R.I.P. Pernell Roberts

Two days ago, television icon Pernell Roberts passed away at age 81. Roberts will forever be remembered by baby-boomers as Adam Cartwright on the long-running NBC western Bonanza (1959 – 1973) as well as for his surprising departure from the show after six seasons. (He also starred in a M*A*S*H spin-off called Trapper John, but the less said about that show, the better.)

After serving in the Marines, Roberts began a career acting in theater. (He even worked at D.C.’s Arena Stage for a while.) He found his greatest success on TV westerns like Northwest Passage and Tombstone Territory. One such assignment, playing a mine boss who cruelly exploits the Chinese immigrants working for him in the Have Gun – Will Travel episode Hey Boy’s Revenge, must have had personal significance for Roberts who was a life-long civil rights activist.

Roberts finally achieved national fame on Bonanza as Adam, oldest son of Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene), who worked the Ponderosa Ranch with his brothers Hoss (Dan Blocker) and Little Joe (Michael Landon). The show would run for an astounding fourteen seasons, but when his contract ran out at the end of season six, Roberts decided he was good and sick of the grind of doing a weekly network series and refused to renew his contract. (The writers simply had Adam get married and move away.)

Roberts continued to do guest shots on popular television series like Mannix, Mission Impossible, The Wild Wild West, Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-O and co-starred with a thirteen-year-old Milla Jovovich in a 1988 made-for-TV movie The Night Train to Kathmandu. His last television appearance was on a 1997 episode of Diagnosis Murder called Hard-Boiled Murder, a reunion with Mike Connors in which Connors reprised his role as private eye Mannix and Roberts played George Fallon, the character he previously played on Mannix.

So long, Pernell Roberts. It seems as though we all grew up watching you every Sunday night on Bonanza and we’ll certainly miss you.