the first pair of shorts sitting on my bed in high school,” she said.īut writers had a different look and dress in mind for Daisy, Bach said.
The shorts, Bach said, were actually her idea. Instead, she’ll be swapping stories as she is joined by fellow cast members Ben Jones, who played Cooter Rick Hurst, who played Cletus James Best, who played Rosco and Sonny Shroyer who played Enos. That means Bach won’t be bringing those “Daisy Dukes” when she takes part in the Dukes Family Festival Saturday, June 22, at Hagerstown Speedway. “They’re somewhere in my house, I don’t know,” she said during a telephone interview while navigating Los Angeles traffic. However, Bach, 59, admits she has no idea where the iconic shorts have gotten to. Some would argue that next to Michael Jackson’s glittery glove, no other piece of clothing has earned its rightful place in pop culture history. She recently took time out to discuss the social phenomenon that is Daisy Duke.It’s been more than 25 years since Catherine Bach had to don the jean cut-off short-shorts now famously called “Daisy Dukes.”
with her husband, lawyer Peter Lopez, and 15-month-old daughter, Sophia - has toured with the USO and mostly done regional theater since the series ended. She transcends social structure and geography.” And thanks to Catherine Bach, 43, who reprises her role as the former Boar’s Nest waitress (now a grad student at Duke University, natch), Daisy was also able to transcend the brevity of her clothing, proving to be a character with integrity and strength.
Costar John Schneider calls Daisy ”one of the most attractive women ever to grace the TV screen. It’s not a moment too soon for fans of Bo and Luke Duke’s sassy cousin. She spawned a fashion craze in the early ’80s (and the 1993 hit song ”Dazzey Duks”) with her trademark short-shorts, and, after a 12-year absence, she’s back, with CBS’ The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! (April 25, 8-10 p.m.). Daisy Duke is right up there with Xena, Charlie’s Angels, and Emma Peel when it comes to models of female power and pulchritude.