PERNELL ROBERTS
(1928 - 2010) Pernell Elvin Roberts, Jr. was born on May 18, 1928 in Waycross, Georgia (USA) as the only child of Pernell and Betty Roberts. Mr. Roberts, Sr. worked for the Dr Pepper Bottling Company. They were members of the Waycross First Trinity Methodist Church, where Pernell sang in the church choir. He also sang in the Glee Club and played French horn and tuba in his high school band. He played basketball and was a good swimmer. His teachers described him as a "quiet boy with very nice looks."
At the age of 17 on May 30, 1945 Pernell graduated from Waycross High School before entering the Georgia Technological Institute in Atlanta where he majored in Engineering. He flunked out and joined the Marines in June of 1946 for a two year stint with the US Marine Corp Band. He then returned to Waycross and spent six months working on the railroad and even organized a singing group to entertain the other workers. In January 1949, he entered the University of Maryland where he began acting and modeled for art classes to "earn a buck or two." He flunked out twice and has been quoted as saying "I have distinguished myself by flunking out of college three times." He appeared in four plays at the University Theater, including "Antigone" and "Othello."
During the lean times, while looking for acting jobs, he was a butcher, forest ranger, a tombstone maker, and welder, and is quoted as saying "I have the scars to prove it."
He went into summer stock and performed at the Arena Stage Theater in Washington DC (October 1950-June 1952) appearing in such plays as The Firebrand, The Taming of the Shrew (as "Petruccio"), The Inspector General, The Glass Menagerie, Twelfth Night, The Importance of Being Earnest, Julius Caesar and Three Men on a Horse. His 1951 performance as Petruccio in The Taming of the Shrew got rave reviews and he went on to play the part again at the American Shakespeare Festival Theater and at the Belasco Theater.
He then went onto New York with the American Lyric Theater. He had numerous off-Broadway appearances. His performances included parts in Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, Guys and Dolls, The Taming of the Shrew, and King John. He won the New York Drama Critics Award for Best Actor Off-Broadway (1955) for his title role in MacBeth. Theater Arts Magazine said "the way he did MacBeth put him close to (Laurence) Olivier."
He also starred on Broadway in Tonight in Samarkand (1955), The Lovers (1956 with Joanne Woodward), and A Clearing in the Woods (1957).
In 1957 he moved to Hollywood and in April 1957 he signed a contract with Paramount. His film debut was in Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms starring Burl Ives and Sophia Loren. He then made The Sheepman (1958 with Glenn Ford) and Ride Lonesome (1959) starring Randolph Scott and James Colburn in his film debut.
Pernell also appeared in numerous television series including Shirley Temple's Theater starring in The Emperor's New Clothes, Sleeping Beauty, Rumplestiltskin, and Hiawatha. He was also in Trackdown, Have Gun-Will Travel, Zane Grey Theater, Cimmaron City, The Lawman, Cheyenne, Bronco, SugarFoot, 77Sunset Strip and Gunsmoke ("How to Kill a Woman").
In 1959 he was offered the part of Adam Cartwright in the new series called Bonanza. The first six years (1959-65) of Bonanza, featuring Pernell, are often called the Glory Years. A long time advocate for Civil Rights, he was unhappy with the series, partly because it did not deal with serious issues. He also had a penchant for the theater and missed the stage and therefore left Bonanza when his contract was up.
Pernell's last day on the set of Bonanza was February 22, 1965 and on November 3, 1965 he opened in Camelot as King Arthur, receiving 12 curtain calls and excellent reviews. He also played the King in The King and I (1966/67), starred in Mata Hari, The Sound of Music (1972), Kiss Me Kate (1974), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1974), Music Man (1976) and played Rhett Butler in a musical version of Gone With the Wind (1973), plus another Broadway play: Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1972).
He also made numerous television appearances in such series as: Gunsmoke (Stranger in Town), Big Valley, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E, The Virginian, Mission Impossible, Ironside, Alias Smith and Jones, Marcus Welby, Night Gallery, Banacek, Mannix, Baretta, Quincy, and the Rockford Files. He was in the 1976 mini-series The Captains and the Kings, and the 1978 mini-series Centennial as General Asher (Chapter 4: For as Long as the Water Flows, and Chapter 5: The Massacre) and in TV movies: Carousel (1967), San Francisco International (1970), and The Immigrants (1978). During this time he also made movies: Four Rode Out (1969), Kashmiri Run/Tibetana (1970), Paco (1975), and The Magic of Lassie (1978).
In 1979 Pernell returned to series television in the title role of Trapper John, MD which was a spin-off of the M*A*S*H series in which Wayne Rogers played a younger version of this character who was now the Chief of Surgery at the San Francisco Memorial Hospital. Trapper John aired Sept 23, 1979 - Sept 4, 1986. Pernell received an Emmy Nomination in 1981 for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series but lost out to Daniel J. Travanti (Hill Street Blues).
During and after Trapper John, he continued to appear on other series, including Vegas, The Love Boat, Hotel, Diagnosis Murder, Wild Wild West, Hawaii Five-0, Big Valley, and appeared in the mini-series Around the World in 80 Days (1989), and TV movies such as Desperado (1987 - with Dirk Blocker in a small role), and Donor (1990 with Melissa Gilbert). He was the CBS Team Captain in the Battle of the Network Stars in 1981 and 1982 and performed in the Circus of the Stars in1985.
In 1991 a Western Heritage Award was presented for the 1990 episode of the Young Riders ("Requiem for a Hero") which starred Pernell in the role of Hezekiah Horn.*
Later Pernell Roberts was the host of the series FBI: the Untold Stories (1991) and also narrated The Realm of the Alligator for National Geographic (1986), and The Mountain Men for the History Channel (1999).
Pernell enjoyed singing and at the age of 32 taught himself to play the guitar. He recorded one solo album (Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies) in 1963, which is included in the 4CD Set: Ponderosa Party Time.
He also liked to cook, read sociology, politics and philosophy, swim, play tennis, and at one time owned a race car with Dan Blocker and had his own personal red and white Corvette. He was known to ride a motorbike onto the set of Bonanza and during his Trapper John years, he tended a vegetable garden he planted on the 20th Century-Fox lot near the set. In an article at that time, it stated he also kept "his 6'2", 198 lb. frame in shape with a daily three-mile jog."
Pernell was married four times and divorced three times. He married Dr Vera Mowry, a professor in January 1951. They had one child, Jonathan Christopher, who was born in October of that year and died in 1989 in a motorcycle accident. He married Judith Le Brecque, an opera singer, in October 1962 and was married to Kara Knack from 1972 to 1996.
Pernell spent many years retired in Malibu, California. He died of pancreatic cancer on January 24, 2010 in his Malibu home he shared with his fourth wife, Eleanor Criswell.
Prepared exclusively for BonanzaWorld *****************************
*Note: I read somewhere that the Young Riders episode "Requiem For A Hero" won Western Heritage Awards for the episode, director,
and Pernell. However, when I went to the WHA site, Pernell did not come up in my search. Under Fictional Television Drama, this is all it said….."1991 Requiem For A Hero, an episode from "The Young Riders", ABC; Christopher Seitz, Producer; Virgil Vogel, Director; Bruce Reisman, Jonas McCord, & Ed Spielman, Writers."
Sources:
NationalCowboyMuseum.org (Western Heritage Awards)
Emmys.org
Internet Broadway Database(ibdb.com)
Usimdb.com
Various Bonanza/Pernell sites and articles
#
!!
What she said! Thanks Nicole! 
!!! 
