Lorne Greene

Lorne Greene habla sobre el estar en una serie exitosa, Bonanza, durante 14 años. También recuerda como era Hollywood cuando llegó por primera vez, en la década del 40. En vocabulario: Razzle-dazzle y para saber: Century City.

… We had a tremendous amount of help from so many people who came along the way that the show couldn´t help but become successful…

Lorne Greene nació de inmigrantes judíos rusos, Dora y Daniel Green, zapatero. Su madre lo llamaba "Chaim", y su nombre aparece como "Hyman" en sus boletines de calificaciones de la escuela. En una biografía que fue escrita por su hija Linda Greene Bennett, ella escribió que no se sabía cuándo comenzó a usar el nombre de Lorne, ni cuando agregó una "e" a Green. Greene fue instructor de teatro en Camp Arowhon, un campamento de verano en Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canadá, donde desarrolló su talento.

Lorne Greene on Today

Lorne Greene on Today with Steve Liebmann and Sue Kellaway from the early 1980s

—For 14 years our guest has rode the ranges of the Ponderosa in the television series Bonanza. As head of the Cartwright clan Lorne Green became a household name around the world. In fact the show is still running in many countries including Australia where Lorne Greene himself has gone into a number of new projects and he joins us in our Hollywood studios. Good morning, Lorne. Thank you for coming in. I should tell you that every time we come to work at 4 o´clock in the morning we can see you in the rerun of Bonanza so I guess Bonanza was a real bonanza for you. Did you ever get sick of it in all those years?

Lorne Greene en Bonanza

—I´m sorry. I didn´t quite understand that.

—Did you ever get tired of the show, tired of the role going on for so long?

—No. Bonanza was what I would call a fun show to do. The people were great. The guest stars we had were marvelous. Our crew was tremendous. And we looked forward to get up at 5, 30 or 5 o´clock in the morning to go out on location because we knew it was going to be a fun day.

—And we had a tremendous amount of help from so many people who came along the way that the show couldn´t help but become successful. We had so many people helping us.

—Was it hard to get rid of that Ben Cartwright image? I mean sometimes typecasting can be a real barrier to moving on to new successes but it doesn´t seem to have been the case for you.

—Well, of course. If you´re on long enough playing  a certain character, like 14 years, people begin to recognize you as “Hi, Ben” or “Hi, Cartwright” or whatever and they respond to that but they also ask questions about the show so after 14 years and many more since we were out there because we were finished in 1973. I was on a plane the other day from New York to Los Angeles and the plane was very full. And somebody sent a request for an autograph and before I knew it I was signing autographs for 200 people back there and this does not deter me nor does it make me unhappy because when they stop asking for autographs then you know it´s over.

—Lorne, you first went from Canada to Hollywood and also to work on Broadway in 1953 and give or take a few absences from Hollywood. Has it changed a great deal?

—Hollywood?

—Yes.

—Yes, very much.

—For better or worse?

—Hollywood has changed… the whole visual effect of Hollywood has changed because there are so many new buildings going up. Some studios go out of business. 20^th Century Fox sold off 300 acres and now we have Century City and all those changes have been taking place in the last 25, 30 years and Hollywood is not the Hollywood I remember when I first was here. Yes, the first time I came to Hollywood was 1943 when I was in the Canadian army and then it was a very peaceful, quiet town with beautiful weather and occasionally you saw a little cloud on the sky and you said “Oh, look. There´s a cloud.” But things have changed.

—The town has a lot of critics these days. Is the criticism justified?

—I think to a certain extend it is justified. There is very little that I would call new on the networks today in Hollywood and in the United States but more and more independent producers are getting into television, and they´re bringing with them shows which deal more with people and the people who matter, family people. Vanessa was a family show and it´s been a long time since it´s been what I call a very good family show. Little House on the Prairie was a good family show. The Waltons was a good family show. There have been others like that but on the whole there´s a lot of razzle-dazzle today. Battlestar Galactica had a lot of special effects and special effects have taken over a great deal of the work of actors in television today… (Transcripted 5, 31 minutes)

Para saber

Century City es un vecindario y distrito comercial de 71,2 ha. en Los Ángeles, California. Ubicado en el lado oeste al sur del bulevar Santa Mónica, a unos 16 kilómetros al oeste del centro de Los Ángeles, Century City es uno de los centros de empleo más destacados en el área metropolitana de Los Ángeles, y sus rascacielos forman un horizonte distintivo en el Westside.

El distrito se desarrolló en el antiguo edificio del estudio de cine 20th Century Fox, y su primer edificio se inauguró en 1963. Hay dos escuelas privadas, pero no hay escuelas públicas en el vecindario. Importantes para la economía son el centro comercial Westfield Century City, torres de negocios y Fox Studios.

Vocabulario

Razzle-dazzle: confusion.

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