March 2008 Edition Penny McQueen, Editor Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. |
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The March 2008 High Chaparral newsletter brings you:
IN MEMORIAM Alex Sharp by Andy Klyde It is with deep regret and sorrow that I have to report the passing of Alex Sharp in Los Angeles on Thursday, March 6, 2008. He had suffered from heart and stroke-related ailments in recent months.
A veteran of the Korean War, Alex was a tremendous athlete, a quality that served him well during his fifty years in Hollywood. He was a founding and lifetime member of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures, but it was his outstanding writing skills that endeared him most to BONANZA and THE HIGH CHAPARRAL enthusiasts. Alex authored some of the most beloved and fondly remembered episodes, including "Hound Dog," "Old Sheba" (directed by his long-time friend and golfing buddy, John Florea), "The Hayburner" and "The Covey." A man of limitless energy and enthusiasm, and one of the all-time great raconteurs, Alex will be missed by his legion of fans whom he regaled with his tales at BONANZA and THE HIGH CHAPARRAL conventions. Alex is survived by his devoted wife Keo. Memorial details will be posted when available. ANDY KLYDE, for Bonanza Ventures, Inc. For further information: AJKLYDE@yahoo. com, Or (718) 261-4128
Susan is connected to The High Chaparral in many ways, since she worked in casting for the show, is the daughter of famed composer Harry Sukman, and is married to Kent McCray, producer. As a supporter of the Theater Arts department at Eastern, Susan established The Susan McCray Account for The Theater Arts which
supports special initiatives and programs for its students. She has
given seminars and brought actors and writers as guest speakers to
Eastern. The school’s acclaimed J. Eugene Smith Library, is the proud
recipient of a collection of music scores composed by some of the great
masters of classical music donated by Susan. The books were part of the
incredible Harry Sukman collection. Susan felt the music should be at
Eastern in order to inspire its students, staff, faculty and friends. Ted Markland, Child's Play by Penny McQueen
 January 15th brings us our first Chaparral birthday of the year, Ted Markland.
Originally working as a stand-up comic, Ted was spotted by David
Dortort during his act. “It was during my stand-up comedy days at the
Troubador. I had worked for him before, so he knew me from Restless
Gun. Bobby Fuller and I, that was for both of us, one of our first
jobs, I think, out at Republic. We played the young bad guys. It was
pretty good, really.” That first job as a young bad guy turned into
good news for Markland. “I was doing my nightclub act, and he stopped
in after the show to say hello. He said, “Listen, how would you like to
work regular, and be a regular on the show?” “I said, ‘Aw no, I can’t do that! Of course I’ll do that, what do you mean!’ It was great, he said, ‘I’ll be calling you,’ and he did, he got in touch with my agent and all that, and the rest of what happened is sort of history. Bonanza, Chaparral, they’re just perfect.” 
Swept up into a new phase of his career, Ted left stand-up behind him
when he accepted the role of Reno and took up his post on the ranch
house roof. “We all started Chaparral, we all went in and got ready and
did the pilot in Old Tucson, I knew Jerry Summers, then we all became
friends doing The High Chaparral.” Like all of the Bunkhouse Boys, the
tall, good-looking Markland came in for his fair share of attention.
“All the girls who came on the set would ask or write and ask for the
fringe - the leather fringe from the shirt. I guess it was sort of
famous or something. ‘Oh Reno, can we get a piece of the fringe, the
fringe.’ I thought it was just a costume, you know, so I’d cut off a
piece and give it to them. The guy from the wardrobe went crazy. ‘No,
no don’t do that, you won’t have a shirt left! Here’s a whole roll of
it, just cut it off that.’”  “I
was answering all the mail myself, it was a lot of mail. Months had
gone by, and I got this big pile of fan mail from a lot of ladies. So I
waited a while to see what kind of scenes I’d get, and I said ‘David,
can I get bigger scenes? Look at all these people?’ But of course
Dortort just laughed because actors always want more lines. He said
he’d see, and I got some good scenes. Dortort was great, he let me do
that last Bonanza when I had long hair, playing the bad guy. He was
good to me.” When High Chaparral ended, Ted continued to work, becoming a fixture as a guest star in episodic television and movies. With a long list of credits on his resume, such as Simon and Simon, Night Rider, The Hulk, and many more, he’s recognizable in re-runs through decades following the Reno years. Including Wanda Nevada, his favorite role. “That was like a western set in the 50’s, with Peter Fonda and Brooke Shields. I played the heavy with Luke Askew. I had this wonderful character that came through for me, this guy that shook his head, was always grabbing himself. I got great reviews. We shot all over the Grand Canyon, we’d fly down to little remote places on the river.” 
Actors take their inspiration from many places, and Ted recalls with
fondness where he found his motivation for his Wanda Nevada character,
Strap. “Everybody was doing wardrobe. Peter (Fonda) was having this
boring suit all tailored for him. Luke, who played the other heavy with
me, had a suit being fixed. The wardrobe guy came over, brought me up
this one button roll thing, right? Pegged pants, bow tie and black and
white shoes. I said, ‘What are you doing? These guys are gorgeous.’ The
wardrobe guy said, ‘I know what they’re wearing, you put this on and
look in the mirror.’ I put it on and looked in the mirror, I had on
this little porkpie hat. The wardrobe guy said, ‘Would you buy a used
car from this guy?” I said, ‘Hey…wanna buy a car down in Vegas?’ From
that moment on, I was the guy - Strap." When
Ted talks about acting, he says the secret is simple – return to the
simplicity of childhood. “Yeah, to be that open, like a child, that’s
what works. We were doing a play once near Albuquerque, the little kids
came out and wanted to act, and we’d say be a butterfly, be whatever,
and they were that. They did it. You get old and you get
self-conscious, you have to go to acting school. But those little kids,
that was a good lesson for me. ‘Be a fly’ I said to one of them.’ And
he was, he was.”Happy Birthday Ted, and may you always be as open as a child. Getting to Know You on KSAV.ORG
Tuesday nights, 6:30 p.m. Pacific and 9:30 p.m. Eastern Now on KSAV and WWUH in Hartford, CT March 11th
 Who's by the pool this time? Which High Chaparral actor is this? It could be any of them! Take a guess who this very young actor is and send your guesses to info@highchaparralnewsletter.com. All correct answers will be listed in the next newsletter, and all results will be posted. by Penny McQueen  In
February we celebrate the second cast Chaparral birthday of the year –
Linda Cristal. Born on February 23rd, during her tenure as one of
Hollywood’s hottest starlets, Linda – like many of her contemporaries –
kept the press guessing about the actual year of her birthdate. There
are conflicting reports in the popular press of the 50’s and 60’s
concerning Ms. Cristal’s age, and according to HCDG moderator Tina
Sweet, Linda still keeps her fans guessing. “Linda’s birthday has been reported in many different publications as the 24th and 25th, so I emailed her son Greg several years ago, and he set me straight on the correct date. It’s February 23rd,” Tina said recently.  “He
also told me he and his brother discovered at an early age the women
didn’t like to reveal their age. They tried several times –
unsuccessfully – to get their mother to reveal hers.” Deciding a little
Sherlock Holmes work was in order, the boys plotted. One night while
working a jigsaw puzzle, Greg asked, “Mom how old were you when I was
born.” Linda thought for a moment and replied, he had an answer and
said, “Ah ha!” Greg said he received one of the looks Victoria used to
give Manolito when she was upset with him.  The
good news is, he lived to tell the story. And being a smart young man,
he was careful not to reveal his mother’s age when sharing the
anecdote. To all her fans, Linda Cristal will always be Victoria Montoya Cannon no matter what her age, so Happy Birthday to the first lady of The High Chaparral.
From NBC – The Full Color Network
Biography for Linda Cristal, Co-star, The High Chaparral, Sundays, NBC Television Network 
Mechanical trouble on a ship sailing to Europe started Linda Cristal on
her way to becoming Victoria Cannon, co-star of the NBC Television
Network’s The High Chaparral. Born Victoria Moya, Feb. 24 in Buenos Aires, Aergentina, daughter of a French magazine publisher and his Italian wife, she was raised by brothers Miguel and Antonio following the death of her parents at 13. 
When she was 16, older brother Miguel sent her to Europe for further
education but the ship put into Vera Cruz for repairs. Mexican
producer-director Miguelito Aleman, son of the then president Miguel
Aleman, spotted the raven-haired brown-eyed beauty. She was an
immediate success in her first film, When the Fog Lifts. She starred in nine Aleman films in four years. After three more Spanish-speaking films she noticed an ad in a Mexican paper for an actress who spoke English (she can speak English, Italian, French and Spanish) and obtained a co-starring role with Dana Andres in Comanche. She then worked opposite Gilbert Roland and Lorne Greene in Last of the Fast Guns. 
Before coming to Hollywood under contract to Universal (1958-1963) she
made a series of films for European producers in France, Italy and
Yugoslavia. Linda’s Hollywood films include The Perfect Furlough, for which she won a Golden Globe Award, The Fiend That Walked the West, the feminine lead in The Alamo, and co-star in Two Rode Together.
Linda has 30 films to her credit including American, Italian, French,
Spanish and South American. Linda is the mother of two boys, Jordan, 3
and Gregory, 5 by her past marriage to producer-business man Yale
Wexler.NBC-New York, 8/1/67  The Epitome of a Starby Jan Lucas
The son of a matador, graceful Gilbert Roland seemed destined for the bull-ring. But in 1911 his family fled the Mexican Revolution, settling in California where teenaged Roland was recruited as a movie extra. Stand-out handsome, he readily found bit-parts, then fame as a “Latin Lover” leading man. Talkies killed the careers of other silent-era Romeos, but Roland’s silky voice ensured a seamless transition.  A
ladies’ man off-screen, Roland’s legendary liaisons included stars like
Norma Talmadge and Clara Bow. Nervy as any toreodor, his audacity
eventually worked against him. “He’d been blackballed because he’d been
caught messing around with one of the top producer’s wives,” said an
incredulous Henry Darrow. “Those guys played poker together!”The small, supporting roles available to Roland in the 1940s might have signaled a dying career. Instead, his talent, panache and work ethic made an indelible impression on critics and fans. Kent McCray first saw him on the set of Bonanza. “I really marveled at his creativity as an actor. And when the time came for him to replace Frank Silvera on Chaparral, I was more than thrilled because I always respected his work, having seen him in many different movies.” Calling him a “superstar”, McCray found Gilbert Roland was always on time for work and always prepared. “He was a sheer joy.”  Susan
McCray remembered him as the epitome of a star, wowing her when he
entered the casting office with an exquisite black and gold
walking-stick and said, “I am going to use this in the show. This is
priceless to me, and I want it to be used in this role so that it shows
the character and fineness of the man [Don Domingo Montoya].” To her,
Roland was “exceptional and he was in fact a dynamic character and a
charmer. Even at his age at that time, just charming! You could not
resist that feeling of your heart pounding when you looked at him.” Coming face-to-face with Gilbert Roland, Henry Darrow was in awe, but if his heart pounded, it was not entirely due to the older man’s star-power.  As
a young stage-actor, Darrow was impressed by the on-screen élan of
Roland’s Cisco Kid. “He’d put his hands on his hips, but not like with
the thumbs to the back. He’d put his hand on his hip like a
bullfighter, with his thumbs to the front.” Imitation being the
sincerest flattery, Darrow copied the pose and was comfortable using it
until Gilbert Roland appeared on the set of The High Chaparral. “And all of a sudden, here he is walking toward me and I’ve got my hand on my hip and I’m thinking, oh, my gosh, this is his bit! That’s the man I stole this from! I didn’t know where to put my hands at the beginning.” Darrow eventually shrugged off his embarrassment. “Then I thought, ah, what the heck? And it was a pleasure working with him. He exuded such confidence and style, it was a delight.”  Roland
traveled with his own wine, a 1966 Pommard, and promised fellow
oenophile Darrow a bottle. But at the end of the wrap party, Darrow was
without wine and sure the offer was forgotten. “He shakes my hand,
gives me un abrazo. I’m saying goodbye, it’s been a pleasure and I’m thinking about the wine, that he’s not going to come through.” Catching the younger man by surprise, Roland said, “Henry, come with me to my car.” Upon reaching the sleek white Cadillac convertible, Roland opened the trunk and presented a bottle of Pommard, declaring, “When Gilbert Roland gives his word, he keeps it.” Our contributing authors love feedback - send yours to info@highchaparralnewsletter.com. Chaparral Birthdays
 Ted Markland - January 15
 Linda Cristal - February 23 Guest Stars:  Gregory Walcott - January 13  BarBara Luna - March 2 Past issues of the newsletter are available
on The High Chaparral Newsletter Website.
  Warm Heart, Cool Hands a Tribute to My Friend The Vincent Falcone Trio presents Harry Sukman's music available at CDBaby.com Click here for a sample of Blue's Theme from High Chaparral  High Chaparral on the Web The Official High Chaparral website The High Chaparral Blog The High Chaparral Reunion website The High Chaparral Newsletter High Chaparral Fan Fiction Don Collier Henry Darrow Bob Hoy Ted Markland Susan McCray Rudy Ramos Mark Slade Out West Entertainment Comments, questions, suggestions? Send a letter to the editor at info@highchaparralnewsletter.com
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