Why Mark Harmon’s Wife Pam Initially Didn’t Want To Star On NCIS

Producers eventually gave up trying. It was actually Mark Harmon who suggested they offer up the role of Marcie Warren to Dawber. “With Marcie, it was so funny because when they were casting, Mark goes, ‘Who you’re really looking for is my wife,’” she told TV Insider that same month. But producers were still unhopeful. “They said, ‘But she’s always turned us down!’” This time was different, though. She also thought she was perfect for the role. “The character is so good. I just fell in love with what they wrote,” she told EW.

It’s not that Dawber was sitting around waiting for producers to come up with the perfect character for her. She had been reluctant to accept any roles at all at that point in her life. “I haven’t acted in so long. It’s also, at my age, do you really want to be on a big screen? I finally thought I’d feel worse if I chickened out,” the actor, who was 69 when her season came out, told TV Insider.

Pam Dawber became more selective after having kids

Pam Dawber poses with Sean Harmon
Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images

Pam Dawber stayed busy in the late ’70s and ’80s. In addition to “Mork & Mindy” and “My Sister Sam,” she starred in about a feature or TV film a year. It is no coincidence that her career slowed down in the late ’80s and eventually fizzled almost completely out by the late ’90s.

Before accepting the “NCIS” role, Dawber’s last steady acting job had been in 1997-98, when she voiced Perdy in “101 Dalmatians: The Series.” That’s exactly what she wanted.

In April 1988, Pam Dawber and Mark Harmon welcomed their son Sean and completed their family in June 1992 with the birth of Ty. Until then, Dawber had kept all doors open, having done TV, film, Broadway, voice acting, musical theater, and beyond. But becoming a mother changed Dawber’s priorities. “I did everything you can do in this business, and then I had children and it’s like, ‘I’m not going to chase this fame thing,’” she told ET in 2016.

Dawber’s list of goals now was vastly different. “I wanted to drive my kids to school. I wanted to be there for their birthdays and bring cupcakes and donuts and do the school festivals and all that, and I did,” she said.

Sean and Ty didn’t just change their mother’s goals. Mark Harmon also chose to focus on TV to be more present for them. “No job is worth missing life’s most important moments,” he told Closer Weekly in 2018