Saturday 9

Saturday 9: Bonanza (1959)

1) Bonanza ran on NBC for 14 seasons. Today it's rerun on

Hello, Cowboy

Me-TV and TVLand. Were/are you a fan? Very much! I loved Little Joe when I was a very little girl, and I rediscovered it a few years ago when I had a cold a few years ago. The Cartwrights were good company when I felt bad. I have also developed a posthumous crush on Adam. He was so strong and steady and mature. Sigh.

2) The show centers on The Cartwrights, who lived on a massive ranch in Nevada. License plates in Nevada read, "The Silver State." What's on your license plate? Land of Lincoln.


3) Ben Cartwright made his fortune as a cattle rancher. What's the last beef dish you ate? There was ground beef in the lasagna I had for dinner on Friday.

4) Patriarch Ben had his eldest son, Adam, with his refined, bookish first wife, Elizabeth. Unfortunately, Elizabeth died in childbirth. Still Adam inherited her love of the written word. What's the last book you finished? A Common Struggle by Patrick J. Kennedy.
  5) Ben's second son, Hoss, was born to his second wife, Inger, who was killed as the family traveled West by wagon train. Hoss inherited her open, friendly manner and her way with animals. Are there pets in your home? These two. The gray and white girlcat is my lap as I answer these questions.

 
6) Ben's youngest, Joe, arrived after Ben married a third time to the passionate Marie, who died in a riding accident when her son was only five years old. Little Joe inherited her impetuosity. Do you consider yourself more spontaneous or predictable? Yes. My oldest friend likes to tease me about how I love to have "a plan" when we travel. I don't even have to execute the plan, I am just comforted by having one. So that would make me predictable, right? Yet in matters of emotion, I am spontaneous. I go by my gut.
 
7) Samuel Clemons was a reporter in Virginia City at the time when the Cartwrights would have been there, and a fictionalized version of Mr. Clemons appeared in an episode of Bonanza. Without looking it up, do you know Samuel Clemons' famous pen name? Mark Twain.

8) Hair was a big deal in the Bonanza dressing room. Three of the original four stars -- Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts and Dan Blocker -- all wore hairpieces. (The fourth, Michael Landon, began dying his hair while still in his 20s because he was going prematurely gray.) Have you ever worn a wig or a hairpiece? I wore a short, curly wig under a man's hat and was Harpo Marx for Halloween. Does that count?
 
9) Random question -- Tell us the story behind one of your scars. I have a short, vertical scar on my lip where I once had a mole. (I'm very fair skinned, and it seems that every year or so a mole acts up, concerns my dermatologist, and has to go.) The plastic surgeon did a nice job. It looks less like a scar than a little wrinkle.