Mitch Vogel~How Mitch Vogel Joined A Show
Older Than His Pigeons, Rabbit and Chameleon Combined
TV Guide~March 27, 1971

     The strawberry soda was on the rocks and the sky was the limit on the chocolate chip cookies.  Mitch Vogel was entertaining a visitor, explaining he still couldn't understand why he was chosen to join the institution of such venerability as 'Bonanza'.

     It was as if the Bank of England had consummated a merger with Eliza Doolittle, announcing that it was anxious, in its new diversication, to enter the Flower Dodge in Soho Square.

     "Can you still believe that I was still in my playpen when 'Bonanza' started?" asked Mitch, who at 14, last fall, had joined a series that began in 1959.  "The show is older than my five pigeons, my rabbit and my chameleon combined."

     It is significant he didn't lose his four cats, four turtles, dog and parakeet.  Even Ben Cartwright may not be that old.

     But as a stray kid (Jamie Hunter), given refuge by the Cartwrights, Vogel serves a useful purpose on the Ponderosa.  He gives Ben someone to talk to besides the Chinese cook.

     "We got the feeling recently," says David Dortort, creator and executive producer of 'Bonanza', "that the warmth of the show was in danger of being weakened by the absence of the father-son relationship.  Our last kid was Little Joe (Michael Landon), who was 17 when he first came on the air."

     Unlike Orphan Annie, Joe aged, and the idea of Ben Cartwright dispensing fatherly wisdom to a man of 31 somehow didn't make sparks.  And certainly Hoss Cartwright was beyond dandling age.  Ben, alas, needed a new audience.

     Enlisted for the job was young Vogel, a native of Alhambra, California, who gave up a promising career in the Cub Scouts to become an actor at 10.

     Rising to 5-feet-4 and weighing 116 pounds, Mitch comes equipped with natural red hair, blue eyes and a sterling set of teeth that has withstood nobly the jawbreakers, the gum, the Popsicles, and the general run of merchandise challenging the uppers and lowers over the early years.  His father, Dennis Vogel, engaged in the construction business in Kiel, Wisconsin, is divorced from Mitch's mother, Mrs. Edward Greenleaf, who now is separated from her second husband, a drill sergeant in the Marines.

     Mitch was raised in the Greenleaf home in Costa Mesa, Cal., with a half sister, Kitty, now 8.  Under the new family arrangement, he resides in Burbank, a 5-minute ride from the 'Bonanza' set, with his mother, half sister, and grandmother, Mrs. Maude Awrey who doubles as his business manager.

     In that capacity, Mrs. Awrey, a pleasing, nontheatrical type of woman, allows her client moving money, amounting to $3 per week.  It isn't enough to support Elizabeth Taylor, but Mitch finds it satisfactory.  He gets lunch money, besides.

     As man of the house, he is stuck with the watering, the trash cans and the minor repairs, meaning he puts in a rather industrious day, usually beginning at 7 A.M.

     Since the law states in California that actors the age of Vogel may work but four hours a day during the school year and must have a minimum of three hours daily of academic tutoring, the ingenuity of the 'Bonanza' people is challenged to finish a script each week.

     The obstacles are conquered by something you wouldn't link to fun-loving Californians--organization.  Reporting to Warner Brothers studio, where most of 'Bonanza' is filmed, at 8 sharp, Mitch is sent immediately from makeup and wardrobe to the classroom of Mrs. Irene Burke, his private teacher who begins his studies in algebra, Spanish, English, and journalism.

     In the meantime, a stand-in, Rick Drown, is used for the lighting and camera preliminaries required for the formal shooting.  Drown is 28, but roughly the same dimensions as Mitch.  When the technicians and the director are ready on the set, Vogel is summoned from his one man classroom to step in and do a scene, sort of the way a matador appears, after the bull has been prepared.

     When the scene is finished, he returns to his schooling, awaiting the next call.  On location, the routine is pretty much the same, only a mobile home serves as the classroom.  Much flabbergasts the principal star of the show, Lorne Greene, who plays Ben Cartwright.

     "It takes a pretty bright kid to change hats as he does and handle a script with such ease," says Greene.  "Just for the fun of it I decide to test him one day.  I wanted to find out what kind of actor he was.  Playing a scene with him in rehearsal, I made departures from the script, changing lines and movements.  This would rattle most kids, who wouldn't be prepared for anything that didn't appear on paper.  But Mitch was concentrating on me, not merely on the words he had learned, and he responded to my changes perfectly.  I realized that this was no ordinary kid actor, but a boy with unusual talent."

     How it came about to be developed was more or less a fluke.  In 1966, his mother took him to a performance of "Peter Pan" at the Melodyland Theater in Anaheim, California and Mitch was fascinated.  A guitar enthusiast at the time, he was asked by his mother whether he wanted to take guitar or acting lessons.  The family budget couldn't handle both.  Choosing acting, he was enrolled for $20 a month, in the Orange County Arts Foundation.  Soon, he was doing leads in "Tom Sawyer", "Heidi", and "The Wizard of Oz" with such proficiency, that a Hollywood agent, Evelyn Farney, was inspired to get him a professional audition.

     This led to a small part in the movie "Yours, Mine and Ours", starring Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball, and Mitch was on his way.  He got major recognition in "The Reivers" with Steve McQueen, and followed with "Menace on the Mountain" and "Bayou Boy" adventure films for 'The Wonderful World of Disney'.

     It was on location for "Bayou Boy" that Mitch, who had pictured himself as an athletic sort, decided on the advisability of a stuntman who turned out to be Rick Drown.  Doing a scene in a Louisiana swamp, with an alligator whose jaws were supposed to be wired, Mitch suddenly found himself looking down the throat of a beast who jaws were distressingly loose.  The wire had snapped.  Quickly, Mitch pushed an oar into the mouth of the alligator, who, luckily, didn't choose to argue the matter any further.

     But for scenes in subsequent TV stories calling for a ride on a runaway horse, a fall from a tree, and a dive through a window, Mitch has yielded the honors to Drown.  As a general rule, juvenile stars are anything but popular on studio lots, where co-workers often find them precocious in an objectionable way.

     In the case of the Vogel boy, he has yet to irritate, according to producer Dortort, who finds Mitch surprisingly normal for one pursuing his line of work.  On the studio, he rides a bicycle, purchased used from a technician for $25, a sum released by Grandmother Awrey.  So as not to lose contact with children his age, he spends part of his spare time at Jordan Junior High in Burbank, to whose newspaper he contributes a story every issue.  He is fond of writing, maybe even as a future vocation.

     "I think I would like to be an actor all my life," he says.  "But maybe by the time I turn 16, there won't be any parts for me.  So, I'm figuring on going to college.  When I get older, I don't want to be broke."

     Indeed, it isn't to be recommended, especially for a teenager who is earning a weekly salary in four figures and playing in what may be the most successful series yet to grace television.

     To what is the longevity of 'Bonanza' ascribed?

     "Basically five things," says Lorne Greene, who originally hoped to wring three seasons from the series.  "First, the show has good writing.  Second, it has good characters, the kind with whom viewers identify.  Third, it offers the big outdoors, good for color.  Fourth, it is set in America's most romantic period.  Western expansion is closer to the hearts of the people.  And, finally, the history of dramaturgy shows strong appeal of father-son relationships.  The angle probably made 'Hamlet' a success."

     Like most actors giving thoughts to their careers, Mitch Vogel is already looking for more horizons.  "I've been very lucky," he says, "but one day I would like to portray a character other than the good clean kid I have played to date.  I would like to play a bad kid, maybe one from the ghetto who is an addict."

     Certainly, in today's theater, there is an area of such parts.  If Mitch makes good, he may even grow up some day to play a nude scene.