Famous Faces on "Bonanza" (Season One)!
The adventures of Ben Cartwright and his sons as they run and defend their ranch while helping the surrounding community.The Cartwright's thousand-square-mile Ponderosa Ranch is located near Virginia City, Nevada, site of the Comstock Silver Lode, during and after the Civil War. Each of the sons was born to a different wife of Ben's; none of the mothers is still alive. Adventures are typical western ones, with lots of personal relationships/problems thrown in as well. here is some of the stars who have passed thru the famous Ponderosa Ranch with the Cartright clan.....
List activity
6.8K views
• 5 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
38 people
- Actress
- Soundtrack
As a baby, she was winning beauty contests; as a teenager, with good looks and an attractive contralto voice, she was singing with big bands (most notably Enric Madriguera's orchestra in Latin Club Del Rio in Washington, D.C.. She met Rudy Vallee, her first husband, on the radio where she also enjoyed a brief stint as a singer. At age 15, an attack of palsy left her face partially paralyzed. She claimed that it was through facial exercises to overcome the paralysis that she learned the efficacy of facial expression in conveying human emotion, a skill she was renowned for using in her acting.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story (17 Oct. 1959)
Julia Bulette- Actor
- Soundtrack
In recalling silent movie comedian Harry "Snub" Pollard, his slight frame (5' 6"), bullet-shaped head and dark, droopy mustache are definitive identification badges. Born in Melbourne, Australia as Harold Fraser on November 9, 1889, he started off performing with the Pollard's Lilliputian Opera Company at an early age and was also a church choirboy. Adopting the last name of "Pollard" as his last name moniker in tribute to the company, he went on to perform with other Down Under children's troupes. When a vaudeville company he was touring with in 1910 made it to the United States, Harry decided to stay in the country.
Nicknamed (and billed) "Snub," he started off in bit parts at the Essenay Film Studios in 1911 and briefly worked with the Keystone Kops. Moving up into support roles, often with the Keystone Cops series, Hal Roach took an avid interest in him and, by 1915, had Snub co-starring with Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels in the highly successful Lonesome Luke series, which ran for years (86 films in all). In 1919, Snub took a chance and ventured on with his own solo one- and two-reeler's with zany slapstick, sights gags and gimmicks-a-plenty. He performed many of his own stunts and was often seriously injured as a result. Many of them were ably directed by Charley Chase and co-starred Marie Mosquini as his frequent leading lady. Snub's "second banana" status, however, was firmly entrenched, and his starring vehicles were met with only a modicum of interest. One of his most notable is the short comedy It's a Gift (1923) in which he played an eccentric inventor pursued by oil magnates interested in his newest creation.
In between Snub made personal appearances on the farcical stage. His production film company, created in 1926, was forced to fold and found himself relegated to supporting other top comedians again, notably Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and Andy Clyde. He was further financially strapped when the Depression hit. By the late 1930s, he was appearing in "poverty row" films. One last hurrah would be his playing of Pee Wee, the sidekick to cowboy Tex Ritter, in a series of minor westerns. Relegated now to atmospheric bits, it is noted that in the film Singin' in the Rain (1952), he is the rained-on passerby that Gene Kelly gives his umbrella to toward the end of the title song. Snub continued to work in relative obscurity until his death on January 19, 1962 of cancer. Earning a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in silent films, the thrice-married actor was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story (17 Oct. 1959)
Townsman (uncredited)- Actor
- Soundtrack
George J. Lewis was born on 10 December 1903 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. He was an actor, known for Zorro's Black Whip (1944), Radar Patrol vs. Spy King (1949) and Malice in the Palace (1949). He was married to Mary Louise Lohman. He died on 8 December 1995 in Rancho Santa Fe, California, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 3
The Newcomers (26 Sep. 1959)
Jose Moreno- Actress
- Soundtrack
Yvonne De Carlo was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton on September 1, 1922 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was three when her father abandoned the family. Her mother turned to waitressing in a restaurant to make ends meet--a rough beginning for an actress who would, one day, be one of Hollywood's elite. Yvonne's mother wanted her to be in the entertainment field and enrolled her in a local dance school and also saw that she studied dramatics. Yvonne was not shy in the least. She was somewhat akin to Colleen Moore who, like herself, entertained the neighborhood with impromptu productions. In 1937, when Yvonne was 15, her mother took her to Hollywood to try for fame and fortune, but nothing came of it and they returned to Canada. They came back to Hollywood in 1940, where Yvonne would dance in chorus lines at night while she checked in at the studios by day in search of film work. After appearing in unbilled parts in three short films, she finally got a part in a feature.
Although the film Harvard, Here I Come! (1941) was quite lame, Yvonne glowed in her brief appearance as a bathing beauty. The rest of 1942 and 1943 saw her in more uncredited roles in films that did not quite set Hollywood on fire. In The Deerslayer (1943), she played Wah-Tah. The role did not amount to much, but it was much better than the ones she had been handed previously. The next year was about the same as the previous two years. She played small parts as either secretaries, someone's girlfriend, native girls or office clerks. Most aspiring young actresses would have given up and gone home in defeat, but not Yvonne. She trudged on. The next year, started out the same, with mostly bit parts, but later that year, she landed the title role in Salome, Where She Danced (1945) for Universal Pictures. While critics were less than thrilled with the film, it was at long last her big break, and the film was a success for Universal. Now she was rolling.
Her next film was the western comedy Frontier Gal (1945) as Lorena Dumont. After a year off the screen in 1946, she returned in 1947 as Cara de Talavera in Song of Scheherazade (1947), and many agreed that the only thing worth watching in the film was Yvonne. Her next film was the highly regarded Burt Lancaster prison film Brute Force (1947). Time after time, Yvonne continued to pick up leading roles, in such pictures as Slave Girl (1947), Black Bart (1948), Casbah (1948) and River Lady (1948). She had a meaty role in Criss Cross (1949), a gangster movie, as the ex-wife of a hoodlum. At the start of the 1950s, Yvonne enjoyed continued success in lead roles. Her talents were again showcased in movies such as The Desert Hawk (1950), Silver City (1951) and Scarlet Angel (1952). Her last film in 1952 was Hurricane Smith (1952), a picture most fans and critics agree is best forgotten.
In 1956, she appeared in the film that would immortalize her best, The Ten Commandments (1956). She played Sephora, the wife of Moses (Charlton Heston). The film was, unquestionably, a super smash, and is still shown on television today. Her performance served as a springboard to another fine role, this time as Amantha Starr in Band of Angels (1957). In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Yvonne appeared on such television series as Bonanza (1959) and The Virginian (1962). With film roles drying up, she took the role of Lily Munster in the smash series The Munsters (1964). However, she still was not completely through with the big screen. Appearances in such films as McLintock! (1963), The Power (1968), The Seven Minutes (1971) and La casa de las sombras (1976) kept her before the eyes of the movie-going public. Yvonne De Carlo died at age 84 of natural causes on January 8, 2007 in Woodland Hills, California.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 1
A Rose for Lotta (12 Sep. 1959)
Lotta Crabtree- Willis Bouchey appeared in almost 150 movies and television shows over a 30-year period from 1951 to 1979. He was one of those wonderful character actors who would be a crooked judge in one film and a humorous cavalry officer in another. He appeared in many of John Ford's movies as well as James Stewart's films. His longevity resulted, in part, due to his professionalism and acting ability. He always provided a fine performance no matter how small or insignificant the role.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 1
A Rose for Lotta (12 Sep. 1959)
George Garvey - Actor
- Soundtrack
For more than three decades Hollywood defaulted to a small core group of actors when it came to casting convincing mobsters, gamblers and racketeers. These often typecast individuals included Joseph Ruskin, Bruce Gordon, Neville Brand, Robert Loggia and...Anthony Caruso. Square-jawed, broad-shouldered and gravelly-voiced, Caruso provided a reliable source of menace and was amply utilised in films and in countless television episodes beginning in 1941.
The son of Italian-American parents, Caruso decided to forgo a career as an opera singer and instead took up acting with a stock company in Long Beach, California. A year later, in 1935, he joined the Pasadena Playhouse. He began in films as a bit player, commenting later that "MGM was the place to be, offering us extras a higher quality of lunch". In his first film, Johnny Apollo (1940), he played a henchman named Joe and there were to be many more of these to come with names like Fingers, Dapper Dan Greco, Chips Malloy, Pinky Luiz and Lucky Grillo. These dastardly nemeses came in a variety of ethnic types, ranging from Italians, Mexicans and Latinos to Greeks and Russians. A close personal friend of the actor Alan Ladd, Caruso featured in eleven of the star's films (the first as a hitman in Lucky Jordan (1942) ). In 1954, he became a member of Ladd's newly formed stock company, Jaguar Films. Whenever Caruso was not gleefully portraying underworld figures (The Iron Mistress (1952) , Hell on Frisco Bay (1955), The Asphalt Jungle (1950)) he was effectively employed as Native American chiefs (Drum Beat (1954), Cattle Queen of Montana (1954), The Lawless Eighties (1957)). On television, he had a popular recurring role as the charming but lethal Comanchero El Lobo on The High Chaparral (1967). Even on a planet (far, far away) in the Star Trek (1966) universe, Caruso -- as crime boss Bela Oxmyx -- was up to his old tricks using James T. & company to eliminate a rival gang and assume control of the government.
In stark contrast to his screen image, Caruso was the consummate family man in private life, happily married for 63 years, and enjoying the simple pleasures of gardening and cooking.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 4
The Paiute War (3 Oct. 1959)
Chief Winnemucca- Peter Coe was born on 11 November 1918 in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia. He was an actor, known for Vigilante Force (1976), Road to Bali (1952) and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). He was married to Rosalee Calvert. He died on 9 June 1993 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 4
The Paiute War (3 Oct. 1959)
Major Hungerford - Actor
- Director
- Producer
Tough, virile, wavy-haired and ruggedly handsome with trademark forlorn-looking brows that added an intriguing touch of vulnerability to his hard outer core, actor Howard Duff and his wife-at-the-time, actress Ida Lupino, were one of Hollywood's premiere film couples during the 1950s "Golden Age". Prior to that, Duff had relationships with a number of the cinema's most dazzling leading ladies, including Ava Gardner (just prior to her marriage to musician Artie Shaw) and Gloria DeHaven.
Duff's talent first manifested itself on radio as Dashiell Hammett's popular private eye "Sam Spade" (1946-1950), and eventually extended to include stage, film and TV. While never considered a top-tier movie star and, despite his obvious prowess, never considered for any acting awards, Howard Duff was an undeniably strong good guy and potent heavy but perhaps lacked the requisite charisma or profile to move into the ranks of a Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas or Robert Mitchum. His career spanned over four decades.
His full name was Howard Green Duff and he was born in Bremerton, Washington on November 24, 1913. Growing up in and around the Seattle area, he attended Roosevelt High School where he played basketball. It was here that he also found an outlet acting in school plays and, following graduation, studied drama. He eventually became an acting member of the Repertory Playhouse in Seattle. Military service interrupted his early career and he served with the U.S. Army Air Force's radio service from 1941 to 1945. Upon his discharge, he returned to his acting pursuits and won the role of "Sam Spade" on NBC Radio in the role Humphrey Bogart made famous in The Maltese Falcon (1941). Lurene Tuttle played his altruistic secretary "Effie" on the series. He eventually left the program when his film career settled in and Stephen Dunne took over the radio voice of the detective in 1950 for its final season.
Duff's post-war movie career started completely on the right foot at Universal with the hard-hitting film noir Brute Force (1947), in which he received good notices as an ill-fated cellmate to Burt Lancaster, Charles Bickford and others. Quite well-known for his radio voice by this time, he was given special billing in the movie's credits as "Radio's Sam Spade". This was followed by equally vital and volatile performances in the prescient semi-documentary-styled police drama The Naked City (1948) and in Arthur Miller's taut family drama All My Sons (1948) starring Lancaster, again, and Edward G. Robinson.
After such a strong showing, Howard career went into a period of moviemaking in which his films were more noted for its entertainment and rousing action than as character-driven pieces. A number of them were routine westerns that paired him opposite some of Hollywood's loveliest ladies: Red Canyon (1949) with Ann Blyth, Calamity Jane and Sam Bass (1949) with Yvonne De Carlo and The Lady from Texas (1951) with Mona Freeman. Other adventure-oriented flicks that more or less came and went included Spaceways (1953), Tanganyika (1954), The Yellow Mountain (1954), Flame of the Islands (1955), Blackjack Ketchum, Desperado (1956) (title role), The Broken Star (1956) and Sierra Stranger (1957). Howard also began appearing infrequently on the stage in the early 1950s with such productions as "Season in the Sun" (1952) and "Anniversary Waltz" (1954).
Those films that rose above the standard included gritty top-billed roles in Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949), Illegal Entry (1949), Shakedown (1950), Spy Hunt (1950) and Woman in Hiding (1950), the last a film noir which paired him with Ida Lupino for the first time. Here, he plays the hero who saves Lupino from a murdering husband (Stephen McNally). In 1951, he married Ms. Lupino, already a well-established star at Warner Bros., who was coming into her own recently as a director. The couple had one daughter, Bridget Duff, born in 1952. Lupino and Duff co-starred in four hard-boiled film dramas during the 1950s -- Jennifer (1953), Private Hell 36 (1954), Women's Prison (1955) and While the City Sleeps (1956). The demise of the studio-guided contract system had an effect on Howard's film career and offers started drying up in the late 1950s.
Fortunately, he found just as wide an appeal on TV, appearing in a number of dramatic showcases for Science Fiction Theatre (1955), Lux Video Theatre (1950) and Climax! (1954). And, in a change of pace, the married couple decided to go for laughs by starring together in the TV series Mr. Adams and Eve (1957). Here, they played gregarious husband-and-wife film stars "Howard Adams" and "Eve Drake". Many of the scripts, though broadly exaggerated for comic effect, were reportedly based on a few of their own real-life experiences. They also guest-starred in an entertaining hour-long episode of the The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957) in 1959 with the two couples inadvertently booked at the same vacant lodge, together. The show ends up a battle-of-the sexes, free-for-all with the two gals scheming to add a little romance to what has essentially become a fishing vacation for the guys. The 1960s bore more fruit on TV than in film. Sans Lupino, Duff went solo as nightclub owner "Willie Dante" in the tongue-in-cheek adventure series Dante (1960), which lasted less than a season. A few years later, the veteran co-starred with handsome rookie Dennis Cole in what is perhaps his best-remembered series, the police drama The Felony Squad (1966), which was filmed in and around Los Angeles. Duff directed one of those episodes, having directed several episodes of the silly sitcom Camp Runamuck (1965), a year or so earlier. In between series work were guest assignments on such popular primetime shows as Bonanza (1959), The Twilight Zone (1959), Burke's Law (1963) and Combat! (1962).
The marriage of Ida and Howard did not last, however, and the famous married couple separated in 1966 after 15 years of marriage. Ida and Howard didn't officially divorce, however, until 1984. Howard later married a non-professional, Judy Jenkinson, who survived him. While much of Howard's work in later years was standard, if unmemorable, every now and then he would demonstrate the fine talent he was. A couple of his better film performances came as a sex-minded, booze-swilling relative in A Wedding (1978) and as Dustin Hoffman's attorney in the Oscar-winning drama Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). He also enjoyed a villainous role in the short-lived series Flamingo Road (1980) and had a lengthy stint on Knots Landing (1979) during the 1984-1985 season. Duff died at age 76 of a heart attack, on July 8, 1990, in Santa Barbara, California.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 5
Enter Mark Twain (10 Oct. 1959)
Samuel Clemens / Mark Twain- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Sound Department
Six-foot-three and weighing in at a lean, mean 215, Michael Forest was a rugged-looking addition to the Roger Corman and Gene Corman's list of leading men during their 1950s heyday. Between Corman films, he was a stage actor who worked in Shakespearean plays and other legitimate productions as classy as his real name (Gerald Michael Charlebois). Born in Harvey, North Dakota, he moved with his family at a very early age to Seattle, attended the University of Washington for a year and then made his way south to the sunnier campuses of San Jose State. Graduating with a B.A. in English and drama, Forest came to Hollywood in 1955 and started acting on TV and on stage at the Players Ring. In 1957, he began to study with veteran actor/acting teacher Jeff Corey, in whose classes Forest first encountered Roger Corman. Forest has also worked extensively on TV and European films.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 4
The Paiute War (3 Oct. 1959)
Young Wolf- Actor
- Soundtrack
Veteran Polish-born character actor Ned Glass grew up in New York. After working in vaudeville he started acting in small parts on Broadway from the early 1930s. He gained further experience in the capacity of theatrical production supervisor before entering motion pictures in 1937 as an MGM contract player. Until the mid-1950s he was seen primarily in tiny supporting roles as clerks, reporters, bank tellers and small-time managers. His career was briefly put on hold after being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, but, with help from friends like John Houseman and Moe Howard (of The Three Stooges fame) he managed to get enough film work to make ends meet.
By 1953, Ned began to find a new lease of life in television where his roles were more varied and substantial. This afforded him the opportunity to fully develop his screen persona: that of the balding, weedy, perpetually nervy conman or weaselly stooge, often delivering barbed repartee or wisecracks in a heavy Brooklyn accent. Ned was at his best in comedy, put to good use in several episodes of Jackie Gleason's The Honeymooners (1955), and adapting well to anything else with a New York theme, from Kojak (1973) to Barney Miller (1975). He had many other good guest-starring roles on television, including several shifty characters in The Untouchables (1959), and as Freddie the Forger in Get Smart (1965) ('Do I Hear a Vaults?',1970). He was twice nominated for Emmy Awards, first for an episode of Julia (1968) (as Sol Cooper); the second time for Bridget Loves Bernie (1972) (Uncle Moe Plotnick).
From the time he played Doc in West Side Story (1961), Ned also began to land some meatier roles on the big screen, including the character of Popcorn in Experiment in Terror (1962), and as Doc Schindler, in one of the funniest 60's comedies, The Fortune Cookie (1966), directed by Billy Wilder. His best portrayal was that of the wily Leonard Gideon, sharpest of the villainous trio (the others being James Coburn and George Kennedy) on the trail of a quarter of a million dollar loot in gold, in the Hitchcockian thriller Charade (1963).
Ned continued playing crusty reprobates in films and on television, his last being a small-time thief in an episode of Cagney & Lacey (1981). He died two years later in Encino, California, at the age of 78.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 1
A Rose for Lotta (12 Sep. 1959)
Stagecoach Driver- Actor
- Additional Crew
Perennial film western heavy I. Stanford Jolley could be spotted anywhere and everywhere in dusty "B" fare from 1935 on. Often mustachioed, this freelancing, wideset-eyed, black-hatted villain, who showed up in Hollywood following vaudeville and Broadway experience, could be counted on to give the sagebrush hero a devil of a time before the film's end.
Born on October 24, 1900, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and raised in nearby Morristown, Jolley was nicknamed "Ike" (short for his given name "Isaac") by his parents but "Stan" by his friends. Of French and English descent, his entertainment-minded father, Robert B. Jolley, at one time owned and operated a traveling circus and carnival before becoming a successful restaurateur and opening an electrical contracting service. Jolley worked at his father's electrical store following high school for a time but then drifted around for a few years while searching for a passionate direction in life.
Around the time he married Emily Hacker in 1921, he took an interest in performing and started in vaudeville for both the B.F. Keith and Marcus Loew circuits. He also performed on stage and in stock shows, which led to a role as a blind man on Broadway in "Humoresque" in 1926. His father's death interrupted his acting pursuits, and he returned home to New Jersey in 1929 in order to handle the family's business affairs when the Great Depression brought his father's company to virtual bankruptcy.
In 1935, Jolley took a chance and moved his family (which now included two children) out west in order to reignite his acting career. His raw, sunken-cheeked, cold-eyed features seemed ideal for westerns and he found initial work in the genre in extra parts, wherein he learned how to ride horses on the spot. Although one of his first bits was in the Bette Davis drama Front Page Woman (1935), it wasn't long before he was firmly entrenched in oaters, playing uncredited bits throughout the rest of the 1930s. Slowly but surely he transitioned to featured roles in the WWII era, playing a reliable adversary to such cowboy heroes as Ray Corrigan in Trail of the Silver Spurs (1941) and Boot Hill Bandits (1942); Tom Keene in Arizona Roundup (1942); George Houston in Border Roundup (1942) and Outlaws of Boulder Pass (1942); Robert Livingston in Death Rides the Plains (1943) and Wolves of the Range (1943); Russell Hayden in Frontier Law (1943); Buster Crabbe in the western serial Blazing Frontier (1943), The Kid Rides Again (1943), and Lightning Raiders (1945)_; Dave O'Brien in Return of the Rangers (1943) and Outlaw Roundup (1944); and Tex Ritter in Oklahoma Raiders (1944), Gangsters of the Frontier (1944), and The Whispering Skull (1944).
Jolley's array of gunslingers, henchmen, and outlaws continued into the postwar years, but he wasn't completely confined to westerns. He also made appearances in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) starring Errol Flynn and Bette Davis, The Ape (1940) with Boris Karloff (in which Jolley's little boy Stan Jolley appeared as an extra in a soda shop), Corregidor (1943) with Otto Kruger, the serial Batman (1943), Charlie Chan in the Chinese Cat (1944) with Sidney Toler, The Desert Hawk (1944) with Gilbert Roland, The Crimson Ghost (1946), the serials King of the Rocket Men (1949) and Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere (1951), Joan of Arc (1948) with Ingrid Bergman, and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) with John Wayne.
Come the 1950s, however, Jolley was almost completely confined in films and on TV to the western genre. On the small screen he became a familiar nemesis to "The Lone Ranger" and also played guest villain to "Annie Oakley," "Hopalong Cassidy, "The Cisco Kid," "Kit Carson," "Cheyenne" and "Daniel Boone". Jolley's baritone voice was also used on radio for such shows as The Lux Radio Theatre. He continued to act past age 70, including in his last film, Night of the Lepus (1972), directed partly by his son Stan Jolley, who also became an Oscar-nominated art director.
The heavy-smoking character actor was diagnosed with emphysema in his final years and died of the respiratory illness on December 6, 1978, at the Motion Picture and TV Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 4
The Paiute War (3 Oct. 1959)
Turner- Actor
- Soundtrack
Kay E. Kuter was born on 25 April 1925 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Last Starfighter (1984), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) and Watermelon Man (1970). He died on 12 November 2003 in Burbank, California, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story (17 Oct. 1959)
Mr. Finch (as Kay Kuter)- Actor
- Soundtrack
John Litel's tough, no-nonsense demeanor on screen was not entirely due to his skill as an actor--when World War I broke out he enlisted in the French army, not wanting to wait until the US entered, and was twice decorated for bravery. Returning to the US after the war, he enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and toured with various stage companies, making his film debut in 1929. He was one of what was called the "Warner Bros. Stock Company" in the 1930s--with such character actors as Ward Bond, Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell, George Tobias, Henry O'Neill and Alan Hale, among others--and he appeared in dozens of films there, often as a tough police captain, hard-nosed district attorney, no-nonsense business executive and other such authority figures. He could also convincingly play villains, as when he played the evil "Scorpion" in the classic serial Don Winslow of the Navy (1942). Always a solid, dependable character actor, Litel appeared in more than 200 films, sometimes playing leads but mainly as a supporting actor. From 1952-53 he played Robert Cummings' brooding boss Mr. Thackery in the NBC-TV sitcom My Hero (1952).Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 5
Enter Mark Twain (10 Oct. 1959)
Judge Jeremy Clarence Billington- George Macready--the name probably does not ring any bells for most but the voice would be unmistakable. He attended and graduated from Brown University and had a short stint as a New York newspaperman, but became interested in acting on the advice of colorful Polish émigré classical stage director Richard Boleslawski, who would go on to Hollywood to direct some notable and important films, including Rasputin and the Empress (1932)--the only film in which siblings John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore appeared together--and Clive of India (1935) with Ronald Colman. Perhaps acting was meant for Macready all along--he claimed that he was descended from 19th-century Shakespearean actor William Macready.
In 1926 Macready made his Broadway debut in "The Scarlet Letter". His Broadway career would extend to 1958, entailing 15 plays--mainly dramas but also some comedies--with the lion's share of roles in the 1930s. His Shakespearean run included the lead as Benedick in "Much Ado About Nothing" (1927), "Macbeth" (1928) and "Romeo and Juliet" (1934), with Broadway legend Katharine Cornell. He co-starred with her again in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" and with with Helen Hayes in "Victoria Regina" twice (1936 and 1937).
Macready's aquiline features coupled with distinctive high-brow bottom-voiced diction and superior, nose-in-the-air delivery that could be quickly tinged with a gothic menace made him perfect as the cultured bad guy. Added to his demeanor was a significant curved scar on his right cheek, remnant of a car accident in about 1919--better PR that it was a saber slash wound from his dueling days as a youth. He did not turn to films until 1942 and did not weigh-in fully committed until 1944, with a host of both well-crafted and just fair movies until the end of World War II. When he went all in, though, he excelled as strong-willed authoritarian and ambitious, murderous--but well-bred--villains. Among his better roles in that period were in The Seventh Cross (1944), The Missing Juror (1944), Counter-Attack (1945) and My Name Is Julia Ross (1945) with a young Nina Foch. Averaging six or more films per year throughout the 1940s, he appeared not only in dramas and thrillers, but also period pieces and even some westerns. His standout role, however--and probably the one he is best remembered for--was the silver-haired, dark-suited and mysteriously rich Ballin Mundson in Gilda (1946), who malevolently inserted himself into the lives of smoldering Rita Hayworth and moody Glenn Ford.
By the early 1950s he had sampled the waters of early TV. He had many appearances on such anthology series as Four Star Playhouse (1952), The Ford Television Theatre (1952) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), among others. He became a familiar presence in episodic TV series beginning in 1954. He made the rounds of most of the hit shows of the period, including a slew of westerns, including such obscure series as The Texan (1958) and The Rough Riders (1958). He was familiar to viewers of crime dramas--such as Perry Mason (1957)--and such classic sci-fi and horror series as Thriller (1960), The Outer Limits (1963) and Night Gallery (1969). He did some 200 TV roles altogether, but still continued his film appearances. He assayed what many consider his best role as the ambitious French Gen. Paul Mireau, a fanatic and martinet whose lust for fame and glory leads to the deaths of hundreds of French soldiers in a senseless frontal attack on heavily fortified German lines in Stanley Kubrick classic antiwar film Paths of Glory (1957). Macready's performance stood out in a film brimming with standout performances, from such veterans as Kirk Douglas, Adolphe Menjou, Ralph Meeker and Timothy Carey. The film was even more striking when it turns out that it was based on a true incident.
Macready stayed busy into the 1960s, mainly in TV roles. He had a three-year run as Martin Peyton in the hit series Peyton Place (1964), the first prime-time soap opera and a launching pad for many a young rising star of the time. His film roles became fewer, but there were some good ones--the Yul Brynner adventure period piece Taras Bulba (1962) and a meaty role as an advisor to US Prlesident Fredric March attempting to stop a coup by a right-wing general played by Burt Lancaster in the gripping Seven Days in May (1964). His next-to-last film appearance was as a very human Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, in Universal's splashy, big-budget but somewhat uneven story of Pearl Harbor, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970).
Another role that stands out in his career is a one-in-a-kind film which you would not expect to find George Macready--Blake Edwards' uproarious comedy -The Great Race (1965) -. Macready shined in one of the film's several subplots, this one a spoof of the "Ruritanian" chestnut "The Prisoner of Zenda", in which the racers find themselves in the middle of palace intrigue in a small European monarchy. Macready played a general trying to stave off a coup by using Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon, who is a double for the drunken ruler. Macready held his own with such comedy veterans as Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood and a host of others. To top it of, Macready gets involved in one of the great pie fights in film history, and takes one right in the kisser!
In real life George Macready was as cultured as he appeared to be on-screen. He was a well-regarded connoisseur of art, and he and a fellow art devotee--and longtime friend--Vincent Price, opened a very successful Los Angeles art gallery together during World War II. As far as the villain roles went, Macready was grateful for the depth they allowed him through his years as both film and television actor. "I like heavies," he once said, and to that he added with a philosophic twinkle, "I think there's a little bit of evil in all of us."Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 1
A Rose for Lotta (12 Sep. 1959)
'Alpheus Troy' - Actress
- Soundtrack
This enigmatic Stockholm-born beauty had everything going for her, including a rapidly rising film and TV career. Yet on April 30, 1970, at only 35, Inger Stevens would become another tragic Hollywood statistic -- added proof that fame and fortune do not always lead to happiness. Over time, a curious fascination, and perhaps even a morbid interest, has developed over Ms. Stevens and her life. What exactly went wrong? A remote, paradoxical young lady with obvious personal problems, she disguised it all with a seemingly positive attitude, an incredibly healthy figure and a megawatt smile that wouldn't quit. Although very little information has been filtered out about Ms. Stevens and her secretive life over the years, William T. Patterson's eagerly-anticipated biography, "The Farmer's Daughter Remembered: The Biography of Actress Inger Stevens" (2000), finally put an end to much of the mystery. But not quite all. The book claims that a large amount of previously-published information about Ms. Stevens is either untrue or distorted.
A strong talent and consummate dramatic player of the late 50s and 60s, she was born Inger Stensland, the eldest of three children, of Swedish parentage. A painfully shy and sensitive child, she was initially drawn to acting as a girl after witnessing her father perform in amateur theater productions. Her rather bleak childhood could be directed at a mother who abandoned her family for another man when Inger was only 6. Her father moved to the States, remarried, and eventually summoned for Inger and a younger brother in 1944 to join him and his new bride. Family relations did not improve. As a teenager, she ran away from home and ended up in a burlesque chorus line only to be brought home by her father. After graduation and following some menial jobs here and there, she moved to New York and worked briefly as a model while studying at the Actors Studio. She broke into the business through TV commercials and summer stock, rising in the ingénue ranks as a guest in a number of weekly series.
Often viewed as the beautiful loner or lady of mystery, an innate sadness seemed to permeate many of her roles. Inger made her film debut at age 22 opposite Bing Crosby in Man on Fire (1957). Serious problems set in when Inger began falling in love with her co-stars. Broken affairs with Crosby, James Mason, her co-star in Cry Terror! (1958), Anthony Quinn, her director in Cecil B. DeMille's The Buccaneer (1958), and Harry Belafonte, her co-star in The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959), left her frequently depressed and ultimately despondent. An almost-fatal New Year's day suicide attempt in 1959 led to an intense period of self-examination and a new resolve. A brief Broadway lead in "Roman Candle," an Emmy-nominated role opposite Peter Falk in Price of Tomatoes (1962), and popular appearances on such TV shows as Bonanza (1959), The Twilight Zone (1959) and Route 66 (1960) paved the way to a popular series as "Katy Holstrum," the Swedish governess, in The Farmer's Daughter (1963). This brisk, change-of-pace comedy role earned her a Golden Globe award and Emmy nomination, and lasted three seasons.
Now officially a household name, Inger built up her momentum once again in films. A string of parts came her way within a three-year period including the sex comedy A Guide for the Married Man (1967) as roving eye husband Walter Matthau's unsuspecting wife; Clint Eastwood's first leading film role in Hang 'Em High (1968); the crime drama, Madigan (1968) with Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark; the westerns Firecreek (1968) with Fonda again plus James Stewart, and 5 Card Stud (1968) opposite Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum; the political thriller House of Cards (1968) starring George Peppard and Orson Welles; and A Dream of Kings (1969) which reunited her with old flame Anthony Quinn. Although many of her co-starring roles seemed to be little more than love interest filler, Inger made a noticeable impression in the last movie mentioned, by far the most intense and complex of her film career. Adding to that mixture were a number of well-made TV mini-movies. On the minus side, she also resurrected the bad habit of pursuing affairs with her co-stars, which would include Dean Martin and, most notably, Burt Reynolds, her last.
In April of 1970, Inger signed on as a series lead in a crime whodunit The Most Deadly Game (1970) to be telecast that September. It never came to be. Less than a week later, she was found unconscious on the floor of her kitchen by her housekeeper and died en route to the hospital of acute barbiturate intoxication -- a lethal combination of drugs and alcohol. Yvette Mimieux replaced her in the short-lived series that fall. For all intents and purposes, Ms. Stevens' death was a suicide but Patterson's bio indicates other possibilities. Following her death, it came out in the tabloids that she had been secretly married to a Negro, Ike Jones, since 1961. The couple was estranged at the time of her death.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 3
The Newcomers (26 Sep. 1959)
Emily Pennington- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Patrick Barry Sullivan was born on August 29, 1912 in New York City. While never a major movie star, he established himself as a well-known and highly regarded character lead and second lead in motion pictures and television in a career that lasted 50 years. Legend has it that Sullivan was counseled to consider a life in the theater due to his height (6'3") and good looks. He was supporting himself as a theater usher and department store employee when made his Broadway debut in "I Want a Policeman" at the Lyceum Theatre in January 1936. Unfortunately, the show lasted only 47 performances.
In 1936, he appeared in three other plays on the Great White Way, the drama "St. Helena" and the comedies "All That Glitters" and "Eye On the Sparrow." All three were flops. Sullivan finally appeared in a hit play when he transferred into the role of Bert Jefferson in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941) by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. However the 1941-42 season brought three more flops: "Mr. Big", "Ring Around Elizabeth", and "Johnny 2 X 4". Wisely, he stayed away from Broadway for a decade, when he again transferred into a hit, "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial," taking over the role of Barney Greenwald from Henry Fonda. Sullivan was nominated for a Best Actor Emmy Award in 1955 when he reprised the role on The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1955). His last appearance on Broadway, in the original "Too Late the Phalarope" in 1956, was, true to his performance record, a flop. Barry Sullivan's talent was meant for the screen.
In the late 1930s, he gained movie acting experience in two-reel comedies produced by the Manhattan-based Educational Studios. After giving up on his Broadway career and moving to Hollywood, Sullivan appeared in an uncredited bit part in "The Green Hornet Strikes Again! (1940) (1941) at Universal before making his official film debut in the Chester Morris B-picture High Explosive (1943) (1943) at Paramount. His next picture was The Woman of the Town (1943), which was released by United Artists that same year.
Barry Sullivan never broke through to become a major star -- but he did establish himself firmly in character lead and second lead roles. He excelled at roles in which he could play aggressive characters that highlighted his centered masculinity. His most notable roles in the early part of his movie career were as the eponymous The Gangster (1947), Tom Buchanan in the Alan Ladd version of The Great Gatsby (1949) (second lead), and as the movie director in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) as part of a first rate ensemble. He had his own TV series Harbourmaster (1957) in 1957-58 and The Tall Man (1960) in 1960-62. A decade later, his acting skills were used to fine effect in two prestigious productions of stage plays as George C. Scott's brother in the Emmy Award-winning TV adaptation of Arthur Miller's The Price (1971) and the amoral patriarch in Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest (1972). He continued acting in movies until 1977, rounding off a near 40-year movie career with an appearance in Oh, God! (1977). He continued to appear periodically on television until retiring in 1980.
Sullivan was married three times and fathered three children, Johnny and Jenny Sullivan by his first wife, and Patsy Sullivan-Webb by his second wife Gita Hall. The Sullivan talent has run into three generations. Jenny Sullivan became an actress and a playwright, writing the drama "J for J" ("Journal for John") based on the correspondence between her father and her brother, who was mentally disabled. She was married to the rock star Jim Messina.
Patsy Sullivan-Webb was a successful model who appeared as the face of Yardley Cosmetics in the Swinging '60s, starting at the age of twelve. She appeared with her father in the episode of That Girl (1966) that opened the series' third season and was a contestant on The Dating Game (1965). She married the great songwriter Jimmy Webb, by whom she had six children. Two of her sons formed the rock group The Webb Brothers.
Barry Sullivan died of a respiratory ailment on June 6, 1994 in Sherman Oaks, California. He was 81 years old.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 2
Death on Sun Mountain (19 Sep. 1959)
'Mark Burdette'- Actor
- Soundtrack
Of Swedish descent, burly, light-haired character actor Karl Swenson was born in Brooklyn and started his four-decade career on radio. Throughout the late 30s and 40s, his voice could be heard all over the airwaves, appearing in scores of daytime serials ("Lorenzo Jones") and mystery dramas ("Inner Sanctum Mysteries"). He gave visual life to one of his serial characters, Walter Manning, in "Portia Faces Life" when it went to TV in 1953. It was during his lengthy work in this medium that he met his wife, stage and radio actress Joan Tompkins. They appeared together throughout their careers on TV and in a few films. In the 1950s, he kept afloat on TV in rugged guest spots (Dr. Kildare (1961), Gunsmoke (1955), Maverick (1957), Mission: Impossible (1966) and Hawaii Five-O (1968)). He didn't appear in films until age 50+ with minor roles in Kings Go Forth (1958), North to Alaska (1960), The Birds (1963) and The Sons of Katie Elder (1965). His voice was also well utilized in such animated features as The Sword in the Stone (1963) as the voice of Merlin. Karl met actor Michael Landon on the set of Bonanza (1959), appearing in four separate episodes over time. Landon remembered him when he began to film Little House on the Prairie (1974). Cast in the recurring role of lumber mill owner Lars Hanson, he remained with the show until his death in 1978 of a heart attack. His character on the show also died.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 2
Death on Sun Mountain (19 Sep. 1959)
'Carl Harris'- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jack Warden was born John Warden Lebzelter, Jr. on September 18, 1920 in Newark, New Jersey, to Laura M. (Costello) and John Warden Lebzelter. His father was of German and Irish descent, and his mother was of Irish ancestry. Raised in Louisville, Kentucky, at the age of seventeen, young Jack Lebzelter was expelled from Louisville's DuPont Manual High School for repeatedly fighting. Good with his fists, he turned professional, boxing as a welterweight under the name "Johnny Costello", adopting his mother's maiden name. The purses were poor, so he soon left the ring and worked as a bouncer at a night club. He also worked as a lifeguard before signing up with the U.S. Navy in 1938. He served in China with the Yangtze River Patrol for the best part of his three-year hitch before joining the Merchant Marine in 1941.
Though the Merchant Marine paid better than the Navy, Warden was dissatisfied with his life aboard ship on the long convoy runs and quit in 1942 in order to enlist in the U.S. Army. He became a paratrooper with the elite 101st Airborne Division, and missed the June 1944 invasion of Normandy due to a leg badly broken by landing on a fence during a nighttime practice jump shortly before D-Day. Many of his comrades lost their lives during the Normandy invasion, but the future Jack Warden was spared that ordeal. Recuperating from his injuries, he read a play by Clifford Odets given to him by a fellow soldier who was an actor in civilian life. He was so moved by the play, he decided to become an actor after the war. After recovering from his badly shattered leg, Warden saw action at the Battle of the Bulge, Nazi Germany's last major offensive. He was demobilized with the rank of sergeant and decided to pursue an acting career on the G.I. Bill. He moved to New York City to attend acting school, then joined the company of Theatre '47 in Dallas in 1947 as a professional actor, taking his middle name as his surname. This repertory company, run by Margo Jones, became famous in the 1940s and '50s for producing Tennessee Williams's plays. The experience gave him a valuable grounding in both classic and contemporary drama, and he shuttled between Texas and New York for five years as he was in demand as an actor. Warden made his television debut in 1948, though he continued to perform on stage (he appeared in a stage production in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1966)). After several years in small, local productions, he made both his Broadway debut in the 1952 Broadway revival of Odets' "Golden Boy" and, three years later, originated the role of "Marco" in the original Broadway production of Miller's "A View From the Bridge". On film, he and fellow World War II veteran, Lee Marvin (Marine Corps, South Pacific), made their debut in You're in the Navy Now (1951) (a.k.a. "U.S.S. Teakettle"), uncredited, along with fellow vet Charles Bronson, then billed as "Charles Buchinsky".
With his athletic physique, he was routinely cast in bit parts as soldiers (including the sympathetic barracks-mate of Montgomery Clift and Frank Sinatra in the Oscar-winning From Here to Eternity (1953). He played the coach on TV's Mister Peepers (1952) with Wally Cox.
Aside from From Here to Eternity (1953) (The Best Picture Oscar winner for 1953), other famous roles in the 1950s included Juror #7 (a disinterested salesman who wants a quick conviction to get the trial over with) in 12 Angry Men (1957) - a film that proved to be his career breakthrough - the bigoted foreman in Edge of the City (1957) and one of the submariners commended by Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster in the World War II drama, Run Silent Run Deep (1958). In 1959, Warden capped off the decade with a memorable appearance in The Twilight Zone (1959) episode, The Lonely (1959), in the series premier year of 1959. As "James Corry", Warden created a sensitive portrayal of a convicted felon marooned on an asteroid, sentenced to serve a lifetime sentence, who falls in love with a robot. It was a character quite different from his role as Juror #7.
In the 1960s and early 70s, his most memorable work was on television, playing a detective in The Asphalt Jungle (1961), The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1965) and N.Y.P.D. (1967). He opened up the decade of the 1970s by winning an Emmy Award playing football coach "George Halas" in Brian's Song (1971), the highly-rated and acclaimed TV movie based on Gale Sayers's memoir, "I Am Third". He appeared again as a detective in the TV series, Jigsaw John (1976), in the mid-1970s, The Bad News Bears (1979) and appeared in a pilot for a planned revival of Topper (1937) in 1979.
His collaboration with Warren Beatty in two 1970s films brought him to the summit of his career as he displayed a flair for comedy in both Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). As the faintly sinister businessman "Lester" and as the perpetually befuddled football trainer "Max Corkle", Warden received Academy Award nominations as Best Supporting Actor. Other memorable roles in the period were as the metro news editor of the "Washington Post" in All the President's Men (1976), the German doctor in Death on the Nile (1978), the senile, gun-toting judge in And Justice for All (1979), the President of the United States in Being There (1979), the twin car salesmen in Used Cars (1980) and Paul Newman's law partner in The Verdict (1982).
This was the peak of Warden's career, as he entered his early sixties. He single-handedly made Andrew Bergman's So Fine (1981) watchable, but after that film, the quality of his roles declined. He made a third stab at TV, again appearing as a detective in Crazy Like a Fox (1984) in the mid-1980s. He played the shifty convenience store owner "Big Ben" in Problem Child (1990) and its two sequels, a role unworthy of his talent, but he shone again as the Broadway high-roller "Julian Marx" in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994). After appearing in Warren Beatty's Bulworth (1998), Warden's last film was The Replacements (2000) in 2000. He then lived in retirement in New York City with his girlfriend, Marucha Hinds. He was married to French stage actress Wanda Ottoni, best known for her role as the object of Joe Besser's desire in The Three Stooges short, Fifi Blows Her Top (1958). She gave up her career after her marriage. They had one son, Christopher, but had been separated for many years.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 4
The Paiute War (3 Oct. 1959)
Mike Wilson- Rush Williams was born on 6 February 1924 in Texas City, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Hawaiian Eye (1959), Rawhide (1959) and Seven Guns to Mesa (1958). He was married to Jacqueline Worsley. He died on 11 February 2013 in Monrovia, California, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story (17 Oct. 1959)
Pete - Lane Bradford was born on 29 August 1922 in Yonkers, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952), The Invisible Monster (1950) and The Toughest Gun in Tombstone (1958). He was married to Joan Irene Velin and Mary Schrock. He died on 7 June 1973 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 5
Enter Mark Twain (10 Oct. 1959)
Lash's Foreman - Roy Engel was born on 13 September 1913 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952), The Man from Planet X (1951) and Rogue River (1951). He died on 29 December 1980 in Burbank, California, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story (17 Oct. 1959)
Dr. Paul Martin - Actor
- Writer
Big, burly character actor, one of the toughest of screen heavies. New York-born Leo Gordon's combination of a powerful physique, deep, menacing voice and icy, withering glare was guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of even the bravest screen hero. Director Don Siegel, who used Gordon in his prison film Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), once said that "Leo Gordon was the scariest man I have ever met"--this coming from a man who had directed John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Bette Midler! Siegel wasn't talking about just Gordon's screen presence. As a "heavy", Gordon was the real deal--before becoming an actor (he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts), Gordon served five years in San Quentin State Prison for armed robbery (during which he was shot several times point-blank by police--and survived). "Riot in Cell Block 11" was filmed at Folsom State Prison--where Gordon also served time--and the Folsom warden remembered him as a troublemaker.At first he refused to allow the film to be shot there if Gordon was to be in it, but Siegel was able to convince him that Gordon was no threat to the prison.
Contrary to his image, though, Gordon was not just a one-note villain. He did play sympathetic parts on occasion, notably in the western Black Patch (1957)--which he also wrote--and in Roger Corman's civil rights drama The Intruder (1962), and turned in first-rate performances, especially in the latter film. Gordon was also a screenwriter, turning out several screenplays for Corman. He wasn't just limited to writing low-budget sci-fi films, either; he penned the screenplay for the WWII epic Tobruk (1967), writing in a meaty part for himself as Kruger, a tough sergeant in a platoon of German Jews masquerading as Nazi soldiers to help blow up a German oil storage facility.
Leo Gordon died in Los Angeles, CA, in 2000 at age 78 of heart failure.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 2
Death on Sun Mountain (19 Sep. 1959)
'Early Thorne'- Dorothy Green was born on 12 January 1920 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for The Big Heat (1953), Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (1963) and Tammy (1965). She was married to Dr. Arthur Leo Heller, Sidney Miller, Dr. Sidney Green and William Wade Woodson. She died on 8 May 2008 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 5
Enter Mark Twain (10 Oct. 1959)
Minnie Billington - A tall, powerfully built man, Douglas Kennedy entered films after graduating from Amherst. Making his debut in 1940, he appeared in many westerns and detective thrillers, often as a villain. World War II interrupted his career, and he spent the war years as a Signal Corps officer and an operative in the OSS and US Army Intelligence. After the war he returned to Hollywood, where he began playing supporting roles in larger films and an occasional lead in a lower-budget film. He is most fondly remembered, though, by audiences of the 1950s for two roles: his western TV series Steve Donovan, Western Marshal (1955), and as one of the policemen taken over by the Martians in the sci-fi classic Invaders from Mars (1953).Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 4
The Paiute War (3 Oct. 1959)
Bill Stewart - Robert Knapp was born on 24 February 1924 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Days of Our Lives (1965), TV Reader's Digest (1955) and Mesa of Lost Women (1953). He was married to Marilyn Frances Remillard. He died on 17 May 2001 in Glendale, California, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 3
The Newcomers (26 Sep. 1959)
John Pennington (as Bob Knapp) - Instantly recognizable American character actor with bulbous nose and heavily lined face, who could convey integrity or menace to equal effect. He first came to prominence on radio as (Captain) Starr of Space (1953), using ray guns to combat Martians and alien queens. Beginning in 1953, Larch accumulated an impressive resume of TV series credits, spanning almost the entire spectrum of the best western, crime and science-fiction shows the 1950's and 60's had to offer. His authoritarian personality and demeanor generally typecast him as police officers, military men, attorneys and politicians. Quite a few of these turned out to be either corrupt or outright villains. Point in case, his performance as a tough hood in The Phenix City Story (1955), described by Bosley Crowther as "stinging" in "hard malevolence" (New York Times, September 3, 1955).
At his best, Larch was the nervous Mr. Fremont, father to the eminently dangerous Anthony (Bill Mumy) in the classic entry into The Twilight Zone (1959), 'It's a Good Life'. In The Invaders (1967) episode 'Genesis', he was again excellent as police officer Greg Lucather, at first skeptical, but subsequently swayed by irrefutable evidence to help in David Vincent's quest. On the big screen, he is perhaps best remembered as Harry Callahan's Chief of Police in the original Dirty Harry (1971).Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 3
The Newcomers (26 Sep. 1959)
Blake McCall - Bek Nelson was born on 8 May 1927 in Goin, Tennessee, USA. She was an actress, known for Bell Book and Candle (1958), Lawman (1958) and Burke's Law (1963). She was married to Don Gordon. She died on 28 March 2015 in Watsonville, California, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 2
Death on Sun Mountain (19 Sep. 1959)
'Glory' - Howard Petrie was born on 22 November 1906 in Beverly, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), Bend of the River (1952) and Walk Softly, Stranger (1950). He was married to Alice Laurie Wood. He died on 24 March 1968 in Keene, New Hampshire, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 4
The Paiute War (3 Oct. 1959)
Major Ormsby - Edmon Ryan was born on 5 June 1905 in Cecilia, Kentucky, USA. He was an actor, known for Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), Mystery Street (1950) and Topaz (1969). He was married to Anne Sargent. He died on 4 August 1984 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 5
Enter Mark Twain (10 Oct. 1959)
Daniel Lash (as Edmund Ryan) - The possessor of one of stage, screen, radio, TV and audio cassette's most distinguished vocal instruments, actor Alexander Scourby received his training via Shakespearean roles in the 1930s and perfected his vocal versatility on dramatic radio serials in the 1940's.
The noted actor/narrator was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 13, 1913 to Greek immigrants and attended public and private schools in Brooklyn. Father Constantine was a restaurateur and baker Interested in writing, he was a co-editor of his high school magazine and yearbook and studied journalism briefly at University of West Virginia at Morgantown. A passion for acting was sparked after joining a campus theater group. He apprenticed at Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre and made his professional debut in a walk-on in "Liliom.".
"Hamlet" would become a favorite Shakespearean play for Scourby. His very first role on Broadway was as the Player King in a 1936 production starring Leslie Howard and went on to play the same role for Eva Le Gallienne's company later that year. He then played Rosencrantz in Maurice Evans' presentation and went on to appear with Evans in "Henry IV, Part I" and "Richard II" (borth 1940). He played Claudius in still another production (Phoenix) in 1961. Other Broadway plays would include post-WWII presentations of "A Flag Is Born", "Crime and Punishment", "Detective Story", "Darkness at Noon", "Saint Joan" with Uta Hagen, "A Month in the County," "Tovarich" with Vivien Leigh, in which he ably displayed a flair for urbane villainy, and "Old World." He played also played the title role in "Galileo," performed as John Knox in "Vivat! Vivat Regina!" and played Walt Whitman in "A Whitman Portrait."
Scourby first began to develop his speaking prowess in 1937 when he started narrating for the American Foundation for the Blind's Talking Book program. He would wind up recording nearly 500 books for the blind, and, for his long-term contribution, receive the Certificate of Merit from the foundation. His deep, crisp tones suited him well as he moved into radio in 1939. By the early 1940's, he was playing running parts in five of the serial dramas. Included was the voice of Superman's father on that popular radio show.
Scourby made a dashing villainous entry into films rather late in his career (age 39). He received third billing behind "Gilda" stars Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in the film noir Affair in Trinidad (1952) in which he plays suave, nefarious Max Fabian. He continued in dramatic support with Because of You (1952), Older Brother, Younger Sister (1953) The Glory Brigade (1953) and probably made his next best impression in another film noir again starring Ford and as another villain (crime boss Mike Lagana) in the classic The Big Heat (1953). Later Scourby-featured 50's movies would include The Silver Chalice (1954), Sign of the Pagan (1954), Ransom! (1956) (a third film noir starring Ford), Giant (1956), Me and the Colonel (1958), The Big Fisherman (1959), and the Disney comedy The Shaggy Dog (1959)
As a TV/audio cassette narrator, Scourby had few peers. He would be heard narrating many popular Bible stories for time and has been credited for giving voice of the entire Bible at one point. Classical novel audio cassettes such as "Ship of Fools" and "War and Peace." On TV, he was critically lauded for his distinctive narration on the documentary classic Victory at Sea (1954) and the 70's The Body Human (1977) TV movie documentaries. Scourby also made a host of guest appearances on the popular TV programs from the late 50s throughout the 70's including "The Phil Silvers Show" ("Bilko"), "Shirley Temple's Storybook," "Ellery Queen," "Rawhide," "Bonanza," "The Rifleman," "The Twilight Zone," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "The Defenders, "The Rogues," "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," "Daniel Boone" and "Mannix." "as well as the daytime soapers "Another World" and "General Hospital."
Long married to stage, screen and daytime soap opera actress Lori March, they had a daughter, Alexandra, born in 1944. Scourby died at age 71 of a heart attack on February 22, 1985.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story (17 Oct. 1959)
Jean Millain - Ron Soble was born on 28 March 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for True Grit (1969), Star Trek (1966) and Papillon (1973). He was married to Elynor Fogel. He died on 2 May 2002 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 2
Death on Sun Mountain (19 Sep. 1959)
'Tukwa' - Anne Whitfield was born August 27, 1938 in Oxford, Mississippi, USA. She was an actress, known for White Christmas (1954), numerous TV shows and commercials, and a long radio career beginning in 1945 when she was seven. Her TV appearances include One Step Beyond, 3 Perry Masons, Rawhide, Gunsmoke, 77 Sunset Strip, Dobie Gillis, 2 Cheyennes, and a Bonanza. When she left Hollywood in 1976, she went back to college, got a degree in Mass Communications, and began a new career as a water quality educator at the state Department of Ecology. Now retired, Annie is a climate activist and a proud but worried grandmother of seven.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 5
Enter Mark Twain (10 Oct. 1959)
Rosemary Lawson (as Ann Whitfield) - Robert B. Williams was born on 23 September 1904 in Glencoe, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for The Killing (1956), The Bat (1959) and Hang 'Em High (1968). He died on 17 June 1978 in Orange County, California, USA.Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story (17 Oct. 1959)
Tom (as Robert B. Williams) - Actor
- Soundtrack
Achieving both film and TV notice during his lengthy career, this diminutive Asian-American character was born Victor Cheung Young on October 18, 1915 in San Francisco to Chinese emigrants. When his mother died during the influenza epidemic of 1918-19, his father placed Victor and his sister in a children's shelter and returned to China, returning to the USA in the mid-1920s, having remarried. The two children were released back to his guardianship, and began learning Chinese. To contribute to the family income, young Sen Yew was employed as a houseboy at age 11 and managed to earn his way through college at the University of California at Berkeley with an interest in animal husbandry and receiving a degree in economics.
Following a move to Hollywood for some post graduate work at UCLA and USC, Victor gained an entrance into films via extra work, where he was in such roles as a peasant boy in The Good Earth (1937), and a soldier in Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938), among others. During this early period he also worked as a salesman for a chemical firm. In one of Hollywood's more interesting tales of being "discovered", the story goes that Victor (as he would become known) was on the 20th Century-Fox studio lot at the time trying to pitch one of his company's flame retardant compounds to industry techies when one of them suggested he check out casting. The original actor who had played Charlie Chan, Warner Oland, died and the series was undergoing a major casting overhaul. In the end, Sidney Toler, received cast approval, chose the fledgling actor following a screen test to play his #2 son, Jimmy Chan, for the film Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938). Victor went on to play the role for seventeen other "Charlie Chan" features. Needless, to say he quit the sales business for good.
Victor enjoyed playing Jimmy, the earnest rookie detective who, to his chagrin, was always under the watchful eye of his famous father while trying to help solve murder cases. Outside the role, however, Victor (billed variously as Sen Yung, Victor Yung, and Victor Sen Yung at different times) found the atmosphere oppressive. Usually cast in nothing-special Asian stereotypes, sometimes villainous, in war-era films, parts in such movies as The Letter (1940) starring Bette Davis, Secret Agent of Japan (1942), Little Tokyo, U.S.A. (1942), Moontide (1942), Across the Pacific (1942), Manila Calling (1942), China (1943) and Night Plane from Chungking (1943), did little to advance his stature in Hollywood. His career was interrupted for U.S. Air Force duty as a Captain of Intelligence during WWII. His part in the Chan pictures was taken over by actor Benson Fong.
Victor was able to pick up where he left off in Hollywood following the war and returned to his famous role as #2 son. The character's name, however, was eventually changed from "Jimmy" to "Tommy" after a third installment of Charlie Chan pictures were filmed with Roland Winters now the title sleuth after the death of Toler in 1947. While Victor's workload was fairly steady, again the roles themselves were meager and hardly inspiring. Most were in "B" level crime mysteries and war pictures and many were uncredited roles. Reduced often to playing middle-age servile roles (houseboys, laundrymen, valets, clerks, dock workers and waiters), some of his slightly more prominent roles include those in Woman on the Run (1950), Forbidden (1953), Target Hong Kong (1953), and Trader Tom of the China Seas (1954). His last film appearance was in The Man with Bogart's Face (1980).
On TV, he appeared in two familiar recurring roles. On the John Forsythe series, Bachelor Father (1957), he showed up as "Peter Fong" on the final season of the sitcom. He played the cousin to houseboy Sammee Tong's regular character. Victor is better remembered, however, for the part of Hop Sing, the earnest, volatile cook to the Cartwright clan, provided sporadic comic relief on Bonanza (1959). He also appeared in the TV pilot and in several episodes of Kung Fu (1972), as well as popping up in dramatic episodes of Hawaiian Eye (1959), The F.B.I. (1965). and Hawaii Five-O (1968). Sitcoms gave a hint of his gentle, humorous side in Here's Lucy (1968), Get Smart (1965) and Mister Ed (1961).
Married and divorced with one child, he sought work outside of acting by the mid-1970s. At one point he was giving cooking demonstrations in department stores. An accomplished chef who specialized in Cantonese-style cooking, in 1974, he published the 1974 Great Wok Cookbook and dedicated the book to his father, Sen Gam Yung.
Victor Sen Yung was working on a second cookbook when he was suddenly found dead in November of 1980 under initially "mysterious circumstances" in his modest San Fernando Valley bungalow. Following an investigation it was determined that Victor was accidentally asphyxiated in his sleep after turning on a faulty kitchen stove for heat. He was survived by his son, Brent Kee Young, and two grandchildren."Hop Sing"
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 1
A Rose for Lotta (12 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 5
Enter Mark Twain (10 Oct. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story (17 Oct. 1959)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Dan Blocker is one of the true television immortals, having played Hoss Cartwright -- the heart and soul of Bonanza (1959) -- for 13 seasons, before his untimely death in 1972 at the age of 43. "Bonanza" was the most popular TV series of the 1960s, ranked #1 for three straight seasons (1964-65 through 1966-67) and spending a then-unprecedented nine seasons in the Top 5. After Blocker's death, "Bonanza" -- still in the Top 20 with Hoss after being #8 the previous year -- didn't last another entire season.
The character of Hoss was conceived as a stereotype: The Gentle Giant. The 6'4", 300 lbs. Blocker filled Hoss's cowboy boots and ten-gallon hat admirably but brought something extra to the role, a warmth and empathy that helped ground the show. Personal accounts of Blocker testify to the fact that the man was gregarious and friendly to everyone. He brought that upbeat personality to the character of Hoss.
Hoss originally had been conceived as dull-witted, but ironically, Blocker's professional acting career was assured after he moved his family to California so he could pursue a PhD at U.C.L.A. A native of West Texas, he reportedly was discovered while making a call in a phone booth while outfitted in Western garb, including a straw cowboy hat, his standard dress being a native son of Texas, soon after arriving in California. Even after being cast in "Bonanza", he intended to complete his PhD, but the great success of the series made that impossible, due to the workload of 30+ episodes per year necessitating a 7AM-9PM work schedule five days a week.
Donny Dany Blocker made his debut on December 10, 1928 in De Kalb, Texas, weighing in at 14 lbs. He reportedly was the biggest baby ever born in Bowie County. By the age of 12, he already was 6' tall and weighed 200 lbs. (Towards the end of "Bonanza", he reportedly had ballooned past his stated weight of 300 to as much as 365 lbs.) A "TV Guide" story after his death reported that back in Texas, the young Dan once lifted a car off of a man after it slid off a jack and pinned him under the auto. "My daddy used to say that I was too big to ride and too little to hitch a wagon to," Blocker said, "no good for a damn thing".
His father, Ora Blocker, a poor Texas farmer, was hurt by the Great Depression that began the year after Dan's birth. Ora Blocker lost the farm and later went into the grocery business. He moved his family to O'Donnell, which is just south of Lubbock, where he ran a grocery store. His "no good" son went to the Texas Military Institute, and in 1946 started his undergraduate work at Hardin-Simmons University (Abilene, Texas), where he played football. It was there he fell in love with acting when he was recruited by a girlfriend to play a role in campus production of Arsenic and Old Lace as they needed a strong man to lift the bodies that the spinster aunts had dispatched up from the cellar.
After graduating in 1950 with a degree in English, Blocker went east where he did repertory work in Boston. A 1960 "TV Guide" article says that he appeared on Broadway in the 1950-51 production of King Lear, which starred Louis Calhern. The draft soon ended his apprenticeship, and he served in the Army in the Korean War, making sergeant. After being demobilized in 1952, he attended attended Sul Ross State Teacher's College (Alpine, Texas), earning a master's degree in dramatic arts. He taught English and drama at a Sonora, Texas high school before moving to Carlsbad, New Mexico, where he taught sixth grade. He then moved his family to California, where he again taught school while preparing for his PhD studies.
Blocker picked up bit parts in television, making his debut as a bartender in The Sheriff of Cochise (1956). His career rise was steady and rapid, and he appeared on many Westerns, including Gunsmoke (1955), Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), The Rifleman (1958), and Maverick (1957). He claimed his turn as Hognose Hughes on "Maverick", the comic Western starring James Garner, was the seminal role of his career. As Hoss, Blocker would often star in light-hearted episodes on "Bonanza". He was cast in the recurring role of "Tiny" Carl Budinger in the short lived Western series, Cimarron City (1958). Its cancellation after one season made him available for "Bonanza", which was "Cimarron City" creator David Dortort's next project. He had previously appeared on Dortort's Western series, The Restless Gun (1957).
"Bonanza" debuted in September 1959, shot in color, and R.C.A. made color TV sets and saw the program as a good advertisement for its wares. The company sponsored the first two seasons of the show, and the sponsorship and R.C.A.'s ownership of N.B.C. was likely why it wasn't cancelled after its shaky first season, when it placed #45 in the ratings for the 1959-60 season. The following year, it cracked the top 20 at #17, but it wasn't until it was shifted to Sundays at 9PM in the 1961-62 season that it became a ratings phenomenon, coming in at #2. It was the first of nine straight seasons in the top 5. Once "Bonanza" was ensconced as America's favorite Western, Blocker and his three co-stars, Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts and Michael Landon were paid an extremely handsome salary that eventually rose to approximately $10,000 per episode each by the time Roberts quit after the sixth season, its first at #1.
Commenting on Roberts' departure, Landon said, "After he left we took one leaf out of the dining room table and we all made more money because we split the take three ways instead of four." Salary, royalties from Bonanza-related merchandise, and business ventures (Blocker started the Bonanza Steak House chain in 1963), and an eventual $1-million payout from NBC to buy out the residual rights of each of the three remaining stars made them all rich. "Bonanza" made Blocker a very wealthy man, but more importantly, it made him a television immortal. The series continues to be re-run in syndication 40 years after Hoss exited the stage."Eric 'Hoss' Cartwright"
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 1
A Rose for Lotta (12 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 2
Death on Sun Mountain (19 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 3
The Newcomers (26 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 4
The Paiute War (3 Oct. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 5
Enter Mark Twain (10 Oct. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story (17 Oct. 1959)- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Lorne Greene was born Lyon Himan "Chaim" Green on February 12, 1915, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He began acting while attending Canada's Queen's University, and after graduation got a job in radio broadcasting. His rich, deep, authoritarian voice quickly propelled him to prominence as Canada's top newscaster. He left Canada in the early 1950s for a film career in Hollywood, and soon began appearing regularly in television, films and on radio. His greatest successes came in two television series, the long-running Western Bonanza (1959), in which he played the patriarch of a wealthy frontier family, and the science-fiction series Battlestar Galactica (1978). In 1969 he was awarded Officer of the Order of Canada for his services to the performing arts and community.
Lorne Greene died at age 72 of pneumonia following heart surgery on September 11, 1987, in Santa Monica, CA."Ben Cartwright"
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 1
A Rose for Lotta (12 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 2
Death on Sun Mountain (19 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 3
The Newcomers (26 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 4
The Paiute War (3 Oct. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 5
Enter Mark Twain (10 Oct. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story (17 Oct. 1959)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Michael Landon was born Eugene Maurice Orowitz, on Saturday, October 31st, 1936, in Forest Hills, Queens, New York. In 1941, he and his family moved to Collingswood, New Jersey.
When Eugene was in high school, he participated -- and did very well -- in track and field, especially javelin throwing, and his athletic skills earned him a scholarship to USC. However, an accident injured his arm, ending his athletic career -- and his term at USC -- and he worked a number of odd jobs and small roles to make ends meet and decided that acting was for him. However, he thought that his real name was not a suitable one for an aspiring actor, and so "Michael Landon" was born.
Two of his first big roles were as Tony Rivers in I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) and as Tom Dooley in the western The Legend of Tom Dooley (1959). That same year he was approached by producer David Dortort to star in a pilot called The Restless Gun (1957), which was renamed when the series was picked up to Bonanza (1959). Landon played Little Joe Cartwright, the youngest of the three Cartwright brothers, a cocky and somewhat rebellious youth nevertheless had a way with the ladies. For 14 years, Landon became the heart and soul of the show, endearing himself to both younger and older viewers, and he became a household name during the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1968, after almost ten years of playing Little Joe, he wanted an opportunity to direct and write some episodes of the show. After the season finale in 1972, Dan Blocker, who played his older brother Hoss and was also a close friend, died from a blood clot in his lung, after gall bladder surgery, but Michael decided to go back to work, revisiting his own character in a two-part episode called "Forever."
Bonanza (1959) was finally canceled in early 1973, after 14 years and 430 episodes. Michael didn't have to wait long until he landed another successful role that most TV audiences of the 1970s would thoroughly enjoy, his second TV western, for NBC, Little House on the Prairie (1974). That show was based on a popular book written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and he played enduring patriarch and farmer Charles Ingalls. Unlike Bonanza (1959), where he was mostly just a "hired gun," on this show he served as the producer, writer, director, and executive producer. By the end of its eighth season in 1982, Landon decided to step down from his role on "Little House" as he saw his TV children grown up and moved out of their father's house, and a year later, the show was canceled. After 14 years on Bonanza (1959) and 8 years on Little House on the Prairie (1974), it was about time to focus on something else, and once again, he didn't have to wait too long before Highway to Heaven (1984) came along. Unlike the western shows that he did for 23 years, this NBC fantasy/drama show focused on Jonathan Smith, an angel whose job was to save peoples' lives and work for God, his boss. Victor French played ex-cop Mark Gordon, who turned down a fortune but had redeemed himself by meeting Jonathan.
By the end of the fifth season in 1989, French was diagnosed with lung cancer and died in June of that same year. Landon was devastated by the loss and pulled the plug on Highway to Heaven (1984). In early 1991, after 35 years of working on NBC, he was axed by the network, so he moved to CBS to star in the pilot of a two-hour movie, Us (1991), in which he played Jeff Hayes, a man freed from prison by new evidence after 18 years wrongfully spent inside. This was going to be another one of Landon's shows but, in April 1991, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He later appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) to talk about his battle with the disease, and many people in the audience were affected by the courage and energy he showed. Unfortunately, he was already terminally ill by that time, and on Monday, July 1st, 1991, after a three-month battle, he finally succumbed to the disease. His family, his colleagues, and his children were all by his side. His life-time: Saturday, October 31st, 1936 to Monday, July 1st, 1991, was 19,966 days, equaling 2,852 weeks & 2 days."Joseph 'Little Joe' Cartwright"
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 1
A Rose for Lotta (12 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 2
Death on Sun Mountain (19 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 3
The Newcomers (26 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 4
The Paiute War (3 Oct. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 5
Enter Mark Twain (10 Oct. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story (17 Oct. 1959)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Best recalled as the eldest son and first member of the "Bonanza" Cartwright clan to permanently leave the Ponderosa in the hopes of greener acting pastures, dark, deep-voiced and durably handsome Pernell Roberts' native roots lay in Georgia. Born Pernell Elvin Roberts, Jr. on May 18, 1928, in North Carolina and moved to Waycross as an infant, he was singing in local USO shows while still in high school (where he appeared in plays and played the horn). He attended both Georgia Tech and the University of Maryland but flunked out of both colleges, with a two-year stint as a Marine stuck somewhere in between. He eventually decided to give acting a chance and supported himself as a butcher, forest ranger, and railroad riveter during the lean years while pursuing his craft.
On stage from the early 1950s, he gained experience in such productions as "The Adding Machine," "The Firebrand" and "Faith of Our Fathers" before spending a couple of years performing the classics with the renowned Arena Stage Company in Washington, DC. Productions there included "The Taming of the Shrew" (as Petruchio), "The Playboy of the Western Word," "The Glass Menagerie," "The Importance of Being Earnest," and "Twelfth Night." He made his Broadway debut in 1955 with "Tonight in Samarkind" and that same year won the "Best Actor" Drama Desk Award for his off-Broadway performance as "Macbeth," which was immediately followed by "Romeo and Juliet" as Mercutio. Other Broadway plays include "The Lovers" (1956) with Joanne Woodward, "A Clearing in the Woods" (1957) with Kim Stanley, a return to Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" (1957) and "The Duchess of Malfi" (1957). He returned to Broadway fifteen years later as the title role opposite Ingrid Bergman in "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" (1972).
Pernell then headed for Hollywood and found minor roles in films before landing the pivotal role of Ben Cartwright's oldest and best-educated son Adam in the Bonanza (1959) series in 1959. The series made Roberts a bona fide TV star, while the program itself became the second longest-running TV western (after "Gunsmoke") and first to be filmed in color. At the peak of his and the TV show's popularity, Pernell, displeased with the writing and direction of the show, suddenly elected not to renew his contract and left at the end of the 1964-1965 season to the utter dismay of his fans. The show continued successfully without him, but a gap was always felt in the Cartwright family by this abrupt departure. The story line continued to leave open the possibility of a return if desired, but Pernell never did.
With his newfound freedom, Roberts focused on singing and the musical stage. One solo album was filled with folks songs entitled "Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies." Besides such standard roles in "Camelot" and "The King and I," he starred as Rhett Butler to Lesley Ann Warren's Scarlett O'Hara in a musical version of "Gone with the Wind" that did not fare well, and appeared in another misguided musical production based on the life of "Mata Hari." During this period he became an avid civil rights activist and joined other stalwarts such as Dick Gregory, Joan Baez and Harry Belafonte who took part in civil rights demonstrations during the 60s, including the Selma March.
The following years were rocky. He never found a solid footing in films with roles in rugged, foreign films such as Tibetana (1970) [The Kashmiri Run], Four Rode Out (1969), making little impression. He maintained a viable presence in TV, however, with parts in large-scale mini-series and guest shots on TV helping to keep some momentum. In 1979 he finally won another long-running series role (and an Emmy nomination) as Trapper John, M.D. (1979) in which he recreated the Wayne Rogers TV M*A*S*H (1972) role. Pernell was now heavier, bearded and pretty close to bald at this juncture (he was already wearing a toupee during his early "Bonanza" years), but still quite virile and attractive. The medical drama co-starring Gregory Harrison ran seven seasons.
The natural-born Georgia rebel was a heavily principled man and spent a life-time of work fighting racism, segregation, and sexism, notably on TV. He was constantly at odds with the "Bonanza" series writers of his concerns regarding equality. He also kept his private life private. Married and divorced three times, he had one son, Jonathan Christopher, by first wife Vera. Jonathan was killed in a motorcycle crash in 1989. In the 1990s, Pernell starred in his last series as host of FBI: The Untold Stories (1991). It had a short life-span.
Retiring in the late 1990s, Roberts was diagnosed with cancer in 2007 and died about two years later at age 81 on January 24, 2010, survived by fourth wife Eleanor Criswell. As such, the rugged actor, who never regretted leaving the "Bonanza" series, managed to outlive the entire Cartwright clan (Dan Blocker died in 1972; Lorne Greene in 1987); and Michael Landon in 1991)."Adam Cartwright"
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 1
A Rose for Lotta (12 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 2
Death on Sun Mountain (19 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 3
The Newcomers (26 Sep. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 4
The Paiute War (3 Oct. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 5
Enter Mark Twain (10 Oct. 1959)
Bonanza: Season 1, Episode 6
The Julia Bulette Story (17 Oct. 1959)