Trivia: Pernell Roberts worked such odd jobs as butcher, forest ranger and tombstone-maker while studying acting and singing and scouting around for off-Broadway jobs. Roberts' film debut, in a characteristic Deep Brooder role, was in 1958's Desire Under the Elms. From 1959 through 1966, Roberts co-starred as black-clad, taciturn Adam Cartwright on Bonanza. "Aloof, rebellious and outspoken" was how Bonanza producer David Dotort summed up Roberts, who fought tooth and nail over every real or imagined challenge to his integrity (his biggest beef was that he had to call Lorne Greene "Pa" rather than "Father"). Fed up with what he perceived as the series' declining quality, Roberts left Bonanza in 1966; it was explained to fans that "Adam" had left to study at a European university. Free of his TV series commitment, Roberts returned to his first love, the stage--and also divested himself of the toupee he'd been forced to wear as Adam. The actor played the straw-hat circuit in such musicals as Camelot and The King and I, all the while accepting film and TV roles that came up to his standards. Unfortunately, his stubbornness and standoffishness left a sour taste with co-workers and fans alike, and Roberts was unable to soar to the artistic heights to which he aspired. After years of declaring that he'd never again return to the grind of weekly television, Roberts accepted the role of Dr. "Trapper" John McIntyre, chief of surgery at San Francisco memorial hospital, in the seven-season (1979-86) M*A*S*H spin-off Trapper John MD. In 1991 Pernell Roberts assumed the hosting duties of the TV anthology FBI: The Untold Stories.

Trivia: James Coburn was an actor whose style allowed him to comfortably embrace drama, action, and comedy roles, and many of his best-known performances found him blending elements of all these styles in roles that overflowed with charisma and a natural charm. Born in Laurel, NE, on August 31, 1928, Coburn relocated to California as a young man, and first developed an interest in acting while studying at Los Angeles City College. After appearing in several student productions, he decided to take a stab at acting as a profession, and enrolled in the theater department at U.C.L.A. Coburn earned his first notable reviews in an adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd, staged at Los Angeles' La Jolla Playhouse, which starred Vincent Price. In the early '50s, Coburn moved to New York City, where he studied acting with Stella Adler, and began working in commercials and live television. In 1958, Coburn won a recurring role on a Western TV series called Bronco, and scored his first film role the following year in Budd Boetticher's Ride Lonesome, starring Randolph Scott. For a while, Coburn seemed to find himself typecast as a heavy in Westerns, most notably in The Magnificent Seven, and later starred in two action-oriented TV series, Klondike (which ran for 18 weeks between 1960 and 1961) and Acapulco (which lasted a mere eight weeks in 1961). However, after a strong showing in the war drama Hell Is for Heroes, Coburn finally got to play a big-screen hero as part of the ensemble cast of 1963's The Great Escape. In 1964, Coburn got a chance to show his flair for comedy in The Americanization of Emily, and in 1965 he appeared in Major Dundee, the first of several films he would make with iconoclastic director Sam Peckinpah. In 1966, Coburn finally hit full-fledged stardom in Our Man Flint, a flashy satiric comedy which put an American spin on the James Bond-style superspy films of the period. Coburn's deft blend of comic cheek and action heroics as Derek Flint made the film a major box-office success, and in 1967 he appeared in a sequel, In Like Flint, as well as two similar action comedies, Duffy and the cult film The President's Analyst (the latter of which Coburn helped produce). Moving back and forth between comedies (Candy, Harry in Your Pocket), Westerns (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), and dramas (The Last of Shelia, Cross of Iron), Coburn was in high demand through much of the 1970s. He also dabbled in screenwriting (he penned a script for his friend Bruce Lee which was filmed after Lee's death as Circle of Iron, starring David Carradine) and directing (he directed an episode of the TV series The Rockford Files, as well as handling second-unit work on Sam Peckinpah's Convoy). By the end of the decade, however, his box-office allure was not what it once was, although he remained a potent draw in Japan. Coburn remained busy in the 1980s, with supporting roles in theatrical films, larger roles in television projects, and voice-over work for documentaries. In 1979, Coburn was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and in the mid-'80s, when his illness failed to respond to conventional treatment, he began to cut back on his work schedule. But in the 1990s, a holistic therapist was able to treat Coburn using nutritional supplements, and he began appearing onscreen with greater frequency (he also appeared in a series of instructional videos on gambling strategies, one of Coburn's passions). He won a 1999 Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his intense portrayal of an abusive father in Paul Schrader's film Affliction, and the award kick-started Coburn's career. He would work on more than a dozen projects over the next two years, but Coburn then succumbed to a heart attack in 2002. Coburn was survived by two children, James H. Coburn IV and Lisa Coburn, his former spouse Beverly Kelly, and Paula Murad, his wife at the time of his death.

Trivia: Carl Benton Reid determined he wanted to be an actor and nothing else while still in high school. Graduating from the drama department at Carnegie Tech, Reid worked for several seasons with the Cleveland Playhouse in the 1920s. He appeared in abbreviated Shakespearean productions at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933, then went on to a fruitful Broadway career. Reid was brought to Hollywood in 1941 to re-create his stage role of Oscar Hubbard in the film version of Lillian Hellman's play The Little Foxes. Trafficking in "heavy" roles for most of his film career, Reid's favorite film assignment was also his least villainous: Clem Rogers, father of the title character in 1953's The Story of Will Rogers. As busy on television as he'd previously been on-stage and in films, Carl Benton Reid was seen regularly as "the Man," a shadowy espionage chief, in the 1965 TV series Amos Burke, Secret Agent.

Trivia: White-haired, patriarchal Canadian actor Lorne Greene attended Queen's University in pursuit of a chemical engineering degree. Amateur college theatricals whetted his appetite for the stage, and upon graduation he decided upon a performing career. He started out on radio, eventually emerging as Canada's top newscaster, designated "the voice of the CBC" (For a while, Greene managed a mail-order announcer's school; one of the "pupils" was Leslie Nielsen). Moving to New York in 1950, Greene became a stage, film and TV actor, co-starring on Broadway with Katherine Cornell in Prescott Proposals and in films with the likes of Paul Newman, Ginger Rogers and Joan Crawford, generally in villainous roles. In 1959, Greene was cast as Ben Cartwright, owner of the Ponderosa ranch and father of three headstrong sons, in TV's Bonanza. He would hold down this job until 1972; during the series' run, Greene unexpectedly became a top-ten recording artist with his hit single "Ringo." Upon the cancellation of Bonanza, Greene vowed he'd retire, but within one year he was playing a private detective on the brief TV weekly Griff. Five years later, he starred on the network sci-fier Battlestar Gallactica. Active as chairman of the National Wildlife Foundation, Greene put forth the organization's doctrine in his popular syndicated TV series Lorne Greene's Last of the Wild. His final weekly television appearance was on the 1980 adventure series Code Red. In 1987, Lorne Greene was all set to recreate Ben Cartwright for the 2-hour TV movie Bonanza: The Next Generation, but he died before shooting started and was replaced by John Ireland.

Trivia: The son of a Jewish movie-publicist father and an Irish Catholic musical-comedy actress, Michael Landon grew up in a predominantly Protestant New Jersey neighborhood. The social pressures brought to bear on young Michael, both at home and in the schoolyard, led to an acute bedwetting problem, which he would later dramatize (very discreetly) in the 1976 TV movie The Loneliest Runner. Determined to better his lot in life, Landon excelled in high school athletics; his prowess at javelin throwing won him a scholarship at the University of Southern California, but a torn ligament during his freshman year ended his college career. Taking a series of manual labor jobs, Landon had no real direction in life until he agreed to help a friend audition for the Warners Bros. acting school. The friend didn't get the job, but Landon did, launching a career that would eventually span nearly four decades. Michael's first film lead was in the now-legendary I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), widely derided at the time but later reassessed as one of the better examples of the late-'50s "drive-in horror" genre. The actor received his first good reviews for his performance as an albino in God's Little Acre. This led to his attaining the title role in 1959's The Legend of Tom Dooley, which in turn was instrumental in his being cast as Little Joe Cartwright on the popular TV western Bonanza. During his fourteen-year Bonanza stint, Landon was given the opportunity to write and direct a few episodes. He carried over these newfound skills into his next TV project, Little House on the Prairie, which ran from 1974 to 1982 (just before Little House, Landon made his TV-movie directorial bow with It's Good to Be Alive, the biopic of baseball great Roy Campanella). Landon also oversaw two spinoff series, Little House: The New Beginning (1982-83) and Father Murphy (1984). Landon kept up his career momentum with a third long-running TV series, Highway to Heaven (1984-89) wherein the actor/producer/director/writer played guardian angel Jonathan Smith. One of the most popular TV personalities of the '70s and '80s, Landon was not universally beloved by his Hollywood contemporaries, what with his dictatorial on-set behavior and his tendency to shed his wives whenever they matured past childbearing age. Still, for every detractor, there was a friend, family member or coworker who felt that Landon was the salt of the earth. In early 1991, Landon began work on his fourth TV series, Us, when he began experiencing stomach pains. In April of that same year, the actor was informed that he had inoperable pancreatic cancer. The courage and dignity with which Michael Landon lived his final months on earth resulted in a public outpouring of love, affection and support, the like of which was seldom witnessed in the cynical, self-involved '90s. Michael Landon died in his Malibu home on July 1, 1991, with his third wife Cindy at his side.

Trivia: Big, burly Dan Blocker only did a handful of movies in his 17-year acting career, but he became one of the most beloved and popular television stars of the 1960s for his portrayal of Hoss Cartwright on the Western series Bonanza. Weighing 14 pounds at birth, Blocker was the largest baby ever born in Bowie County, TX. At 18, he stood 6'3" and weighed close to 300 pounds, and was legendary for his physical prowess. Blocker attended the Texas Military Institute and studied for his B.A. at Sul Ross State College, where he initially majored in athletics. His build accidentally led him to the drama department for a production of Arsenic and Old Lace -- a stage hand was needed who was big and strong enough to quickly remove the dummies representing corpses on the set, between acts. While working on the production, Blocker was bitten by the acting bug and switched his major to drama. He pursued his theatrical aspirations in earnest after graduation, working in one season of summer stock before he was drafted. Blocker served in combat during the Korean War, after which he earned a master's degree, married, moved to Los Angeles, and settled down to raise a family, earning his living as a high school teacher. It was his successful audition for the small role of a cavalry lieutenant on Gunsmoke during the 1956 season, in the episode "Alarm at Pleasant Valley," that rekindled Blocker's interest in an acting career. Over the next three years, he took any work that he could get, on programs like Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, Cheyenne, Tales of Wells Fargo, Zane Grey Theater, Wagon Train, Colt .45, Zorro, Maverick, and Richard Diamond, Private Detective. Blocker also got some movie work, portraying a bartender in the offbeat murder mystery The Girl in Black Stockings and an android in Outer Space Jitters, a very late Three Stooges short. His career took an upturn when he got a guest-starring role in an episode of the series The Restless Gun, starring John Payne, in 1958; his work was good enough to catch the attention of the producer, David Dortort. A year later, Dortort was putting together a new, hour-long Western series called Bonanza and cast Blocker in the role of "Hoss" Cartwright, the big-boned, good-natured middle son in a ranching family near Virginia City, NV, set in the mid- to late 19th century (the time frame of Bonanza was always vague, with stories shifting between the early 1860s to the 1870s and 1880s). Blocker's character's real name, incidentally, was Eric, but Hoss -- a nickname from his mother's Norwegian language that meant "friend" -- was what he was known as to everyone on the series and all viewers. Despite the weaknesses in the scripts during the early seasons, the role was a dream part for the actor, who got a chance to display his gentle, sensitive side as well as his gift for comedy, and also work in a serious dramatic context as well on many occasions, and show off his brute strength as well. It is arguable that Blocker was the most popular member of the cast during the 1960s; he was especially beloved of younger viewers, in part because his character was always very sympathetic to children. In contrast to the other stars of the series, Blocker's big-screen career wasn't halted by his work on Bonanza. He appeared in The Errand Boy, playing himself in an uncredited cameo, and played a role in the Frank Sinatra movie Come Blow Your Horn. Blocker got his first major movie part five years later in the Sinatra film Lady in Cement (1968), playing Waldo Gronsky, a burly, potentially murderous thug who hires private detective Tony Rome (played by Sinatra) to find his missing girlfriend. By the end of the 1960s, Blocker was taken seriously enough as an actor to star in two features, Something for a Lonely Man, a beautiful and poignant Western/comedy-drama, and the broader comedy The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County. Some of Blocker's television appearances separate from Bonanza also reflected his personal side -- his politics were essentially liberal Democratic (in sharp contrast to the conservative Republican sympathies of his co-stars Michael Landon and Lorne Greene), and he appeared in several public service announcements promoting brotherhood and racial tolerance, as well as on one television special that gently satirized American popular culture, starring Henry Fonda. He was also part of the liberal contingent in the 1971 John Wayne-hosted patriotic special Swing Out, Sweet Land. In 1972, Blocker was chosen for what could have been the breakthrough role to a major movie career, when he won the part of Roger Wade, the has-been author in Robert Altman's revisionist detective movie The Long Goodbye. In May of that year, however, he went into the hospital for routine gall bladder surgery, and during recovery he died suddenly of a blood clot in his lung. Sterling Hayden replaced Blocker in The Long Goodbye, which was dedicated to the actor's memory. Blocker's passing, immediately before the shooting for the 1972-1973 season of Bonanza was to begin, signed the death knell for the series. The cast and crew were genuinely shaken by his sudden death; scripts had to be hastily rewritten to explain the passing of Hoss Cartwright, and Blocker's absence and the reason behind it removed any element of lightheartedness that the series had displayed. The final season, despite the best efforts of surviving stars Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, and David Canary, was characterized by grim, downbeat stories and a dark mood that seemed to repel longtime viewers. Coupled with this change in tone, the NBC network moved Bonanza from its longtime Sunday nighttime slot to Tuesday nights, where it died a quick death, cancellation coming halfway through the 1972-1973 season. Blocker left behind a wife and four children, among them actor Dirk Blocker and director/producer David Blocker. He also left behind a legacy of good will that survives to this day, as Bonanza is in perpetual reruns on various cable channels, decades after its cancellation. Significantly, the final season, in which he did not appear, is the body of episodes that is shown (and requested) the least of its 14 years' worth of programs.

Trivia: Chinese/American actor Victor Sen Yung would always be limited by stereotype in his selection of film roles, but it cannot be denied that he did rather well for himself within those limitations. Billed simply as Sen Yung in his earliest films, the actor was elevated to semi-stardom as Jimmy Chan, number two son of screen sleuth Charlie Chan. He first essayed Jimmy in 1938's Charlie Chan in Honolulu, replacing number one son Keye Luke (both Luke and Yung would co-star in the 1948 Chan adventure The Feathered Serpent). Not much of an actor at the outset, Yung received on-the-job training in the Chan films, and by 1941 was much in demand for solid character roles. With the absence of genuine Japanese actors during World War II (most were in relocation camps), Yung specialized in assimilated, sophisticated, but nearly always villainous Japanese in such films as Across the Pacific (1942). Remaining busy into the '50s, Yung co-starred in both the stage and screen versions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song. His longest-lasting assignment in the '60s was as temperamental cook Hop Sing on the TV series Bonanza. Victor Sen Yung died in his North Hollywood home of accidental asphyxiation at the age of 65.