"It's Arthur Godfrey Time!"

After all the media hoopla and public dismay surrounding professional golfer Tiger Woods and his various indiscretions, it’s useful to remember that we’ve been down this road before.

Fifty-seven years ago, America was in the throes of its love affair with Arthur Godfrey. Tiger at his most influential couldn’t hold a candle to “the ol’ redhead.” Sponsors of all shapes and sizes were pounding on CBS doors trying to get a piece of the action. If anyone doubted that Godfrey was the undisputed king of radio and television, a brace of magazines and newspaper columnists would beg to differ. TV Guide labeled him, “Boyish, open-faced, apple-pie likable… television’s Huck Finn.” Attempting to pinpoint Godfrey’s unprecedented appeal, Ben Gross of the New York Daily News, wrote: “It is his friendliness, his good cheer, his small-boy mischievousness and his kindly philosophy… or maybe it’s his magnetism, his personal attractiveness.”

Whatever it was, by 1953, Godfrey accounted for 12% of CBS’ annual television revenues, according to Robert Metz’s book, Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye. He had two prime-time series: “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” on Monday evenings (the lead-in to “I Love Lucy”) and on Wednesday, “Arthur Godfrey and His Friends,” an hour-long variety series… although “variety” might be too strong a word. Try to imagine tuning in weekly to see the same collection of singers and vocal groups – no vaudeville acts or celebrity guest stars, if you please; just Arthur and his “Little Godfreys” – alternately render a tune in between the host’s folksy banter and playful commercial spiels. Now imagine that this show is a top ten entry from 1951-54, while “Talent Scouts” – the “American Idol” of its day – is a top three show (#1 during 1951-52) during the same stretch. At one point early on, CBS gave Godfrey 15 minutes of prime time twice weekly to give ukulele lessons!

Then there was “Arthur Godfrey Time,” the 90-minute CBS weekday morning radio show simulcast on the TV network beginning in 1952. The show was only televised Monday through Thursday – on Friday, Godfrey hosted via remote from his Leesburg Virginia farm, which precluded any TV cameras. The show contained six 15-minute segments, each with a different sponsor, although Lipton Tea and Chesterfield cigarettes were mainstays (the latter until Godfrey went under the knife for lung cancer in 1959). Reportedly he refused to accept any sponsor whose product he didn’t personally endorse from his own experience… which ensured stockpiles of various freebees would make their way to Leesburg.

But the bigger they are, the harder they fall… and it was the final segment of “Arthur Godfrey Time” on Monday, October 19, 1953, that concluded with Godfrey’s metaphoric golf club to the head. This was, of course, the broadcast in which he fired singer Julius La Rosa on the air. Although “fired” might be too strong a word as well.

La Rosa was a Brooklyn native who, while serving a stint in the Navy, auditioned for Godfrey on October 4, 1950. Impressed with the young sailor’s vocal gifts, Godfrey twice had him appear on “Talent Scouts” when on shore leave, and promised him a steady job upon his discharge. The young man happily took him up on this generous offer (see related article), and on November 17, 1951, Julius La Rosa became one of “the Little Godfreys,” with steady appearances on “Arthur Godfrey Time” and “Arthur Godfrey and His Friends.” With Godfrey’s orchestra leader, Archie Bleyer, La Rosa co-formed Cadence Records and recorded a string of hits. By mid-1953, the 23-year-old crooner’s fan mail was outdistancing that of his boss.

That, however, may not have been the issue. According to La Rosa, he was forced to miss a ballet class (a Godfrey mandate to his entire on-air staff) due to a family crisis. The next day, he found a memo tacked to the staff bulletin board: “Since you felt your services weren’t required at the ballet lesson yesterday, you won’t be needed this morning on the show.” La Rosa tried to reach his boss at his hotel; he tried phoning… no luck. “I’m sure I’m in trouble,” concluded La Rosa, according to Max Wilk’s 1976 book, The Golden Age of Television: Notes From the Survivors. “What do you do when you’re in trouble in show business? You figure you need some muscle of your own, right? And you hire yourself an agent.”

With that move, La Rosa broke the unwritten commandment for Little Godfreys: Thou Shalt Not Acquire Outside Representation. And La Rosa picked a winner: Thom Rockwell, president of General Artists’ Corporation and personal agent for Perry Como. Said Godfrey at the time, “I had told (La Rosa) a long time ago one thing I wouldn’t stand for was outside interference by personal agents.” Before the ink had dried on La Rosa’s contract, Rockwell dashed off a letter to Godfrey and CBS informing them that he would henceforth be handling the singer’s affairs.

La Rosa knew what was coming: “Now it was just a question of when. Rockwell’s letter was mailed, (Godfrey) got it maybe by the end of the week.” At which point, he went to Frank Stanton, president of CBS, seeking advice. Stanton’s suggestion: You hired him on the air, you can fire him the same way.

Flash forward to the following Monday, October 19. La Rosa: “I get to work at the radio studio (for “Arthur Godfrey Time”). I was scheduled for the 10:15 segment, but one of the ways Godfrey would discipline you would be to keep you sitting around there, waiting to go on. It was his show – he pulled all the strings. All morning I sit there waiting, I’ve got two different songs to do.”

With the clock closing in on 11:25, Godfrey finally told the studio audience, “I want you to meet a young man named Julius La Rosa.”

Most sources declare that the telecast had ended by this point; that only the radio audience heard what was to follow. It appears, though, that while some CBS-TV affiliates only covered part of the day’s proceedings, others signed on for the full 90 minutes and would have carried the finale. As an example, according to this TV Guide page for that date, Buffalo’s channel 4 televised only the second half-hour, but Syracuse’s channel 8 aired the entire program.

In any event, audio of the final five minutes survives and is in circulation. Some written accounts have Godfrey commenting on La Rosa’s rise to fame and snidely asking him, “This show must be a pain in the neck to you, huh?” or something similar, but the existing recording contains nothing of the sort. Rather, Godfrey assures the audience that their enthusiastic reception “pleases me mightily.” Arthur asks Julius, “How long ago did you come (to us)?”

Julius: “November 17, 1951… it’ll be two years next month.”
Arthur: “Not quite two years… so it was about three years ago when I first met you.”
Julius: “October 4th, 1950.”

The audience laughs at Julius’ precise recollection, but his voice sounds tentative… like he’s bracing himself for what might follow. Godfrey continues, addressing the audience:

Arthur: “When I first met Julie… I’ll never forget, when he first came up here, and I said to him, ‘When you get out of that man’s Navy, if you don’t want to stay in for thirty years, just come on up here, and I’ll give you a job,’ and he took me at my word. And he came and I put him to work, and immediately everybody loved him. And it has always done my heart good to see that you people saw the same quality in him that I saw. Which, if you have noticed, and I’m sure you have, is the same quality that I have in everybody in my cast. I picked ‘em all that way. Sure, he’s got a good voice, but lots of people have good voices. There’s something else that you like, which is a wonderful quality that is hard to get.

“I’ll never forget when he first came here and went to work steadily, he said to me, ‘Gee...” (to La Rosa) Do you remember how you used to go (exaggerated Brooklyn accent) ‘Chee!’ (Audience laughs) ‘I don’t know, with all those stars on the show.’ And I said to him, ‘Julie, you don’t know it, but I don’t have any stars in my show. In my show, we’re all just a nice big family of very nice people, like yourself. And you hold onto that quality and you’ll never have to worry about a thing; you’re just as big as anybody else. You just go on (and) try to improve yourself all the time and one day you’ll be the big star.’ And this boy in two years’ time has done this. He and Archie have their own recording company now and he’s gotten to be a great big name.

“And I would like Julius, if he would, to sing me that song called ‘Manhattan.’ Have you got that? Huh?”

Julius: “Yes, sir.”
Arthur: “Sing me that.”

Bleyer’s band struck up the tune and La Rosa sang. Applause… then it happened:

Arthur: “Thanks ever so much, Julie. That was Julie’s swan song with us. He goes now out on his own, as his own star, soon to be seen in his own programs. And I know you wish him Godspeed, same as I do.”

The audience can be heard registering their dismay at this news, but at that point, the sound cuts to the theme and Godfrey’s pre-recorded voice declaring, “This is the CBS radio network.” Apparently, TV stations still airing the simulcast cut off even sooner than that, right after the “swan song” remark. Later in the week, Godfrey told Edward R. Murrow, on the latter’s “Person-to-Person,” that he didn’t have enough time left for a full send-off.

Based on Godfrey’s build up of La Rosa’s star power during the broadcast, initial news reports assumed that the singer had requested his release, which was graciously granted. But Rockwell saw the chance for the kind of publicity money couldn’t buy. The next day, La Rosa told the press he was “a very confused guy,” not comprehending his dismissal at all, while Rockwell bragged, “Anyone who can make four thousand bucks for a one-night stand needs an agent. The kid is hot, there’s no question about it.”

Kid indeed. Twenty-three years later, La Rosa understood just how green he was: “Talk about twisted values. I was completely unprepared for what happened – the enormous impact the whole thing had.” Not two days after what was now reported as a public firing, Ed Sullivan – ever the opportunist – signed La Rosa for thirteen appearances on his “Toast of the Town.” “Again, I wasn’t prepared,” said La Rosa. “I felt like saying, ‘No, not thirteen times a year for all that money – please, let me go up to the mountains, let me do shows, clubs; let me learn what I’m doing first – order me back then.’” Not a chance; as Rockwell said, “the kid” was hot.

Behind the scenes, Godfrey also released Archie Bleyer, ostensibly for paying more attention to his record company to the detriment of Godfrey’s programs, but primarily because Bleyer had used part of a two-week paid vacation to record Don McNeill, Godfrey’s long-time rival from ABC. In fact, this axe fell just hours after the “swan song” broadcast. “It really hurt,” Godfrey told the press. “I said, ‘Arch, I just fired Julie and it was like tearing my eyeballs out, and I guess you’re next.” With this news, the press went berserk; you can sample just a portion of their output here.

With La Rosa’s “confused guy” coupled with Rockwell’s bluster, Godfrey’s temperature rose, and he felt compelled to make a public statement… which would become his metaphoric cell phone text to the mistress. “Whenever I take anybody on my shows, it’s because I go a little crazy about a quality I see in them which, for lack of a better word, I call ‘humility.’ I don’t have any real artists on my show…. I’ve felt that, rather than a good voice, a likable, lovable personality is more important.” Godfrey then explained that, with the hiring of an outside agent, it was clear to him that La Rosa had lost this quality.

Meanwhile the public, after having gorged on all this coverage, eventually decided that if Arthur Godfrey was concerned about lost humility, perhaps he should start searching for his own. From this point on, the decline began. Both his night-time shows fell from the top ten – and “Godfrey and His Friends” dropped out of the top twenty – during the 1953-54 season, never to return. In April 1955, Godfrey went on another purge, firing several long-time “Little Godfreys” like Marion Marlowe, Lu Ann Simms, Haleloke and Bleyer’s successor, Jerry Bresler. For his troubles he received another round of bad press. Although other “Friends” would come along – notably Pat Boone and Carmel Quinn – they could not restore the show or its host to their former glory.

“Arthur Godfrey and His Friends” left the air in the summer of 1957, and “Talent Scouts” a year later. At least a portion of “Arthur Godfrey Time” would be telecast until April 1959, while the radio show continued until 1972. Godfrey weaved in and out of TV during the 1960’s, hosting specials and variety shows like “Hollywood Palace.” His successful battle against lung cancer awarded him some long-lost respect, but he would never again command the power of the old days.

Godfrey died in 1983, having long since been consigned to nostalgia retrospectives, trivia questions, and word-association games (the word being “humility”). Today, we look at the few kinescopes and listen to surviving broadcasts, and wonder what our grandparents were thinking, paying this guy so much attention and buying whatever he told them to. Armed with the La Rosa incident – and “Julie” remains to tell his side of the tale – and a few other latter-day recollections, posterity labels Arthur Godfrey an opinionated, hard-nosed, conceited S.O.B. of limited talent, who fooled the great unwashed with a generous helping of folksy charm, hopelessly outdated in these modern times. That may not be wholly true, but it’s the perception that sticks.

Perhaps Tiger Woods should take note: no matter how great you think you are, the public is notoriously fickle when it comes to celebrities. The issue isn’t that they can’t or won’t forgive your foibles. The issue is that they can’t forgive themselves for being taken in by a carefully crafted image… and they’ll take that out on you. Arthur would know.

Off to See the Wizard... Or Not: An Editorial

Several weeks ago, at the recommendation of an old friend, I purchased tickets for my wife and I to see the special theatrical "Wizard of Oz 70th Anniversary Hi-Def Event." The applicable theatre nearest our home was the Regal Fairfax. The one-time showing was this evening at 7:00 pm. I left work a little early, took my wife to an inexpensive Chinese restaurant situated directly under the theatre, and went "off to see the Wizard."

The theatre (okay, the auditorium known as "Theatre 9") was just about full. At about 6:58 pm, the lights dimmed slightly and the "Hi-Def Event" began with a special introduction by TCM's Robert Osborne.

Only Mr. Osborne didn't look particularly "Hi-Def." In fact, Mr. Osborne came on rather slowly, moving and speaking in fits and starts. Some of the attendees laughed, but most were booing. Eventually, Osborne's voice became clear, even though his body was stiff and his lips weren't moving... but then, his physical presence made a mad rush to catch up to his vocalizing. The crowd settled back.

But things still weren't right. Mr. Osborne's movements were rather jerky and most un-Hi-Def like. As a regular viewer of NCIS, I began to wonder if this "event" was being transmitted via remote from a Marine unit in Iraq. After about two minutes, Mr. Osborne yielded to a mini-documentary about Oz hosted by Angela Lansbury, and she too moved and spoke in the same halting manner. It all looked like a Netflix DVD that had gone through the mail a few too many times.

About ten minutes into this travesty, I (and several others) went to the box office to inform a manager. (My contribution was to advise him to brace for a clamor of unhappy, refund-seeking Oz-ites should the actual film be as poor as the mini-doc.) When I returned to Theatre #9, several people were exiting, and the screen was almost blank... almost, except for a little digital clock and taskbar at bottom that probably looks a lot like the one at the bottom of your screen right now. My wife told me that they stopped the show shortly after I'd left, and that the next thing that popped up was a "Windows (Vista, XP, whatever)" logo, at which people laughed and snapped pictures with their cellphones. That image vanished, then everyone saw an "HP" logo. Presumably the special "Hi-Def Event" equipment was being rebooted.

After about a ten-minute wait, the program started over. And nothing had changed. Mr. Osborne made his slow-motion entrance, followed by words leaving his immobile face until his body rushed to catch up, followed by his herky-jerky movements preceding those of Ms. Lansbury. Whatever the problem was, it hadn't been corrected. This time, they turned it off about five minutes in.

After another five minutes of waiting, a manager came in with a roll of free admission passes (not good for IMAX or "Special Events" like this one), and told us "they" were still trying to correct the problem and would "skip ahead" to the movie once it was fixed. While he was still passing out passes, the film began. Leo the M.G.M. lion began a roar that stopped and started and stopped and started... basically the poor beast moved in one-quarter time. My wife turned to me and said, "I can't sit through this anymore." Reasonably satisfied with the passes ("At least we can see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs later this week"), we left at about 7:40 pm. As for the many who'd dropped 20-ish bucks on popcorn, drinks and candy, I doubt they were as pleased.

My friends, I have seen the future of theatrical screenings... and right now it sucks.

Obviously, I can't speak for everyone who turned out in theatres nationwide to view this thing. Perhaps the Regal Fairfax finally got it going just as my wife and I hit the stairway to the parking lot, and everyone who remained had a wonderful Wizard of Oz time. But I'm more than a little annoyed that nobody seemed to have tested anything beforehand to see if it worked. Was the HP equipment with "Windows whatever" capable of rendering a flawless Hi-Def show in a theatre, or was it better suited for PowerPoint presentations at my day job? To be honest, what little I saw of the opening titles (which, granted, are in sepia) looked no better or worse than the standard commercial DVD that I own... except that my DVD actually plays.

Everyone has had a bad experience in a movie theatre. The picture goes out of focus, the framing goes askew, or the film jumps and suddenly the soundtrack is the sprocket holes. One time, at a showing of Toy Story at the local second-run house, the picture turned upside-down for the length of about a reel. (My daughter, suitably traumatized, refuses to patronize that theatre anymore.) But these problems are rare and usually fleeting; in any case, there are employees that know how to fix them. Tonight, the manager freely admitted that others were in charge of this "Hi-Def Event" - and whoever these specialists were, they hadn't been able to correct the problems after some forty minutes.

So, if you attended a screening of this event anywhere, please post a comment and tell me your experience. Did the film run without incident? Did everyone have a good time? Was it worth the ten bucks? And, if you were at the Regal Fairfax, at what time (if any) did the show finally get rolling?

As for me, I have a message for the folks at Warner Bros. and Turner Entertainment: the next time you want to present The Wizard of Oz "exactly as it was seen in movie theatres seventy years ago," as Mr. Osborne laboriously told us (twice), a genuine IB Tech print will do just fine.

The Restless Ballad of Pernell Roberts, part two

(Pernell) makes the whole show look bad. He’s so unprofessional. He complains that he’s just one-quarter of a character. Well, a lot depends on how much character you put in.

Lorne Greene, 1964.

Near the close of Bonanza’s 5th season, the network entered into negotiations with the cast for a contract renewal beyond season six. The four stars were then making $4,500 per episode, and three of them tasked their manager to seek a minimum of $6,500. The fourth, Pernell Roberts, had no intention of renewing for any price.

When negotiations were over, the manager returned with a surprise: not only had he secured $10,500 per episode for each of the three returnees, he also got them a 100% residual for the first rerun. For the 33 episodes of the 1965-66 season, each man would make a minimum of $693,000. When the contract ended in 1970, between salaries and investments, the three were comfortably in the multi-millionaire class.

By the time the press unearthed these financial details, Roberts was long gone. And when he’d turn up in the road show company of some play, or in a guest shot on The Big Valley or The Wild, Wild West or Mission:Impossible, journalists would remind him – and us – of the big payday he’d scorned.

“The last two years I have spent in a state of resignation, serving my time to the end of the contract,” said Roberts as season six began production. “I’m getting out as soon as it is contractually possible, which is next February (1965). The others in the cast decided to renew their contracts. That’s their business.” To a Look magazine reporter, Roberts clarified what “state of resignation” meant: “I don’t read (the scripts) anymore. I just get on, ask somebody for the lines and say them. That’s all the attention this kind of operation deserves.” Asked if he was worried about looking bad as an actor, he scoffed, “You can get up there and put out one tenth of what you’re capable of and they all think it’s great. No, I won’t try hard.”

TV Guide’s Dwight Whitney, writing a piece on producer David Dortort, saw the latter's frustration when Roberts declared he wouldn’t memorize a speech for the episode “Right is the Fourth 'R,'” but simply read it. “What can (I) do?” asked the producer. “He says that Adam Cartwright would make notes.” When Whitney first spied him, the actor was “drawing heavy black lines through the dialogue with a stubby pencil.” Asked what he was doing with the script, Roberts replied, “Trying to get some kind of honesty into it.”

Dortort bent over backward to keep Roberts interested. For season five, he created a romance between Adam and a young widow, Laura Dayton (Kathie Browne), then brought in Guy Williams (Zorro) to portray a new character, Ben Cartwright’s nephew, Will, who would presumably pick up the slack once Adam wed. The plan backfired. Roberts publicly declared he “didn’t have any feeling about a bride one way or another,” faithful viewers were aghast, and – most especially – Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon didn’t cotton to the idea of another Cartwright. Dortort had no choice but to unravel the romance: Laura and Will fell in love and left the show.

In January 1965, as Greene, Blocker and Landon celebrated their lucrative future, Roberts asked Dortort for an early release, so he could audition for Tyrone Guthrie’s repertory theatre group in New York City. Dortort granted the request, which is why Adam doesn’t appear in the season’s final five episodes. “The problems, all his rudeness, his impossible conduct and lack of professionalism,” Dortort told TV Guide, “I would forgive all that if he would come back. He is that good.”

Unfortunately for Roberts, Guthrie turned him down. Neither man ever commented on the matter, but Guthrie would’ve had to have been deaf and blind to be unaware of Roberts’ attitude and misbehavior on Bonanza and didn't share Dortort's capacity for tolerance. Instead, Roberts settled for the role of King Arthur in a small tour of Camelot, followed by road show versions of Edward Albee’s Tiny Alice, William Gibson’s Two For the Seesaw, and the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical The King and I. After a year away from Bonanza, he was forced to accept guest shots in The Virginian and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. “because I have to make a living like anyone else. It’s the business that I’m in and I don’t have to appreciate the artistic level of what I’m doing.”

So it went for another 13 years.

Bonanza, meanwhile, did just fine without Adam Cartwright, which Roberts had predicted would be the case: “I don’t think my absence from the show could destroy it. Those three other men are strong. I’ve heard the arguments that I am ‘destroying the image’ and ‘breaking up a winning combination.’ I don’t believe it. That is a money-oriented kind of thinking that lacks reality. There is another, more human approach that actors are expendable.” The show reached number one in the ratings during Roberts’ final season, stayed there for two additional years, and remained in the top ten through 1971. It took Dan Blocker’s untimely death in 1972 to end the Cartwrights’ saga.

That same year, Roberts turned up in Washington DC in George Bernard Shaw’s Captain Brassbound’s Conversion with Ingrid Bergman. Commenting on the play’s characters, Roberts told reporter Richard Lebherz, “They’re not people. They are without sexuality, without passion. Just dolls. It’s true of so many kinds of drama and plays. That’s why I have trouble relating to the profession because it isn’t relevant. Very seldom is it, anymore.” By then, his greatest joy was overseas travel.

In 1979, after turning 51, Pernell Roberts returned to series television as Trapper John, M.D., a spin-off from the highly successful M*A*S*H. Typically, he had no pretensions about why he took the role: “I wanted the security. It’s called covering your rear-end.” Trapper John ran seven seasons, during which Roberts took other TV roles (including a reunion with Lorne Greene on a two-part episode of Vega$ in 1980), and even appeared twice on Battle of the Network Stars – a show that was, culturally speaking, only a step or two removed from “carnival freak on exhibition.”

So, did Roberts win or lose his battle for “integrity” and “honesty” in his career? No doubt he would say he made the right choices all down the line, possibly even including the one in 1959 that tied him up for those six years. While he'd probably prefer his legacy to be as a fighter of causes (civil rights during the 1960's, better treatment for wounded war veterans in the '70's), it's a cinch that, for better or worse, Roberts will be remembered as Adam Cartwright. Looking back at Bonanza in 1979, he philosophically concluded, “It wasn’t all black. There was good and bad in it (but) the balance wasn’t right for me.” That same year, TV Guide’s Anthony Cook wrote that, for Roberts, acting had eventually become “a convenient form of therapy – a way of re-creating the pyschodrama of his own deepest feelings. ‘And once you finish your therapy,’ he says, ‘you have no more need of it.’”

Possibly he foresaw this back in 1962: “Maybe if I was 45 I would figure I had a good thing here (on Bonanza). The work isn’t too tough and you can go out and pick up good money at rodeos and supermarket appearances. But I’m 33 now and I’ll be 36 at the end of this contract, which cuts that much more time off the years I need to be an actor.”

UPDATE: Roberts passed away on January 24, 2010, at the age of 81.

The Restless Ballad of Pernell Roberts

You only live once, and I’m about half way through it. Well, you find yourself compromising and compromising, and that’s admitting failure in a way. What I want is my freedom. Some people value security more, but I’m the other way. Pernell Roberts, 1962

Back in high school, I’d read a book written in 1967 by a New York man who set up six TV sets in his apartment and watched all the commercial channels (CBS, NBC, ABC and three local stations) for a week. Although I’ve since forgotten both title and author (enlightenment from any knowledgeable reader is gratefully encouraged), one passage concerning Sunday evening at 9:00 pm has stayed with me:

“Bonanza on channel 4. Little Joe, Hoss and Pa. God, I miss Adam. He was the glue in this particular horse factory, and his evil, saturnine way was a pleasant contrast to the Ponderosa good guys. But they wrote ol’ Adam out of the show many moons ago, and we will have to do with Little Joe and Hoss for the action.”

The exit of Pernell Roberts (Adam Cartwright) from Bonanza after its sixth season remains one of the most misunderstood actions in television land. Each year since 1961, TV columnists reported that Roberts was trying to leave; each September for four subsequent seasons, Roberts returned. Everyone assumed it was simply a money issue; either that, or Roberts’ gripes were the sniping of a TV actor with a massive ego problem. Clouding the issue was the fact that his departure wasn’t mentioned on the show. The others would make occasional references to Adam, but where he’d gone and why was never discussed.

Bonanza began 50 years ago come September; NBC’s big, color western intended to sell parent company RCA’s big color TVs. Producer David Dortort assembled a cast of unknowns in the belief that “television makes its own stars.” An indisputable point, but NBC was taking no chances, and filled up the early episodes with important stars: Yvonne DeCarlo, Howard Duff, Ida Lupino, Jack Carson. Consequently, the four Cartwrights bound together as tightly off-screen as on.

“(We) found ourselves fighting the star system because of all the outside names being brought in,” Roberts recalled three years later. “We found ourselves, at first, like supporting players. And the producer didn’t have the authority to change that.” At one point in early 1960, Lorne Greene walked into Dortort’s office and announced, in terms more earthy than the following, that the scripts written to date weren’t suitable as toilet paper. Luckily, the ratings also indicated that changes were needed. The main characters became more important, big name actors were forgotten, and by the end of its second season, Bonanza moved into the top 20. Chevrolet was interested in sponsoring the third year in Dinah Shore’s old timeslot: Sunday at 9. Even then, rumors flew that Roberts wasn’t interested in continuing. The rumors were true.

“When NBC turned down my request for a contract release,” said Roberts at the time, “I understood their point of view. They were trying to deliver a neat package to a new sponsor, and I felt some responsibility.” Complicating matters, all four stars were offered a hefty raise, provided they extended their five-year contracts to six. “I had to sign for a sixth year to get a raise, but now I would prefer to be out entirely,” he moaned in early 1962. But in its Sunday slot, Bonanza thrived, becoming the network’s highest-rated series. NBC was loath to risk that success, especially since the show was all theirs.

What, exactly, was Roberts’ beef? “I wasn’t keen to do a series, but I was told there would be some honest writing and that the people producing it had integrity,” he told columnist Hal Humphrey. “What good is integrity if you don’t use it? Bonanza for the most part is bad literature and I’m tired of trying to hide in it.” To Bob Thomas, he added, “They told me the four characters would be sharply defined and the scripts carefully prepared. None of this was put on paper. None of it ever happened.”

Personal appearances at fairs and rodeos also stuck in his craw: “First, there were the petty intrigues of the producers who thought they owned you and threw parties so I could meet all the grandmothers, nephews and cousins. (Then) they have you ride into the ring and titillate the crowds by touching their outstretched hands along the fence. Then the joke telling time in the center, after wading through ankle-deep manure, followed by several hours of autographs. Afterwards, the cowboys, who really resented me for the money and popularity, would make cracks about actors.” Even though it paid “five and six thousand dollars a day,” Roberts made only four such appearances during his six years, refusing to do more. “I am an actor, not a carnival freak on exhibition.”

Concluded the Georgia-born actor who took an early public stand against segregation and the Vietnam war: “Bonanza has touched on some interesting problems, but handled them conservatively.... There has been an obvious effort to play it safe, to make Bonanza a good family show that would offend no one and hit a consistent level of mediocrity.”

Word got out in the middle of season three that Roberts was prepared to jump ship and go on suspension. But NBC played hardball: “(The network) said, ‘Sure, go ahead - if you never want to work again as an actor anywhere.” So Roberts – whose chief complaint about his employers was their lack of integrity – decided to retaliate with an egregious display of unprofessionalism: “I went to the producer and said I guessed I’d stay, but that, to preserve my sanity, I would continue walking through my part.”

NEXT: Consequences

"Adventures of Superman" Seasons 5 and 6

I usually don't use this blog as a promotional tool, but I was definitely honored to have been invited to participate in the special feature of this DVD set (which is due for release on November 14)... and I was knocked for a loop that my name is on the back of the box. I was expecting to be lumped into a "various Superman scholars/authors" notation, but all four of us were actually named. Here it is, courtesy of TVShowsonDVD.com:

As long as I'm getting personal, I should probably explain what's been happening with this blog... or, more specifically, why this blog hasn't been happening much. In short, a number of factors have prevented me from giving this space as much attention as I'd like. My home computer crashed for a time. My scanner stopped working. I got a new computer at work, which doesn't include the program that allows me to make DVD captures. And, most of all, real life keeps getting in the way.

Perhaps, since this is a blog that focuses on old TV, I can resume a full slate (for me, anyway) of posts come the fall. I certainly hope so. There's much more I'd like to say here. Meanwhile, if you're a new visitor, please peruse the previous 6 months of archives; if you're a regular, you could do the same and call it "summer reruns."