TV anchorman recalls dark day he tried to help Margot Kidder but couldn't

Actress Margot Kidder, who died Sunday at age 69, was famous for her roles in such films as Superman and The Amityville Horror, but she also was well known for her struggles with bipolar disorder.

Her public acknowledgement of the condition helped demystify it as she advocated for awareness.

Before she got adequate medical treatment for her disorder, Kidder hit a low that included a chance encounter in the wee hours of April 21, 1996, with a TV news crew from Knoxville, Tenn., at Los Angeles International Airport.

Kidder, 47 at the time, approached a news team from WBIR-TV that had just arrived on a flight from Atlanta to cover the Academy of Country Music Awards, according to reports from media including The Washington Post, New York Daily News and People magazine.

Kidder approached the WBIR team and asked if they were with the media. After anchorman Ted Hall confirmed they were, the actress identified herself and launched into a conversation that became increasingly strange.

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The actress was wearing dirty clothes, claimed her ex-husband was trying to kill her and asked if they would help her disguise herself and ditch her jacket, which she was convinced was "bugged," Hall said.

At times, she scribbled notes to Hall to avoid speaking. At one point she asked Hall and his cameraman, Scott Liston, for money.

Hall gave her $20. She bought a soft drink and gave Hall back all the change.

Eventually, Kidder, Hall and Liston made their way via airport shuttle bus to Hertz rental cars, where Kidder reportedly made a scene. A cab was called for the actress, and before she parted ways with Hall at about 4:30 a.m. PT, she handed him one last note that said, "I am dead."

For the next few days, Kidder's life took darker turns. She told People that when it became clear she didn't have enough money for a cab, she tried to use an ATM machine but then became fearful it was about to explode.

"I took off running," she said. "I slept in yards and on porches in a state of fear."

She stayed with a homeless man in a makeshift cardboard shack, later fleeing for her safety; cut her hair very short to avoid being recognized; and finally identified herself to a homeowner April 23 when she was caught seeking refuge in the backyard of a Glendale, Calif., home, she said.

For the next week she received medical treatment. She eventually persuaded a court that she was no longer a danger to herself or others, and she was released.

Kidder then retreated to an island home in her native Canada and learned to "accept the diagnosis" that she had been denying since she first started seeing psychiatrists when she was 21.

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"I was really disappointed at first that we couldn't help her," Hall said soon after Kidder was found in Glendale and the extent of her days-long episode was revealed.

He regretted not giving her a "$20 jean jacket," for example, but he felt in the moment that it would have been an inappropriate exchange for the designer coat she was trying to get rid of.

After Hall spoke with experts on her condition, "I understood that we couldn't help her," he said.

Looking back Wednesday on that 1996 encounter, Hall said he remembered Kidder grabbing his arm and not letting go as he and Liston tried to help her out of her predicament and that only further agitated her.

"We were solving the problem that she didn't want to be solved," he said.

Hall said his experience with Kidder "made me have an actual tangible understanding" of what those who suffer from her condition experience. He left WBIR-TV in 2005 to be an anchor at at WXIA-TV, Atlanta, then returned in 2014 for an anchor position at WVLT-TV, Knoxville.

"She wasn't doing something wrong. She wasn't being a bad person," he said. "She was going through something we couldn't control."

After the encounter, "I did reach out to her a few times, just to make sure she was OK," but Kidder didn't respond, he said. "(But) I didn't want to intrude and remind her of what might have been a bad time in her life."

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A friend found Kidder dead in her home Sunday in Livingston, Mont. An autopsy to determine her cause of death was performed Monday but results won't be known for a couple of weeks.

"I was really sad the day I found out she died," Hall said. "I was depressed the whole day."

Follow Chuck Campbell on Twitter: @KnoxvilleDotcom