I can’t say I truly appreciated Heather Lagenkamp’s beauty until I got a little bit older, or at least until I went to the theater to see New Nightmare. If I could refrain from my evil amount of superficiality then I can continue with this post. …ahhhh…there….now I can continue.
Heather Lagenkamp made a big impact in the ‘80s with her role as Nancy in The Nightmare on Elm Street series. Shortly thereafter she competed for the spotlight with a few other hotties on Just the Ten of Us. Although, for my money it was almost impossible for Heather to ever surpass the greatness of Jamie Luner. Heather played Marie, the nerdy, book smart girl perfectly. Heather may as well be crowned queen of geekdom because not only did she play one masterfully but she’s also an icon to millions of horror geeks like me across the globe.
It was always a welcome surprise to see her pop up in guest spots on Growing Pains and films like Shocker. In those roles it was easy for her to shine since she didn’t have any mass competition. Unfortunately, in 1995, Heather made the mistake of participating in The Demolitionist starring one of my all time favorite chicks NICOLE EGGERT! You can’t go up against Jaime from Charles in Charge and expect to win especially when she wasn‘t Jaime, she was THE DEMOLITIONIST!
Possibly the occasion when Heather was most triumphant wasn’t for her role in a film. Heather appeared in a catalog from Warner Brothers advertising all new Batman memorabilia. I remember the pamphlet style catalog was given out at the theater on opening night of Batman in June of 1989. I was amazed at how cool the bat-merch was that they were going to release. Finally some really cool, high quality Batman stuff would be released! I wanted everything in the mini catalog. I begged my mother for each item as I stared at the catalog over and over all the time. The photos and the presentation of the catalog was well done.
After second guessing myself twice (is that possible? Lol) I finally decided that I was right the first time and it WAS Heather Lagenkamp, fondly gazing at Batman, riding a bike, and modeling that “attractive batcycle outfit.” The outfit, since it was the ‘80s, happened to be made of “comfortable body hugging nylon, lycra, spandex” I must admit, I wound up getting that little tingly familiar feeling like when I saw her in that guest spot on Growing Pains. It was like “Wow, is that Heather Lagenkamp?” At that point, the only way anyone knew who I was talking about was if I said, you know Nancy from Nightmare on Elm Street and Dream Warriors? Was she THAT hard up for work that she appeared in a Batman collectible catalog? I guess throwing her in this Batman ad was intended to skyrocket her to fame, leaving her character Marie Lubbock behind in her meteor dust. The caption reads “Heather Lagenkamp (from TV’s Just the Ten of Us) & Gotham City residents will rest easy tonight knowing Batman is around.