Creator, stars’ relatives remember popular Western ‘Bonanza’

Friday, Sept. 10, 1999 | 9:20 a.m.

"Bonanza" ended after the final original show aired on Jan. 16, 1973. Although more than a quarter of a century has passed the program still is affecting people whose lives were changed by the popular television series that ran for 14 seasons on NBC.

The man who created "Bonanza" wants to make a motion picture based on the long-running TV series.

The daughter of series star Lorne Greene is looking for a publisher for the book she just completed on her father.

The son of Dan Blocker continues to enjoy the opportunities in film and television created by Blocker's success in the industry 40 years ago.

"It's really quite wonderful to see how the show still has enough of a following to generate this interest we have," New York City attorney Andy Klyde says.

Klyde represents Bonanza Ventures Inc., which must approve the commercial use of anything related to "Bonanza" and "High Chaparral," both shows created by writer/producer David Dortort.

"Requests are steady, but not overwhelming," Klyde said.

Interest has picked up with this weekend's 40th anniversary. Klyde said that one company is interested in an animated cartoon series; there are lots of requests from producers of commercials.

"Interest is directly related to the frequency with which episodes are shown on TV. Until recently the Family Channel had "Bonanza" as its cornerstone. Now it's on Pax TV (2 p.m. weekdays, Cox cable channel 50). The interest ebbs and flows," Klyde said.

Why has a Western that avoided gun duels and dealt with relationships endured for so long?

"People identify with the show," Dortort said. "We had a family that literally cared about each other. They loved each other. They fought for the land and protected their heritage. They fought for family values that people all over the world identified with."

Dortort, who was a history major and is a stickler for historic accuracy, noted that when "Bonanza" debuted it went against the popular myth of the Western, promoted in shows about drifting gunfighters who resolve their problems with guns and fists.

"The myth was at conflict with my sense of the history of the West, where gunfighters were an inconsequential part of that history, which was about people -- men, women, children and families. So why not do a series about a family?" Dortort said.

At the time he was developing "Bonanza" the mood of the country was changing, he said.

"I always tried to keep my ear close to the ground, tried to understand where we were going as a nation, what was the prevailing wind," Dortort said.

"Bonanza" may have been the first show whose underlying message was to protect the ecology, coming along at a time when the public was beginning to take notice of environmental concerns.

The motivation for Ben Cartwright moving to the Ponderosa was that he witnessed the rape of the land in California during the gold rush.

"He says, 'I am going to move my family high up into the Sierras where we will be safe from the destruction,' " the 80-year-old Dortort said.

Ben Cartwright wanted to escape the dark side of humanity, but he learned that there is no escape. Ten years after Sutter's Mill, silver was discovered on the Comstock Lode near Virginia City, prompting another rape of the environment: Forests were being cut down to supply timber for the mines.

"It was the greatest strike in the history of the world. It brought hordes of people in, making it a perfect place to show man's good side and his dark side," Dortort said.

Not only were the silver mines rich with stories, the time was at the start of the Civil War -- another mother lode of tales.

"The basis of the show was that we must cherish the land, not try to destroy it, and we don't have to be gunfighters to achieve our goals. We can be people with dreams and hopes for a better life," he said.

At the center of all the conflict in the show was the family that refused to be torn apart.

"Ben said, 'I will not have brother fighting brother in this house,' " Dortort said. "This message was going out at a time when this nation was in such distress."

The message didn't get across immediately. For the first two years the show was on Saturday nights opposite the top-rated "Perry Mason."

Dortort said his show finally beat "Mason" midway through the second season. And when "Bonanza" moved to Sunday nights, replacing Dinah Shore's show, it moved to No. 1 and stayed there for years.

"I had six people taking care of fan mail at the height of the show's popularity," Dortort said.

Although no deal has been made, Dortort is discussing the possibility of a theatrical film using the "Bonanza" characters. He says that the themes that drove the television show in the '60s are ones that today's audiences can relate to.

Linda Bennett, 54, also senses the keen interest in all things "Bonanza." She recently completed a book entitled "My Father's Voice," which is about the career of her father, Greene. "It describes what he was like as a father, from my personal point of view," Bennett, a resident of Santa Barbara, Calif., said.

She said she was 14 in 1959 when her father came home and told her he was going to be doing a series. "I told him I hoped it wasn't going to be a Western," the Canadian native said, adding that the Ben Cartwright father figure was not that different from the Greene father figure.

"He was not always that way, of course. But they were very much alike," she said. "He drew a lot of his character from his own father and the idealized father that he wanted to be."

Bennett thought about an acting career, but after some fatherly advice from Greene she decided to go into accounting.

However, Dirk Blocker, 42, the son of Dan Blocker, did become an actor. His brother, David, is a producer.

Dirk Blocker was 14 when his father died from a blood clot during a minor operation. At the time he, David and one of their two sisters were at the family's residence in Switzerland, where Dan Blocker had moved them two years earlier.

"Mom and Dad had decided to expose us to the bigger world," Dirk Blocker said.

He recalled his father as being quite different from the character in the television series.

"A big chunk of him was there. They were both sweet-natured human beings and the physical aspects were the same," Dirk Blocker said. "But Hoss was a simple man. My dad was sweet-natured but very complex. He was a school teacher. He had a master's degree in theater arts. He was working on a Ph.D when he got the 'Bonanza' part."

Dan Blocker was a voracious reader with a photographic memory who could scan five pages of dialogue and remember it in one reading.

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