While today Michael Landon is a star, with such roles as Little Joe Cartwright on Bonanza and Charles Ingalls on Little House on the Prarie, it doesn’t mean that his life was all easy goings.
In many interviews, Landon revealed that his childhood was fraught with issues, beginning with his parent’s marriage. “My parents didn’t get along well,” he said during an interview with The Times Recorder. “It taught me not to stay married if you don’t love one another.”
Landon’s father, Eli Orowitz, had some connections to show business. Orowitz was a theater manager who had previously done some radio work before following his son to California. However, it didn’t work out as well as he’d hoped.
“Dad thought some of his old show-business buddies out West would remember him, and he’d get a good job,” Landon said. “But nobody remembered. They even barred him from this movie lot.”
Luckily, the Landon family’s luck turned around when Michael began his television career.
Moreover, once Michael Landon joined the fictional family of The Cartwrights, he gained a real-life father figure in Lorne Greene. Greene acted as a mentor to Landon and his fellow costar Dan Blocker. David Dortort, creator of the series, spoke to the Modesto Bee about the cast’s relationship. “It’s positively amazing to see how Lorne Greene has become Ben Cartwright in the past six years,” he said.
“For example, he and Dan Blocker and Mike Landon used to fool around on the set, actors kidding together. Now, both Blocker and Landon, when they have problems, approach Greene and talk to him as if he were really their father…Greene’s become a father figure to the cast. He’s taken on, almost chameleon-like, the mantle of a Solomon. He’s become a man whose opinion is worth listening to, a sage.”