Pernell Roberts, last star of TV's `Bonanza,' dies
LOS ANGELES – Pernell Roberts, the ruggedly handsome actor who shocked Hollywood by leaving TV's "Bonanza" at the height of its popularity, then found fame again years later on "Trapper John, M.D.," has died. He was 81.
Roberts, the last surviving member of the classic Western's cast, died of cancer Sunday at his Malibu home, his wife Eleanor Criswell told the Los Angeles Times.
Although he rocketed to fame in 1959 as Adam Cartwright, eldest son of a Nevada ranching family led by Lorne Greene's patriarchal Ben Cartwright, Roberts chafed at the limitations he felt his "Bonanza" character was given.
"They told me the four characters (Greene, himself and Dan Blocker and Michael Landon as his brothers) would be carefully defined and the scripts carefully prepared," he complained to The Associated Press in 1964. "None of it ever happened."
It particularly distressed him that his character, a man in his 30s, had to continually defer to the wishes of his widowed father.
"Doesn't it seem a bit silly for three adult males to get Father's permission for everything they do?" he once asked a reporter.
Roberts agreed to fulfill his six-year contract but refused to extend it, and when he left the series in 1965, his character was eliminated with the explanation that he had simply moved away.
"Bonanza," with its three remaining stars, continued until 1973, making it second to "Gunsmoke" as the longest-running Western on TV. Blocker died in 1972, Greene in 1987, and Landon in 1991.
When Roberts left the show the general feeling in Hollywood was that he had foolishly doomed his career and turned his back on a fortune in "Bonanza" earnings.
Indeed, for the next 14 years he mainly made appearances on TV shows and in miniseries, or toured with such theatrical productions as "The King and I, "Camelot" and "The Music Man."
His TV credits during that time included "The Virginian," "Hawaii Five-O," "Mission Impossible," "Marcus Welby, M.D.," "Banacek," "Ironside" and "Mannix."
Then, in 1979, he landed another series, "Trapper John, M.D.," in which he played the title role.
The character, but little else, was spun off from the brilliant Korean War comedy-drama "M-A-S-H," in which Wayne Rogers had played the offbeat Dr. "Trapper" John McIntire opposite Alan Alda's Dr. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce.
Rogers had left that series after just three seasons.
In "Trapper John, M.D.," the Korean War was nearly 30 years past and Roberts' character was now a balding, middle-aged chief of surgery at San Francisco Memorial Hospital. He no longer fought the establishment, having learned how to deal with it with patience and wry humor.
The series, praised for its serious treatment of the surgical world, aired until 1986.
Roberts' other venture into series TV was "FBI: The Untold Stories" (1991-1993), in which he acted as host and narrator.
Pernell Roberts Jr. was born in 1928 in Waycross, Ga. As a young man, he once commented, "I distinguished myself by flunking out of college three times." After pursuing occupations that ranged from tombstone maker to railroad riveter, he decided to become an actor.
Roberts worked extensively in regional theaters, then gained notice in New York, where he won a Drama Desk award in 1956 for his performance in an off-Broadway production of "Macbeth."
He eventually moved to Hollywood, where he appeared in several TV shows and landed character roles in such features as "Desire Under the Elms," "The Sheepman" and "Ride Lonesome" until "Bonanza" made him a star.
Three of Roberts' marriages ended in divorce. His first, to Vera Mowry, produced a son, Jonathan, who died in 1989 at age 37.
'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' marks 7th anniversary with guests Harrison Ford, Kristen Bell
LOS ANGELES - There is happiness to be found in late-night TV these days. Just ask Jimmy Kimmel, who is celebrating the seventh anniversary of his ABC show Tuesday with guest Harrison Ford.
Ford is set to deliver a "very special" gift to the "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" host to mark the occasion, ABC said Monday.
"People often ask me if I ever imagined we'd be on the air this long," Kimmel said. "It's a weird compliment wrapped in an insult, but I'll take it."
He added that he feels lucky to work "for a network that showed enough patience to allow us to grow and, more importantly, pays almost no attention to what goes on after midnight."
Kimmel's milestone comes just days after Conan O'Brien ended his seven-month tenure as "Tonight" host, with Jay Leno set to reclaim the job he left last year. O'Brien's exit was preceded by a bitter public battle with NBC over its plan to shift him to a post-midnight slot.
"Jimmy Kimmel Live!" airs at 12:05 a.m. EST weeknights on ABC. Also appearing on the anniversary show Tuesday are Kristen Bell and the Silversun Pickups band.
Among the highlights of Kimmel's run: a pair of comic films that went on to become Internet sensations, one in which Matt Damon and Kimmel's on-again, off-again girlfriend Sarah Silverman sing of their faux hot love affair, and the other with Kimmel striking back by claiming a romance with Damon's pal Ben Affleck.
Fox Promises That Robert Rodriguez’s MACHETE Will Indeed Be a Feature Film
It may be that longest lasting impact of the double feature b-movie Grindhouse on film culture is interlude of five fake trailers between Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof. One of the standouts was the Rodriguez-directed Machete, starring Danny Trejo as a Latino with a vendetta who is outfitted mostly in leather and cutlery Somehow, that trailer is set to be adapted into a real, legitimate feature film (no, really) through what I imagine to be a series of wacky circumstances. To add to the mayhem, Rodriguez assembled a bizarrely amazing cast including Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Jeff Fahey, and Michelle Rodriguez. Oh, and Robert De Niro(!).
Now Deadline confirms that this is not an elaborate hoax, but something that will eventually hit theaters, as 20th Century Fox outlasted five other studios to distribute the film domestically.
Rodriguez independently financed the production, primarily by selling the international rights to Sony for $20 million. But there was still the question of how it would reach audiences domestically, and six candidates felt up to the task: Sony, Lionsgate, Warner Bros., Fox, Paramount, and The Weinstein Co. Rodriguez screened 15 to 30 minutes of Machete for the interested studios, and after some back-and-forth between Fox and Paramount, the domestic distribution rights ended up in the hands of Fox.
The move makes sense, as Fox recently delved into the Rodriguez family business by funding Predators, the latest in the extraterrestrial manhunter franchise directed by Nimrod Antal and produced by Rodriguez. The film has been getting good early buzz, particularly after behind-the-scenes photos of the titular predators in costume leaked.
What is curious is that The Weinstein Co. was never in more serious consideration. The Weinstein brothers have been working with Robert Rodriguez since 1995, mostly via their genre label Dimension. In fact, the bulk of Rodriguez’s filmography, including Four Rooms, From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, the Spy Kids trilogy, Sin City, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, and most recently Grindhouse were all made under Weinstein guidance.
Reportedly, a Weinstein Co. insider confided, “we saw the footage and it’s not very good at all”. Hopefully this is just sour grapes, but the sensationalism of the Machete story ensures that there are only two creative paths for the movie: wonderfully pulpy fun or nonsensical waste of time. I pray for the former.