Michael Landon~Javelin Thrower On Horseback
TV Guide~January 9, 1962

     Bonanza's Michael Landon who grew up as a mixed-up athlete, seems finally to have found his niche

     Twenty-five-year-old Michael Landon, who, as Eugene Orowitz, son of Eli M. (Emo, "Eat More Oysters") Orowitz, a colorful old-time theater exhibitor, once held the high school javelin championship of New Jersey--is both an acting prodigy and surprisingly sensitive human being.  His life has been a series of frantic flights from himself and his talent--which one producer has described as "the most highly intuitive set of natural acting responses I've ever seen in a young actor".

     This he has demonstrated on numerous occasions.  In June, 1959, for example, early in his tenure as Little Joe Cartwright in the Bonanza series, there was an episode called "The Julia Bulette Story", based on the career of Virginia City's famous courtesan.  The script required Landon to play a highly charged death scene with actress Jane Greer that would have been a severe test for any actor.

     Tears Rolled Down His Cheeks

     But Landon seemed to be taking the prospect lightly, cracking wise to the point where producer David Dortort began to worry.  However, as director Chis Nyby swung into the scene, a miraculous transformation occured.  Suddenly Landon was all business, every emotion surfaced and attuned; genuine tears began rolling down his cheeks.  His audience which included his producer, co-stars Dan Blocker and Lorne Greene and a member of the press--was too shaken to speak.  Dortort later commented, "Mike didn't play that scene; he lived it".

     When the scene finished, Landon quickly disappeared behind the water cooler to make, as it were, some badly needed repairs on his emotions.  Moments later he reappeared, and smiling roguishly, made a reference to the recently demised lady's love-life, so irreverent, so hilarious, (and so unprintable), that they are still talking about it around Paramount Studios.

     Indeed, it would appear that Landon has spent the better part of his life glossing over his real personalities with ribald laughter.  As a child he was in the near-genius category (he recalls his IQ as 150); he got straight A's through the sixth grade.  Then in the seventh he decided, for reasons best known to himself, that studying was a square occupation.  He became a sort of laughing boy with javelin, achieving the dubious distinction of being the only near-genius to graduate from high school 299th in a class of 301.

     Actually, Eugene (as he was known then) always had a lot on his mind.  "I was a very emotional child.  I knew it", he said.  "And I could always get hold of those emotions when I needed them".  He added that he was "lonely, unhappy a lot because it was easy to be unhappy".  His father, who according to Mike, hated the theater business and trying unsuccessfully to get out of it, was "a wonderful guy who always missed the boat", first in radio, later in publishing movie fan magazines.  "They were a flop and it made him pretty frustrated", says Landon.

     His mother had been in musical comedy under the familiar show-business name of Peggy O' Neil.  She gave up her career to marry Emo.  When Emo's career failed to pan out, it created what one close acquaintance has described as a "confused" family relationship.  The effect on son Eugene, hungry for security, was almost immediate.  "Eugene seemed to find the world unfriendly and perverse", the friend says.  "Then he made an interesting discovery: he was comfortable on a stage.  It was a good feeling.  But he also found it leaves you vulnerable and you can't afford to care too much about anything".

     At 13, a Japanese houseboy

     His first acting experience came with the Haddonfield Players near Collingsworth, N.J.  At 13, he played the Japanese houseboy in the ancient melodrama "The Bat".  "For the first time I knew the excitement of fooling an audience", he says.  "Ha!" They all thought I was Japanese.  Unfortunately, the social mores of the teenage set he ran would not allow him to follow up his enthusiasm.  "Being a movie star--okay", explains Landon.  "But the iddy-biddy theater--it wasn't cool.  I was afraid they'd laugh at me".

     So he dropped play acting for sports.  When he won the state championship in the javelin, the University of California offered him a scholarship.  But he had a few "scholastic deficiencies" to make up first, which he did at Santa Barbara (Cal.) Junior College.  In the fall of 1954, he met a man there named Holly Echols who influenced him greatly.

     Holly Echols had several things going for him as far as Orowitz was concerned.  He had a family.  He had four (now six kids).  He had an active interest in plays and play acting.  Best of all he had a sympathetic ear.  Recalls Echols: "He was so hungry for family he came and lived with us".

     But the track season was coming on apace.  In February 1955 Orowitz entered USC.  He lasted three weeks, long enough to compete in one meet, winning the freshman javelin throw with a toss of 183 feet.  When he tore a ligament, USC lost interest in him and he in it.  He worked in a warehouse for a while until one day while visiting a friend who happend to be testing at Warners he caught the eye of a talent scout, who arranged for a test of him, and his acting career had begun.

     His big break came in an episode of "Telephone Time", the old anthology series, called "The Mystery of Caspar Hauser", an offbeat story about a teenage boy who had apparently been imprisoned in solitary darkness all his life.  Producer Jerry Stagg says:"I needed rare masculine beauty, I needed virility.  I got both in Landon".

     The ripple of excitment caused by this show led to the live shows, and he did a couple of "Playhouse 90's" just before Dortort cast him in a "Restless Gun" episode (as a heavy), then in "Bonanza" as Little Joe.  With "Bonanza" the career of Orowitz (now Michael Landon) took off.

     Having found his niche, Landon wasted little time getting married.  The girl he chose was an attractive nonprofessional, a legal secretary several years his senior.  Dodie Landon already had a son, Mark now 13, and this ready-made family clearly had a powerful appeal to Mike--so much so that he subsequently adopted two more boys, Josh, now 2, and Jason, 8 months.

     Around his big house (an ancient Spanish California job in the once fashionable Los Feliz district), he behaves like the latter-day equivalent of his father in "Bonanza".  He adores the children, the wife, and the whole idea of a home.  He is a demon-do-it yourself man, tropical fish raiser, and beagle fancier.

     Thus it is with enourmous pride that he will tell visitors, "I'm the average father who loves his wife and kids.  Acting?  Sure, I can still get hold of those emotions when I need 'em.  But I also like the financial security.  Just say I always have the family I always loved and wanted".