It’s always heartwarming to hear about shows where the co-stars consider themselves family behind the scenes. It’s even better to hear that the actors had the best experiences bringing their roles to life.
Bonanza was one of these legendary shows where you could feel the love through television screens. It starred Lorne Greene as Ben Cartwright, Dan Blocker as Hoss Cartwright, Pernell Roberts as Adam Cartwright and Michael Landon as Little Joe. This close-knit on-screen family was challenged with social issues that identified with ones many faced in real life.
Lorne Greene once talked about how the show focused on love in many different aspects. During an interview on Today with Steve Liebmann and Sue Kellaway, the actor revealed that the show was a lot of fun to be a part of after he was asked if he ever got tired of it.
“No, Bonanza would be, what I would call, a fun show to do,” he began. “Uh, the people were great. The guest stars that we had were marvelous. Our crew was tremendous, and we looked forward to getting up at 5:00 or 5:30 in the morning to go on location because we knew it would be a fun day.”
Greene added that the crew had many people who helped make the show successful, ultimately improving the experience. “We had a tremendous amount of help from so many people who came along the way. The show couldn’t help but become successful, because we had so many people helping us.”
Kellaway then asked if it was a challenge to get rid of the Ben Cartwright image since Hollywood is known for typecasting, especially when an actor finds significant success in one role that a new one can’t replace.
“Well, yes, of course, when you’re on long enough playing a certain character, like 14 years, people begin to recognize you as a ‘Hi Ben!’ or ‘Hi Cartwright,'” Greene said. “They respond to that and have questions about the show.”
Greene also told the hosts about what happened to him earlier that day, before he was on the show, where he signed autographs for about 200 fans on a plane.
“The plane was very full, and somebody sent out the request for an autograph. And before I knew it, I was signing about 200 autographs for people.”
He revealed that moments like that did not make him unhappy because when the autographs stop, then ‘that’s when you know it’s over.’