Joanna Cassidy Revisits Blade Runner, Don’t Tell Mom And Much More

Rose Lindsey’s Favorite Excuse Became A Thirty-Five-Year Survival Phrase

Joanna Cassidy is right on top of celebrating 35 years of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead—but Rose Lindsey is only one perfectly tailored stop in this trip down memory lane. Sitting down for ET Then & Now, Cassidy revisits Blade Runner, Buffalo Bill, Hollywood Wives and the 1991 cult comedy that turned one harmless workplace stall tactic into a lifelong fan greeting.

The line, of course, is “I’m right on top of that, Rose.” Cassidy still hears it everywhere. During a trip to Turks and Caicos, a young fan spotted her from down a dirt road, ran over and asked her to say it. More than three decades after Sue Ellen Crandell tried to bluff her way through the fashion business, Rose Lindsey remains the boss people apparently still want to impress.

Her Blade Runner Co-Star Was A Snake Named Darling

The retrospective begins in 1982 with Blade Runner and Cassidy’s performance as the replicant Zhora. The snake wrapped around her in the club scene was not simply a cooperative movie animal. It was her own pet snake, Darling.

Cassidy had six snakes at home and jokes that anything over five practically made her a herpetologist. The script already called for Zhora to work with a snake, so her agent immediately saw the match. Cassidy met with Ridley Scott, explained that she already had the necessary co-star and stepped into a role she says had originally been intended for Grace Jones before Jones became unavailable.

Darling behaved beautifully on the day, even though Cassidy remembers how powerful the animal could be when it resisted. Watching the scene now, she notices the physical control required to maneuver him while making Zhora appear completely unbothered. The performance helped move Cassidy toward Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Package and a long run of characters who could be glamorous without ever feeling decorative.

Buffalo Bill Let A Sitcom Walk Straight Into Dangerous Territory

ET’s archive then returns Cassidy to the set of Buffalo Bill, the sharp, short-lived NBC comedy that earned her a Golden Globe. Her character, Jo Jo White, faced whether to continue a pregnancy in a storyline that treated abortion as part of a woman’s actual life rather than an issue safely locked outside the sitcom.

Cassidy remembers the show as irreverent and far ahead of its moment, but says she deliberately avoided dwelling too heavily on the real danger women had faced through unsafe clinics and back-alley procedures. The subject troubled her too deeply. To play it inside a comic structure, she needed enough emotional distance to let the humor function without pretending the stakes were harmless.

That willingness to let comedy hold something serious remains one reason Buffalo Bill still feels unusually modern. The jokes never required Jo Jo to become foolish, and the storyline did not need to ask permission before acknowledging that women make complicated decisions.

From Hollywood Wives To The Boss Who Actually Cared

The journey also stops at 1985’s star-packed miniseries Hollywood Wives, where Cassidy worked alongside Candice Bergen, Angie Dickinson, Suzanne Somers and Anthony Hopkins. Asked at the time to describe a Hollywood wife, young Joanna offered a list worthy of its own trailer: gorgeous, devious, tricky, ambitious, greedy and lascivious.

Six years later, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead gave her a very different kind of power player. Rose Lindsey could have been written as another intimidating fashion executive waiting to expose Sue Ellen’s lies. Cassidy instead made her warm, observant and genuinely invested in the teenager trying to survive adulthood before she was ready.

Joanna Cassidy Revisits The Roles That Refused To Disappear

The gallery moves from Cassidy’s present-day reactions back through ET’s archive and the screen roles that built her wonderfully unpredictable career.

Video stills from Entertainment Tonight’s official ET Then & Now retrospective.

That protective instinct existed before the cameras rolled. Cassidy had only just met Christina Applegate when Applegate’s mother leaned over and asked her to take care of her daughter. Cassidy promised she would. Applegate was stepping into her first starring feature-film role, and Cassidy remembers her as adorable, a little scared and somebody she wanted to make laugh.

The shoot itself was not all jewel-toned blazers and office confidence. The production worked far out in the San Fernando Valley, and Cassidy recalls filming the climactic fashion show in roughly 100-degree heat at midnight. The movie may now feel like an endlessly rewatchable summer fantasy, but some of that polished fashion magic was built by people attempting not to melt after dark.

Don’t Tell Mom did not immediately receive the love it has now. Cassidy still cannot explain why some films fail to develop legs during their original release, especially when this one felt unique from the beginning. Time eventually corrected the oversight. The movie became a cult classic, the quote became an all-purpose declaration of fake productivity, and Rose became the rare movie boss remembered for making ambition look inviting rather than punishing.

At Eighty, Cassidy Is Still Working—and Learning To Sit Still

Cassidy also makes one thing clear: this is not a retirement interview. She remains active, talks excitedly about upcoming projects and sounds less interested in closing a career chapter than in enjoying how many chapters are still appearing.

The “now” portion becomes especially lovely when Cassidy discusses reconnecting with Alan Hamel, whom she first knew decades ago. After giving up on dating apps and deciding that a full life with friends, children and her many interests was enough, romance found her through an unexpected introduction from Hamel’s son.

Their routine is charmingly ordinary: movies, gardening, the gym, dancing, laughing and occasionally simply sitting together and staring. For Cassidy—an energetic person who finds stillness difficult—learning to sit has become its own late-life education. She describes aging not as disappearance but as a move toward wisdom, reflection and the practice of hearing yourself clearly.

Between Zhora, Jo Jo White, Dolores, Rose Lindsey and everything else sitting in that filmography, we clearly have a lot of movie rewatching to do. Right on top of that, Rose.

Watch Joanna Cassidy’s Full ET Then & Now Retrospective

Cassidy reacts to archival clips from Blade Runner, Buffalo Bill, Hollywood Wives and Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, then opens up about acting, aging and finding love again.

Source: Official Entertainment Tonight YouTube.