For the first time, the 'bad boy' of "Bonanza" talks about his marriages-both of them-and about his teenage son. For the first time, he tells why he'll bite the friendly hand that feeds feed him…yet risk his life for a total stranger. For the first time PERNELL ROBERTS answers every question the interviewer can think of!

     Anyone who talks with Pernell Roberts for the first time-really talks with him-is in for a shock.

     I should know. For I talked with him for four solid hours, on location with "Bonanza" in the beautiful, pine-dappled Kern River Valley of the high Sierra. It's a place where a man can relax and shuck off the suspicions and defenses of civilization…a place where he'll talk about what's really in his heart and soul.

     Pernell talked that day about many things: his marriage, his son, his early days as a struggling actor, his future plans, his views on civil rights, and his feelings about death.

     Yet, before I met him, I'd been warned that this man simply did not give interviews to magazines. I'd also heard him described as a "dark presence" in the otherwise bright and happy "Bonanza" company. My first surprise came when I watched, from a short distance away, as he chatted with cast and crew members, laughed at their jokes and told some of his own, played his guitar and sang folk songs in a true, clear voice while waiting for his turn before the cameras. If this was a "dark presence" so was Pollyanna!

     Perhaps that's what gave me the courage to approach him a few minutes later and tell him quite frankly that I was a TV Radio Mirror reporter, up there to do a story about the "Bonanza" location. His response was my second shock of the day-he greeted me cordially and struck up a friendly conversation right away.

     After we'd talked for a few minutes, a company limousine drove up to take Pernell to lunch at the chuck wagon, and he invited me to join him.

     We talked all through lunch, sitting at long wooden tables in the blazing sun, and afterward we wandered over to a shady spot beneath a spreading green tree and stretched out on a floor of dry grass to continue our conversation until he was needed for his next shot. As it happened, our talk lasted most of the afternoon.

     It was Pernell's sense of humor that first impressed me. During lunch, he regaled me with stories about Broadway actress Tallulah Bankhead. And he managed to imitate the throaty Tallulah, with all her "dahlings," very effectively-while retaining a masculinity that most male imitators of Tallulah fail to achieve.

     It was typical of Pernell that he should be telling stories about a stage actress rather than a movie or TV star. For, throughout our conversation, he seemed to me to think and talk like a New York theater actor, rather than the Hollywood TV star that he is. Perhaps that helps explain why he so often bemoans the contractual ties that forced him to stay with "Bonanza" for six highly successful years.

     Incidentally, if you think it was a barrage of letters from the public that persuaded the producers of "Bonanza" to change their minds about marrying Pernell off the show last season, and replacing him with Guy Williams, Pernell will heartily disagree with you.

     In the first place, he himself has no use for fan mail and grimly wonders what psychological motive compelled people to write to the show to ask that he be kept on it. And in the second place, whatever the motive of those who did write in, Pernell assured me that the producers kept him on the show for only one reason: because his co-stars demanded that they do so, in order not to interfere with a format that suited them fine the way it was.

     It's not Pernell's bitterness about being kept on the show that made him criticize fan mail, however. He simply can't understand what motivates people to write to stars and to TV shows in the first place. And he seems completely indifferent to the fact that he frequently receives more mail that his co-stars.

     I act to please myself," he told me. And he is so far from pleased about having to work on "bonanza" that he revealed to me he not only doesn't watch the show---"I don't even read the scripts! I just ask the script girl what me line is before I go in to each scene." The fact that the show is one of the most popular on television seems to give him no particular pleasure either.

     He now has only a few months of work before his contract expires, and, unlike his co-stars, he has refused to sign for another season. He admitted that he is more or less "coasting" simply doing whatever is demanded of him no more.

     His main concern is that the producers will let him finish up his work four weeks early, so that he can have a chance to act in Tyrone Guthrie's repertory theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for a year. Rehearsals for next season plays in Minneapolis begin a month before "Bonanza" finishes production for the year.

     "I'm going to New York to read for Guthrie in a month," he told me, his face showing real enthusiasm for the first time.

     "Don't you object to auditioning for someone, since you're a star?" I asked. He laughed. Not at all. I have no use for actors who are too proud to audition, or who insist on working for the largest possible salary just to build up their ego."

The times he says yes

     When it comes to ego, Pernell seems to be lacking in it in many ways. Although he feels certain of his competence as an actor, he doesn't seem to have any vanity about his personal appearance. I noticed that although he is definitely balding, he doesn't bother to wear a hairpiece under his hat for exterior scenes on "Bonanza". And he whips off the hat whenever he's not doing a scene, without caring if cast, crew and spectators see his thinning hair. That evening, in fact, he posed for photos with fans without hat or hairpiece.

     Yes, he does pose with fans when they ask him to, despite his scorn of fan mail. For Pernell seems to dislike adulation only when it comes en masse---from thousands of cheering fans, or thousands of letter writers---for then it apparently makes him feel like some kind of freak.

     But with individual fans he happens to meet, he couldn't be nicer. I learned at lunch that the two male friends he'd invited to join his table were actually a pair of hitchhikers in their late teens that he'd met just a few hours before. They were on their way north, hoping to work in a lumber camp for the summer.

     At lunch, Pernell willingly signed autographs at the boy's request, and patiently and politely answered the fan-type questions they asked him. There was certainly no aloofness whatsoever in his manner, and when the boys had to continue on their way after lunch, he heartily wished them good luck in the search for jobs.

     Pernell knows what it is like to be out of work and looking for a job. He remembers his days as a starving young actor in New York, when he and other struggling thespians would cook cheap dinners together to save on food bills. And he remembers making the rounds of theatrical offices looking for work, and the many blows his pride suffered when he was rudely turned away. "Sometimes I'd get so I couldn't stand the rebuffs, and then I'd give up making rounds for the day and go into one of those movie theatres on 42nd Street to keep warm and get away from it all."

     And yet, once he started to find acceptance as an actor, he began working fairly steadily. "For years before I joined 'Bonanza' I'd managed to keep acting in something or other, and I've never needed a lot of money' because I live simply." He told me. That's why he doesn't feel that fame and widespread acceptance are necessary to his security or personal happiness---as long as he himself is satisfied by his work.

     Not that he's a complete loner. He and his wife, opera singer Judith Le Brecque, have a small circle of intelligent friends who companionship and opinion he values highly. Among these friends are a number of Negroes---and it is the humiliations and indignities suffered by these Negro friends that have strengthened Pernell's determination to do all he can to aid the cause of civil rights.

     It was a determination that began---strangely enough, or perhaps not so strangely---in his own experience as a white boy in the Deep South. He told me that at the age of fifteen, in his hometown of Waycross, Georgia, "I became suddenly aware of the hypocrisy of the church I belonged to---and of the hypocrisy of the other churches in my town. The preacher talked of the brotherhood of man, and yet there were no Negroes allowed in our white church; and the Baptists, Methodists and Lutheran all kept apart from each other too, and worshiped separately. What kind of brotherhood is that?"

     Perhaps it was his shock at such hypocrisy that left Pernell to the agnosticism he professes today. Certainly his boyhood disillusionment helped form his views on the necessity for racial integration and respect for Negro rights. Those views were further heightened, during his adult years, by the experiences of such friends as a talented Negro actress he knows in Los Angeles. Helplessly, he watched her struggles to find a decent apartment to live in. He told me how she had been turned down by countless places, until finally, after repeated embarrassments, she managed to find an apartment house that would admit her.

     My wife and I helped her move into the apartment. And the night before she moved in, she stayed at our place," he recalled. "And she told us wearily, 'I think it's going to be all right now. But I have to admit that there were times in the last few days when I almost hated both of you!' I could understand what she meant." Incidents such as this convinced Pernell that he should do whatever he could to help America's Negroes obtain equal rights. What's more, he feels that as a performer---a person in the public eye-it is his particular duty to stand up and make himself "visible" in the struggle for Negro rights. In this way, he says, people will know it's not only the Negroes who are concerned about these rights but rather that they are the legitimate concern of fair-minded white people, as well.

Protesting his protest

That's why Pernell went to Torrance, California, last year, picked up a sign and joined others in picketing a housing tract, which they believed discriminated against Negroes. As a result of the picketing, a barrage of mail was received by Chevrolet, the sponsor of "Bonanza", protesting Pernell's action. Producer David Dortort said a "great deal" of the mail was from the Deep South, but that a "tremendous" number of letters came from Detroit. Dortort said he had discussed the situation with Pernell but had in no way advised him, because "I can tell him what to do on a show. What he does off the show is his business."

     When Pernell and I discussed his part in the picketing, he admitted he had felt at the time that he was not only risking his career, but his life as well. " It would have been very easy for some lunatic to step out of the hostile crowd that had gathered and plunge a knife into me," he recalled somberly. "People in the crowd were calling me names and shouting insults at me---saying things like: 'Pernell Roberts! You here? My God, I'll never watch 'Bonanza' again!' and 'Hey, you punk, get out of here! Go on home where you belong!' " But Pernell felt he had to demonstrate for what he believed in, whatever the personal cost.

     Pernell's willingness to risk death for his beliefs is even more remarkable when you realize that until recently he had a morbid fear of death. He told me that this fear had ended, surprisingly enough, when he had to watch his wife's father die of cancer not long ago. "Watching the slow process of the decay of the body that accompanies the approach of death, I gradually realized that I was no longer afraid to die." He told me. "It had only been fear of the unknown that had made me fear death. When I actually saw death with my own eyes, I lost my fear."

     Yet Pernell today feels that he has a lot to live for. He is deeply in love with his wife, Judy. Their marriage, Pernell's second, took place in October 1962. But despite his happiness, Pernell told me, "I certainly don't feel that marriages are made in heaven! They take a lot of work. He is deeply conscious of his share in the responsibility for the failure of his first marriage, and this apparently makes him doubly determined to see to it that his second marriage doesn't fail.

     Chris, now thirteen, was born of Pernell's first marriage, and Pernell is intensely proud of him. They spend their summers together, and Pernell seems to feel that he and Chris have a good understanding of each other, despite the divorce. I noticed that when we were discussing Pernell's dislike of personal publicity, he said confidently "my son understands how I feel about that."

     As far as publicity goes, Pernell feels that his private life is his own concern. He doesn't mind discussing his work with reporters, but he distrusts "personal profiles" as he calls them. For he feels that too often the writers seek to sensationalize them. So he'll seldom stand still for an interview on his personal life. And indeed our talk was in no sense an interview---it was simply a friendly conversation between two adults, and I made no notes until after we had finished talking, although Pernell knew my mission at the location site was to do a reporting job. In fact, when he saw me hastily making notes after our discussion, he jokingly warned a friend: "Watch out! He's taking down everything we say."

     When I asked Pernell what he thought of the stories that had been written about him in newspapers and magazines, he told me that he actually had read very few of them. When I told him that I myself had once had to base a piece about him on his public statements on radio and TV interview shows, he didn't hesitate to criticize me, saying, "You shouldn't have written about me without talking to me."

     "But I knew you weren't giving magazine interviews, and wouldn't have seen me," I countered.

     His expression softened, and he admitted: "You're right. I probably wouldn't have! It's true I don't talk to many reporters. NBC has been very good about that. After my first year on the show, the network's publicity department stopped bothering me for interviews, and I haven't done many since."

Bye Bye "Bonanza"

     I didn't mention the fact that I suspected the publicity department's willingness to leave Pernell alone was due to his penchant for bitterly criticizing "Bonanza" and his part on it in nearly every interview he gives. When he told me that he felt his six years on the show had been largely wasted, I asked "But don't you feel they're at least worthwhile in that they've given you the money to enable you to concentrate on whatever serious acting you may want to do after you leave the show?"

     He shook his head vigorously. "No, I was always able to do the kind of work I wanted to do before I joined 'Bonanza' and I expect to be able to do it after I leave. But, for the past few years, I haven't been able to do what I wanted to do, and I only stuck with it because I was warned by my advisers that if I broke my contract I wouldn't be able to act anywhere else."

     Apparently the fact that his work on "Bonanza" brings happiness and entertainment to millions of people gives Pernell no personal satisfaction. He finds that satisfaction in his private life, however. His spare time is taken up with a vast variety of subjects that fascinate him---subjects ranging from jazz to Bach to the writings of psychiatrist Ralph Greenson, whose work he particularly admires. He reads widely, listens to good music with his wife, and spends long hours in stimulating conversation with his small circle of highly intelligent friends.

     Surprisingly enough, it was his years in the Marine Corps---beginning in 1946, when he was eighteen years old---that first led Pernell's interest in psychology and philosophy. Still questioning the religious tenets that his experiences in segregated churches, in Georgia had made him doubt, he talked to men who had been prisoners of the Japanese on Corregidor about the psychological and spiritual values that had sustained them during their imprisonment---and about the values that had failed them. This experience led him to become interested in forming his own philosophy. It's a philosophy born of long hours, of thought and self-searching, and it has given him the confidence to stand up for what he thinks is right despite the criticism from others.

     He is highly sensitive to the cruel rebuffs and painful indignities that the human spirit must endure from time to time---not only because his friends have suffered them, but because he has suffered them. And he is determined to do all he can to see that, wherever possible, such humiliations are not suffered unnecessarily by his fellow man.

     Today, with only a few months remaining on his contract, Pernell looks forward eagerly to the future. After the year he hopes to spend with Tyrone Guthrie's repertory company in Minneapolis, doing Shakespeare and other classics, he plans to devote himself largely to selected roles in movies and television. Pernell feels that Broadways' shrinking opportunities place limitation on the amount of work he can hope to do there, though stage roles are very dear to his heart. "I'll probably continue to live in California, where the work is, he told me. This led to a question I'd long had on my mind.

     "I've always wondered about one thing," I told him. "You look forward so eagerly to escaping from 'Bonanza'. But what will you do if you find that you never achieve the fame and success you attained on this show? Won't you be bitter?"

     "Not at all" he assured me. "As I told you before, I act to please myself, and I've generally managed to find enough work of the kind I like to do. Financially and material security aren't important to me. So, if I don't have great success with the public, I'm not going to worry. I'll get by all right."

     That's how Pernell faces the future---with confidence that his own way is right for him, and that, whatever happens, he will somehow survive and prevail.