A Day On The Ponderosa
TV Guide~March 30, 1963

     'And now for a minute-by-minute, behind the scenes story'

     6:45 A.M.--Stage 16 at Paramount Studios is vast and empty and almost dark, illuminated only by dim overhead lights which seem faraway in the gloom.  At one end of the stage is the exterior of the Ponderosa ranch house and at the other end a red barn.  Around the perimeter of the stage are pine trees, some of them only tall trunks, their tops and branches cut off above camera range, behind them a cyclorama on which are painted distant mountains and forests.

     Dan Blocker, who plays Hoss Cartwright in Bonanza, is the first person to arrive.  His call is not until 7 o' clock, but as usual he is early, although he had to drive 30 miles from Chatsworth at the western end of the San Fernando Valley.  He has been up since 5:30.  Before leaving the house at 6:05, he had a glass of apple juice and a cup of coffee ("There ain't time for ham and eggs").  Now, as the electricians and grips begin to straggle in, he has another cup of coffee from an urn at the side of the stage.

     7:00 A.M.--Lorne Greene, who plays Ben Cartwright, arrives exactly on time.  He was up at 6 ("My wife gropes her way to the kitchen to get breakfast") and left his home in Sherman Oaks, at 6:45.  Unlike Blocker, he is not in costume ("I usually wear it home, but I had an appointment downtown yesterday afternoon").  He goes to his dressing room to change and then follows Blocker into Makeup.

     7:15 A.M--The first of 60 extras called for 7:30 begin to arrive.  They are to play the spectators at a prize fight in the red barn.  Already made up and in costume, they are for the most part older men, and their weather-beaten faces have a familiar look from being seen in the backgrounds of so many Westerns.

     7:30 A.M.--Michael Landon, who plays Little Joe, and Pernell Roberts, who plays Adam Cartwright, arrive.  They live in apartments in Hollywood, only 10 minutes from the studio.  Landon has driven there in his sports car, with a big jug of coffee besides him.  He hurries to get into his costume, which he leaves at the studio every night. ("It gets pretty gamy").  Pernell Roberts got up at 7, the time he is supposed to be at the studio ("I discovered it doesn't take as long as they say to get ready").  He has come to work in costume riding one of the racing bicycles he and his wife ride for exercise.  He has had no breakfast and takes coffee when he walks on stage ("This coffee is terrible").

     8:00 A.M.--The actual day's work begins.  The extras are herded into the barn, along with the stand-ins for the four stars.  Pernell Roberts' stand-in, is a girl named Betty Endicott, a shapely brunette with a long ponytail.  A few other male performers in Hollywood have women stand-ins, but Miss Endicott is also Roberts' double, infrequently riding and driving teams in a costume like his.

     The stage is now ablaze with light and alive with people and talk.  Outside the barn, the four stars sit waiting to be called.  Someone tells a "sick" joke, Greene, Blocker, and Landon laugh uproariously.  Roberts does not hear the joke, and when it's repeated for his benefit, he only laughs politely.  Roberts is not happy with 'Bonanza'.  ("Everybody knows it.  It soon became evident to me that this wasn't what I understood it to be.  People can't appreciate what you mean when you talk about artistic integrity--we're taught to judge everything on the basis of economics.  I would like to have approval of what I do.  What we do here is just pap").

     9:00 A.M--The day has now settled into its routine of long waits between shots.  As the four stars fight the boredom of the endless delays, Dan Blocker does most of the talking.  ("The doctor took me off booze.  My blood pressure's gone up to 155 over 105").  Pernell Roberts sits off to the side reading the morning paper.  When the call comes for the next scene he is the last one to get up.

     10:00 A.M.--Two 14-year-old girls come to the set to interview Michael Landon for their high school papers.  They are so nervous they can hardly write the answers to the questions they ask him.  ("Where were you born?"  "When?"  "What high school did you go to?").

     11:00 A.M.--The four stars are in the barn for a brief scene.  The three sons sit together besides the ring watching the fight.  Pernell Roberts, in his black shirt and hat, is a dark presence between the other two, who cuff each other and shout across the ring when the camera is not turning.  Lorne Greene acts as second to one of the fighters, who is taking a merciless beating.  The boxer, who is trying to earn $1000 so he can marry the woman he loves, had sworn that he would never fight again, but the woman, who has no intention of marrying him, has received $200 for getting him into the ring.  The story is called "A Woman Lost".  Everything comes right out in the end.  After each brief take, the makeup man applies bloody marks to the boxer's faces, and before each scene, he pats the faces of the four stars with powder.  It is hot in the barn.

     Noon--Outside the barn, between scenes, Dan Blocker is talking to some of the extras ("Joe Louis is the greatest modern heavyweight--the greatest one since Johnson").....Lorne Greene and Pernell Roberts talk together ("She's a dancer as well as an actress".  "A beautiful body").

     12:30 P.M.--Lunch.  All four stars go to the Paramount commissary.  Lorne Greene and Dan Blocker have lunch with a friend of Blocker's from Omaha.  Michael Landon eats with a photographer friend and they talk about the houses they are both planning to build.  Pernell Roberts has lunch with his wife of two months.  John Wayne comes in and the 'Bonanza' stars turn to look at him.

     1:30 P.M.--Shooting resumes.  Because of the morning's delays, the stars are kept in the barn with only brief pauses between takes...Michael Landon puts on a false mustache during rehearsal and says, "I've been waiting here a long time...In one scene, Pernell Roberts has to say a line he doesn't remember.  "What little gem do I have here?", he asks.  The script girl supplies him with the line--"Told him what, Pa?"

     2:30 P.M.--During a lull, Dan Blocker talks about acting ("I'm an actor.  If somebody gives me something that's written down, I can act it, but I can't go on these panel shows where you have to talk")....Lorne Greene talks about the new home he has built in Phoenix ("When I first saw the Ponderosa, I said to myself, "How I'd love to have a house like that some day!" Now, I have it, just a few hundred yards from the first tee.  I have an interest in the real-estate development")....Pernell Roberts is reading a book now, sitting with his feet up on a box, and his back to the others.

     3:00 P.M.--David Dortort, producer of 'Bonanza', arrives on the set.  A pale, dark man, with thick, black-rimmed glasses, he wears a black suit with silver buttons and Italian shoes, and looks out-of-place in the brilliantly lighted barn.  A cluster forms around him.  Lorne Greene asks him about his next line, which he feels is not quite right, and Dortort spends 15 minutes rewriting it and the lines around it.  Concerning the 'Bonanza' stars, Dortort says, "They're a real Gas House Gang.  That's how we keep the spirit up.  After four years it would be decadent otherwise".  He deprecates the dissatisfaction of Pernell Roberts: "He's not really unhappy".

     3:45 P.M.--Dortort leaves the set and work resumes.  When the warning bell rings and the assistant director shouts, "Quiet!", Lorne Greene is in conversation with his three co-stars at the side of the ring.  Suddenly it is his cue to speak.  "Are we shooting?", he asks.  The director, a bland, heavyset man in a plaid shirt says,: "You were talking--nobody can tell you anything".  But he says it lightly, and everyone laughs.  Greene takes his part in 'Bonanza seriously ("I think an actor's job to is to enhance the script he is given.  I know Ben Cartwright inside and out.  I based the character of my own father.  Father love is the strongest love there is.  Love between men is stronger than love between men and women--just as hate is").....When Pernell Roberts is told to sponge off the sweating boxer in the next shot, he says, "Let the father do it".

     4:00 P.M.--Michael Landon and Dan Blocker are told that they are through for the day.  Just before Landon leaves, Lorne Greene massages his neck ("My father gives the best massage I've ever had").  Landon and Blocker go out together.  Blocker does not take off his makeup or change clothes.  ("I like to get home and spend some time with the kids.  I usually don't get there till about 9, and they go to bed at 8").

     4:15 P.M.--Pernell Roberts leaves.  His chair stands empty, a few feet from the cluster of chairs where the others have been sitting.

     4:30 P.M.---The assistant cameraman looks over the crowd in the barn and says, "No matter how you slice it, it's still boloney".

     5:00 P.M.--Lorne Green and actress Ruta Lee stand over the battered hulk of the beaten fighter.  It is a dramatic, emotion-packed scene.  But this is only rehearsal.  Ruta looks down at the boxer and says, "Baby, you're a mess!"

     6:15 P.M.--As Lorne Greene plays his last scene of the day--a close-up in which he stares out after the departing boxer and girl.

     6:30 P.M.--A dim light filters down from the faraway ceiling.  The stage is empty, except for the paper cups and the burned-out cigarettes and Pernell Roberts' newspaper.


     ~By Leslie Raddatz