Pernell Roberts: Actor, Dead at 81...

Pernell Elvin Roberts, Jr.
(May 18, 1928 – January 24, 2010)






Pernell Roberts was an American stage, movie and television actor as well as singer. In addition to guest starring in over 60 television series, he was widely known for his roles as Ben Cartwright's eldest son, Adam Cartwright, on the western series Bonanza, a role he played from 1959 to 1965 — and as chief surgeon Dr. John McIntyre, the title character on Trapper John, M.D. (1979-1986).

He was also widely known for his life-long activism, which included participation in the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 and pressuring NBC to refrain from hiring whites to portray minority characters.

Roberts was born in Waycross, Georgia, the only child of Pernell Elvin Roberts, Sr. and Minnie (Betty) Myrtle Morgan Roberts. During his high school years, he played the horn, acted in school and church plays and sang in local USO shows — pursuing a wide range of occupations before pursuing acting. He attended, but did not graduate from, Georgia Tech. While serving for two years in the United States Marine Corps, he participated in the Marine Corps Band. He subsequently attended the University of Maryland, also without graduating.

Roberts moved to Washington D.C. in 1950. He eventually decided to give acting a chance and supported himself as a butcher, forest ranger, and railroad riveter during the lean years while pursuing his craft.

On stage from the early 1950s, he gained experience in such productions as The Adding Machine, The Firebrand and Faith of Our Fathers before spending a couple of years performing the classics with the renowned Arena Stage Company in Washington, DC. Productions there included The Taming of the Shrew (as Petruchio), The Playboy of the Western World, The Glass Menagerie, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Twelfth Night. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 with Tonight in Samarkind and that same year won the "Best Actor" Drama Desk Award for his off-Broadway performance as Macbeth, which was immediately followed by Romeo and Juliet as Mercutio. Other Broadway plays include The Lovers (1956) with Joanne Woodward, A Clearing in the Woods (1957) with Kim Stanley, a return to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (1957) and The Duchess of Malfi (1957). He returned to Broadway fifteen years later as the title role opposite Ingrid Bergman in Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1972).

Pernell then headed for Hollywood and found minor roles in films before landing the pivotal role of Ben Cartwright's oldest and best-educated son Adam in the Bonanza (1959) series in 1959. The series became the second longest-running TV western (after Gunsmoke) and the first to be filmed in color.

Many of the years after Bonanza were rocky for Roberts. He never found a solid footing in films with roles in rugged, foreign films such as Tibetana (1970) and Four Rode Out (1970), making little impression.

In 1979 he finally won another long-running series role (and an Emmy nomination) as Trapper John, M.D. (1979) in which he recreated the Wayne Rogers TV M*A*S*H (1972) role. Pernell was now heavier, bearded and pretty close to bald at this juncture. The medical drama co-starring Gregory Harrison ran seven seasons.

Retiring in the late 1990s, Roberts was diagnosed with cancer in 2007. Roberts died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Malibu, California, survived by his fourth wife Eleanor Criswell.

RIP

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