PORTRAIT of the ARTIST
Documentary about TV painter Bob Ross includes his hair secret and details about an alleged affair
Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed Netflix
Bob Ross brought happiness to many as the honey-voiced host of The Joy of Painting, the long-running PBS show that taught viewers how to paint lush landscapes and vivid skies in less than 30 tranquil minutes. But a new documentary examines Ross's legacy and the bitter dispute over the continued use of his name and likeness.
Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed, streaming on Netflix, recounts how Ross created a cultural phenomenon with the series he modelled after William Alexander's The Magic of Oil Painting.
It features commentary from Ross's son, Steve Ross, and others who worked with Bob Ross over the course of his show's 31 seasons.
It notably does not include contemporary interviews with Annette and Walter Kowalski, the couple who partnered with Ross to bring the show to PBS stations and events across the U.S. — and who control Bob Ross Inc., the company that oversees the use of Ross's name and image. The Kowalskis worked alongside Ross and his second wife, Jane, to build an artistic empire that includes paints and brushes bearing Ross's name and visage. But the Rosses and Kowalskis had vastly different visions for that empire, say those in Ross's inner circle.
Following are the main takeaways from the film.
ROSS WAS VERY MUCH LIKE HIS TV PERSONA
One of the documentary's more innocuous revelations is that Ross's signature curls, a not-quiteafro, were achieved with a perm. But pretty much everything else about The Joy of Painting was authentic, including the host's charm. “The Bob you see on TV is pretty darn close to his real attitude, about nature and about everything, really,” his son Steve says.
Ross's soothing demeanour, a hallmark of the show, has long been associated with Ross's departure from military service, after 20 years in the air force. “I was the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work,” he told the Orlando Sentinel in 1990. “The job requires you to be a mean, tough person. And I was fed up with it. I promised myself that if I ever got away from it, it wasn't going to be that way anymore.”
But the documentary puts forward another reason for his soft-spoken approach: the women who watched his show. “A lot of the audience is women, so maybe I'll try to whisper,” Steve Ross recalls his father reasoning.
STEVE SAYS ROSS HAD AN AFFAIR WITH HIS BUSINESS PARTNER
The host's style attracted an enthusiastic contingent of female fans — and the documentary alleges that Annette Kowalski was among them. Ross and the Kowalskis met after Annette had attended one of Ross's instructional workshops. The Kowalskis were grieving the death of their son and, like many of Ross's adoring fans, Annette found solace in learning to paint from a man who called mistakes “happy accidents.” In a clip, Annette says she told Ross, “I don't know what you've got, but I think we ought to bottle it and sell it.”
“I don't think Bob really understood what the future held for him at that time,” Ross's friend and fellow artist John Thamm says in the doc. “He was just not into it for the money. But the Kowalskis certainly were.”
The Kowalskis and Rosses worked so closely together, the couples even moved in together at one point. Annette Kowalski appeared on several episodes of The Joy of Painting, and their close relationship spurred rumours. “There was an affair between my father and Annette, yes,” Steve says.
The Kowalskis denied the affair — and any rift with Bob Ross — through their lawyer.
ROSS STRUGGLED TO COME TO AN AGREEMENT ON HIS LEGACY
Weeks after Jane's death, Ross was diagnosed with non-hodgkin's lymphoma. Ross used paint thinner to achieve his trademark weton-wet technique, and at least one friend speculates that the chemicals could have led to Ross's cancer. It was when Ross was nearing death, Steve alleges, that the Kowalskis asked him to get his father to sign a “memorial agreement.”
“It looked to me like they were trying to get Bob to sign his name over to them,” Steve says, noting the request, which the Kowalskis reportedly reiterated over several weeks, led to an explosive argument. “You could hear him screaming, `I'm not giving you my name.'”
INSIDERS ALLEGE ROSS'S IMAGE IS NOT BEING USED ACCORDING TO HIS WISHES
The Joy of Painting became popular in several languages around the world. But some in the documentary make dark allegations about how the Kowalskis ran Bob Ross Inc. after his death. A former employee of its European outpost alleges he saw someone forging Ross's signature onto paintings.
But the most notable drama stems from Ross's end-of-life wishes. Steve says his father married a nurse who had taken care of him in his final months in hopes of maintaining some control over his company. After Ross died, the Kowalskis sued her, along with Ross's half brother, Jimmie Cox, over the rights to Ross's image.
Steve sued Bob Ross Inc. in 2017 after discovering his father had initially signed over all the intellectual property rights to him and Cox. But in the course of that lawsuit Steve learned his uncle — with whom he says he has a “shaky” relationship — had responded to the Kowalskis' lawsuit against him by signing over all of the rights “totally against my father's wishes.” (Cox, the documentary says, is one of the people who declined to be interviewed out of fear over being sued by the Kowalskis.)
Steve lost the suit in 2019, which means he cannot profit from his father's name or image, which is ubiquitous in pop culture. One stipulation of the ruling was that audiotapes reportedly detailing Bob Ross's wishes be destroyed.
“They literally wanted to steal Dad's name,” Steve says in the documentary. “And did.”
The doc ends on an inspirational note befitting its subject, with fans of Ross detailing the ways he made their lives better. “That was the whole idea behind Bob Ross and his painting,” Steve says. “He was going to teach people that they could be valuable, they could be important in this world.”