A Bonanza backlash ...
QUESTION Why did Pernell Roberts leave Bonanza halfway through the series?
DARK-HAIRED, handsome and well built, Pernell roberts played adam Cartwright, eldest son in the Cartwright clan in the western soap Bonanza, for 202 episodes from 1959 until 1965. The role defined his career — and he hated it.
Pernell elven roberts Jr. was born in Waycross, Georgia, on May 18, 1928. he joined the Marines in 1946; he played baritone horn, sousaphone, tuba and percussion and was assigned to the Marine Corps Band. he took advantage of the Servicemen’s readjustment act to attend the University of Maryland, where he was drawn to the stage.
he moved to New York City in 1952 and became a successful Shakespearean actor. roles included antonio in Twelfth Night, Mercutio in romeo and Juliet, the title role in Macbeth and Petruchio in The Taming Of The Shrew.
Moving to hollywood, roberts appeared in the films Desire Under The elms, which starred Sophia Loren and Burl ives, and The Sheepman, starring Glenn Ford and Shirley MacLaine, before being invited to step into the role of adam Cartwright.
his highbrow training gave him a low opinion of soap opera acting. ‘i feel i am an aristocrat in my field of endeavour,’ he said in a 1965 interview.
he battled with the producers over the dearth of black actors and crew members on the show, and complained that the scripts were unchallenging both for actors and audiences:
‘i had six seasons of playing the eldest son on that show. Six seasons of feeling like a damned idiot, going around like a middle-aged teenager saying “Yes, Pa”, “No, Pa” on cue.
‘it was downright disgusting — such dialogue for a grown man. i felt i wasn’t being taken seriously as an actor, and that’s like death to one’s talent. Stuck as adam Cartwright, i was only able to use about one- tenth of my ability.’ in subsequentnumerous films years, and he touring appeared theatrein productions, and made guest appearances on many TV series, including The rockford Files, Mission: impossible and The Love Boat, before landing the title role on Trapper John, M.D in 1979. The series brought in the character of Trapper John from robert altman’s 1970 film M*a*S*h as the chief of surgery at San Francisco Memorial hospital.
The show covered standard medical stories, but it also took chances with such subjects as AIDS, the epstein-Barr Virus, and post- traumatic stress syndrome. Yet despite headlining 151 episodes of this series between 1979 and 1986 — and much to his chagrin — roberts was forever remembered as adam Cartwright.
he was married four times and divorced three. he died of pancreatic cancer, aged 81, in 2010.
Clare Malpas, Ilkley, West Yorks.
QUESTION Who first said ‘Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves’?
ROBERT BURTON (1577-1640) was an english scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, known chiefly for writing The anatomy Of Melancholy, a major treatise on what we call clinical depression.
Burton prefaced his work with a satirical introduction titled Democritus Junior To The reader in which he styled himself as the famous Greek Philosopher known as the ‘laughing philosopher’.
he wrote The anatomy Of Melancholy largely to treat himself for depression: ‘i write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy.’
When not suffering from the condition, he was a ready wit, ‘very merry, facete, and juvenile’ and his introduction is full of examples: ‘Women wear the breeches’; ‘ Our wrangling lawyers . . . are so litigious and busy here on earth, that i think they will plead their clients’ causes hereafter — some of them in hell’; ‘all poets are mad’ and, the progenitor of the quote in question, ‘penny wise and pound foolish’.
The specific quote, however, is attributed to
William Lowndes, Secretary of the Treasury from 16961724. it first appeared in print in 1747 on the publication of Lord Chesterfield’s (1694-1773) letters. he wrote to his son, saying: ‘i knew, once, a very covetous, sordid fellow (Lowndes) who used frequently to say, “Take care of the pence; for the pounds will take care of themselves”.’ Morris Gosland, Malvern, Worcs.
QUESTION In the 1929/30 football season, Brentford FC won all 21 of their home matches. Was this feat ever repeated?
NO OTHER team has repeated Brentford FC’s feat of winning all of its home league games in a single season.
Only five other clubs have actually achieved the feat of recording victories in every home game they played in a complete season of league football — and all did so before World War i and long before the Football League was extended to 92 clubs:
The other five teams with unblemished home records are: Sunderland (13 games; First Division, 1891–92); Liverpool (14 games; Second Division, 1893–94); Bury (15 games; Second Division, 1894–95); Sheffield Wednesday (17 games; Second Division, 1899–1900); and Small heath (17 games; Second Division, 1902–03).
Tony Matthews (football historian/author),
Cabrera, Almeria, Spain.
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