Alias Smith & Jones

by Sandra K. Sagala

  At the Silver Palace, Heyes introduces himself as Carleton Balfour and begins his first hand of blackjack. As soon as the hand is dealt, Heyes informs the manager, Mr. Phillips, that the house is using a marked deck. Phillips bristles and denies anyone could have introduced a marked deck into the casino. Heyes demonstrates, announcing the value of each card before turning it over. Harry steps up and confiscates the deck. Heyes apologizes to Phillips for not keeping the matter private, but he had no idea a Bannerman detective was lurking nearby. The manager takes a new deck from the bottom drawer in the table and the gambling begins.

  Heyes wins consistently. Finally the dealer consults with Phillips, who’s certain there can’t be any system in blackjack, so sooner or later the percentages will switch back in the casino’s favor. The game continues, and so does Heyes’s winning streak.

  Phillips finally figures out that Mr. Balfour is memorizing the cards as they’re played, making large bets only when there are about twelve cards left in the deck and he can be fairly certain of what they are. This puts the odds way out in his favor. Phillips advises the dealer to reshuffle the deck when he reaches the middle from now on.

  Heyes protests when the deck is reshuffled, but Phillips calmly explains there is no rule against it, either in Hoyle or in the house rules. Heyes is good-natured about being found out, content with the $32,000 he’s won. But before he goes, he’d like to see what kind of cards they keep in the top drawer of the table. Curry’s gun stops Phillips from objecting while Heyes and Harry check out the cards under the watchful eye of the local marshal. They’re marked. “Show him your warrant, Marshal,” Harry says. “I think the Silver Palace just went out of business.”

  In Hadleyburg, Attorney Brubaker arrives to represent the Tapscotts. He asks the judge for a delay while he prepares his defense. The surly judge isn’t inclined to be helpful, but Brubaker insists and finally the judge agrees, not wanting his verdict to be overturned by an appeals court.

  Hadleyburg, a shabby little town, is undergoing a flurry of civic improvements. Brubaker strolls along the main street, noting with satisfaction the large signs proclaiming the construction is compliments of Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry. From their vantage point in a tree outside of town, Heyes and Curry watch the workers through binoculars, pleased at how well Brubaker is handling things. Curry is kind of choked up about it. “You mean, all the good we’re doing for Hadleyburg?” Heyes asks. “No,” Curry replies. “All the money it’s costing us.”

  As the trial comes to an end, the prosecutor gives his summation, but he has difficulty whipping up any enthusiasm for his case and trails off, saying the prosecution rests. The judge is incensed. “Rests? If you want my opinion, it laid down and died.” The judge takes over, pointing out that Hadleyburg is enjoying the benefits of Heyes and Curry’s largesse, but the jury should realize that the two outlaws have spent at least $25,000 on the town. Where did they get that money? They got it by robbing banks and holding up trains! Mr. Brubaker objects. He has a witness who can disprove that prejudicial statement.

  The judge re-opens the trial and Brubaker calls Harry Briscoe to the stand. Harry testifies that Heyes won over $32,000 exposing the crooked games at the Silver Palace. The judge sinks back in defeat and the jury wastes no time in acquitting the Tapscotts.

  Harry leaves the courtroom and fires a rocket from the middle of the street in celebration. Heyes and Curry see the signal, happy to learn the Tapscotts are free.

  GUEST CAST

  J.D. CANNON — HARRY BRISCOE

  ANDY DEVINE — SHERIFF PINTELL

  SHEREE NORTH — BESS TAPSCOTT

  WALLY COX — MATT TAPSCOTT

  DAVE GARROWAY — JUDGE MARTIN

  DANIEL FRANCIS — MARTIN JURY FOREMAN

  ADAM WEST — MR. BRUBAKER

  DAVID GRUNER — TOMMY TAPSCOTT

  FREDERIC DOWNS — MR. HANSON

  BILL ANDERSON — COBB

  GENE EVANS — PHILLIPS

  ROBERT GOODEN — DEPUTY

  The title of this episode comes from a short story by Mark Twain. In that tale, the citizens of Hadleyburg had an unassailable reputation for honesty which they jealously guarded from all temptation. But faced with the opportunity to claim a fortune through lies and deceit, each of the leading citizens succumbs to the lure of corruption that would lead to riches rather than maintaining the integrity that would keep them poor. Heyes uses the same psychology to gain public sympathy for the Tapscotts and ensure their acquittal.

  Roy Huggins was always concerned with the historical accuracy of the show, yet he would occasionally accept some stretching of dates. Life on the Mississippi was published in 1883, putting it within the acceptable range for Heyes and Curry to have knowledge of it, but “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” wasn’t published until 1899, so Heyes was allowed to come up with his plan for corrupting the citizens of Hadleyburg here without any help from Twain. In the early drafts of the script, when Curry hopes for a hidden file inside the blackberry pie, Heyes tells him he’s read The Prisoner of Zenda too many times. Huggins made a note to check on the publication date of this novel and, finding it was published in 1894, deleted the reference and changed it to “too many dime novels” instead.

  “The Men That Corrupted Hadleyburg” was the last episode to finish filming before Peter Duel’s death. It typically took two to three weeks to finish post-production once principal photography was completed and this episode was no exception. By January 7, 1972, the show had been edited, with music and sound effects added. But there was a problem. Parts of the soundtrack were bad, not an uncommon occurrence, and Peter Duel’s death forced the studio to make another tough decision. Having already decided to keep the show in production, they didn’t want to lose an episode just because of the soundtrack issues. Paul Frees, a talented voice actor, was hired to imitate Peter’s voice and replace the dialogue in the bad sections. Luckily only a few scenes needed to be looped: where Heyes and Curry are outside the Bannerman Detective Agency waiting for Harry Briscoe; where Heyes and Curry share a campfire supper with the Tapscotts; and where Harry tells them of the Tapscott’s fate. Jo Swerling remembers the agony of that dubbing session. “It was awful…it was just one of the little shades of awfulness that [was] added when we had to replace those scenes with another actor, however good he was or hard he tried…[Paul Frees] came in and listened to the tracks and did a remarkable job. But I cringe when I think of how we all felt when we were doing it. We just wanted to quit.” [64]

  When the final day’s shooting on this episode was over, no one knew that tragedy was soon to strike. It was Christmas Eve, 1971. After wrapping things up, the cast and crew attended a Christmas party where they cracked open a bottle of champagne Peter Duel had provided to celebrate the season. One more episode was in the can, and the holiday weekend was upon them. Spirits were high. A week later everything would change.

  Earl Holliman as Wheat Carlson. Courtesy of Earl Holliman

  Walter Brennan guest starred as Grandma Curry in “The Day They Hanged Kid Curry.” Jerry Ohlinger’s Movie Materials Store

  Peter Duel and Jack Cassidy in “How to Rob a Bank in One Hard Lesson.”

  Peter Duel with Jack Albertson in “Jailbreak at Junction City.” Jerry Ohlinger’s Movie Materials Store

  A bearded Kid Curry in “Smiler with a Gun.”

  Peter Duel with his dogs. Courtesy of Ben Murphy

  Sally Field as Clementine Hale with Kid Curry. Jerry Ohlinger’s Movie Materials Store

  Courtesy of Ben Murphy

  Dick Cavett guest starred as the sheriff in “21 Days to Tenstrike.” Jerry Ohlinger’s Movie Materials Store

  Señor Armendariz, played by Cesar Romero.

  Chapter 6

  December 31, 1971

  Friday, December 31, 1971, dawned bright and clear. The rain that had been pounding Los Angeles all month finally moved on, ensuring that the annual Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year’s Day would once again enjoy dry, sunny weat
her. Director Alex Singer was on his way to the studio for another day of shooting on his current assignment — an episode of Alias Smith and Jones. He took a shortcut through Hollywood Hills, listening to the radio as he drove. The morning news came on and in stunned disbelief he listened as the reporter announced that Peter Duel was found dead in his house with a gunshot wound to his head. He pulled the car over to the side of the road and just sat there staring out the window. “I’d never heard that, I’d never heard of somebody that I knew killing themselves.” [1]

  Thursday, December 30, had been a normal day on the set. It was the fourth day of shooting “The Biggest Game in the West” and the schedule called for filming a big poker game. The complex scene involved several master shots and numerous two-shots as well as close-ups of Peter and all of the guest stars. Peter was in a good mood and had been throughout the shoot, turning in an excellent performance. Jo Swerling remembers, “They were the best dailies that any of us remember. There seemed to be something extra dynamic about his performance…his work was impressive in that episode, more so than in the others.” [2]

  When shooting wrapped for the day, Peter planned to go to the movies to see A Clockwork Orange with friend Dennis Fimple. But at the last minute, Peter was called back to do some looping for “The McCreedy Bust: Going, Going, Gone.” Fimple had already seen the film and was only going to keep Peter company, so the delay caused Fimple to reconsider. “I don’t want to go and sit while you do looping and then go to a movie,” he told his friend. Peter was fine with that, saying, “We’ll catch it next time.” [3] The looping session didn’t take too long, and Peter was home in time to tune in that night’s broadcast of Alias Smith and Jones — “Miracle At Santa Marta.” Peter, girlfriend Diane Ray and friend Hal Frizzell watched the show together. When it was over, Frizzell left and Peter switched over to the Lakers basketball game. The Lakers were trying for their thirtieth straight win, a feat no sports team had ever accomplished. [4] Throughout the evening, as he often did, Peter drank heavily. Diane went to bed before the game was over and was awakened when Peter came into the bedroom and retrieved his gun. Peter’s last words to the half-asleep Diane were “I’ll see you later.” Shortly afterward, she heard a gunshot and went to the living room to find Peter dead.

  No one will ever know exactly what went through his mind that night. Those who were around him can only offer observations, naturally tempered by their own perceptions. Did Peter finally reach the end of his rope and consciously decide to kill himself? Jo Swerling believes so. “He was very subject to massive mood changes. That was one of the sides to his personality and I suppose contributed to what happened.” Peter had been upbeat the week before his death and, in hindsight, Swerling wonders if his exceptionally dynamic performance was the result of having made the decision to die. “That sort of fits into this thing one hears about suicidal people…when they make up their mind that they’re going to do it, they all of a sudden for a brief period feel like the monkey’s off their back and the albatross is not around their neck anymore and they seem happy. And then, boom, they’re out the window.” But while Swerling feels this psychology might apply to Peter, he admits that no one will ever know what really happened. “Why that night?…We’ll never know.” [5]

  Monty Laird had a different theory. Despite Peter’s depression, Laird believed that his actions were not deliberate, but accidental. Peter had a bad habit of playing around with the gun he wore as Hannibal Heyes, especially while sitting in makeup. He’d aim to the right, “bang,” to the left, “bang,” and at his head, “bang.” This disturbed Laird, who told him on numerous occasions not to fool around and to treat guns with more respect. His admonitions made no impression on the actor. When Peter was on the set this game was harmless because the gun wasn’t loaded, but it led to a dangerous habit. Was Peter’s suicide the result of him fooling around with a gun that was loaded? There’s no way to know, but Laird was convinced this was the answer. [6]

  Dennis Fimple, never certain if Peter’s death was suicide or accident, nevertheless always blamed himself. “If I’d stayed and gone with him [to the movies] maybe it wouldn’t have happened,” Fimple recalled sadly, still missing his friend decades later. He was familiar with Peter’s problem with alcohol and felt it contributed to his death. “He would be fine, smoke grass or whatever, he would be fine, but he’d start drinking and it was like — oh no. He’d reach a point where, you know, he ain’t coming back, he’s gonna go on.” [7] That night Peter did indeed go on, mixing large quantities of alcohol with a loaded gun.

  Whether his death was a deliberate act or the result of drunken carelessness remains a mystery. What is undeniable is that Peter Duel suffered from depression.

  Clinical depression is widely recognized today and is considered to be the common cold of psychiatric disorders, [8] however, it was not so widely known in 1971. Peter exhibited classic symptoms but they sounded no warning bells to those around him. Moodiness in an actor was nothing unusual — most people called it “artistic temperament.” But depression is an illness, not a mood. It’s a chemical imbalance in the brain that makes it almost physically impossible to feel happiness, to have fun, to put life’s problems into proper perspective. Nowadays anti-depressant medications offer help to sufferers by restoring their brain chemistry to more normal levels. Recognition of the illness has led to advances in therapy and a lessening of the stigma attached to psychiatric disorders, leading more people to seek help.

  Peter Duel gave many interviews during his years in Hollywood and as we look back at them, certain comments he made stand out starkly against the events of December 30/31. In March 1967, Modern Screen published an article in which Peter described his feelings at the age of sixteen. “I didn’t see one thing in my future that I really wanted…I was down, terribly depressed. That’s when I decided to commit suicide. I thought about it for a long time. I felt useless.” [9] The author of the article passes this off as teenage angst and contrasts it with his new status as Hollywood heartthrob following his success in Love on a Rooftop. But these feelings were an early symptom of Peter’s lifelong struggle with depression and not just a passing phase of adolescence. In another 1967 interview, Peter offered this viewpoint, “I don’t believe that anyone is ever perfectly contented in any situation. That’s a fact of life we have to accept.” [10] To Peter, accustomed to the debilitating effects of depression on his ability to feel happiness, a lack of contentment seemed normal and he would probably not have believed that many people do feel perfectly contented in their lives, despite tribulations they face. As family and friends struggled to understand Peter’s suicide, his sister Pamela observed that Peter magnified his problems out of all proportion, “He couldn’t cope.” [11] Co-star Ben Murphy recalls that “he took everything to heart. If a whale died off the coast that bothered Peter. Social injustice bothered Peter. He was an idealist to the core.” [12] Jo Swerling echoes this view. “The impression that I had of Peter was that he tended to assume the responsibility for the evils of the world. You know, as long as people were starving in India, he was frustrated because he couldn’t do anything about it.” [13] His inner sense of worthlessness, another common symptom of depression, was only exacerbated by his compassion for others, leading him to take upon himself the blame for social ills. Shortly before his death, Peter commented to an interviewer, “I can’t help myself. I live with a constant feeling of futility and frustration.” The reporter noted that Peter’s “voice had a ring of doom.” [14] To someone suffering from clinical depression, those feelings of worthlessness make every setback seem insurmountable and it is impossible to face problems with any sort of optimism that things will eventually improve. In Peter’s case, his depression led to his feeling of being trapped in his Universal contract, forced to perform in a series that, on his bad days, he considered to be “trash.” In a normal mental state, he’d have seen that Alias Smith and Jones was not trash, but instead a charming and witty western, that it entertained million
s of people and, if that weren’t enough, well, contracts can be broken or renegotiated.

  So on that December night, fortified with alcohol, Peter Duel pulled the trigger of a loaded gun. He ended his own pain, but the pain only began for his family, his friends and his fans.

  News of Peter’s death spread quickly. The coroner officially pronounced him dead at 1:33 a.m. and within two hours the media had latched on to the story. Local radio stations began broadcasting the news before dawn and, by the time the city woke to face the new day, the Los Angeles Times was alerting its readers with the banner headline “ ‘Alias Smith’ Shot to Death.”

  While the police located the Deuel family in New York, the Hollywood grapevine was operating in full force. Dorothy Bailey, Roy Huggins’s secretary, was the first member of the Alias Smith and Jones production team to learn of Peter’s death. She was awakened at 4:00 a.m. by a phone call from a relative who heard the news on the radio while working the swing shift. Bailey was a good friend of Peter’s and had even dated him briefly. The tragic news devastated her. In hysterics, she called Jo Swerling.

  Swerling raced over to Bailey’s apartment and spent the next half hour calming her down. When she regained control of herself, together they called Roy Huggins, waking him up to break the news. Huggins recalled, “I immediately decided that the show was cancelled. That was it.” He told Swerling to begin shutting down the production company. Neither man wanted Ben Murphy to learn of his co-star’s death through the media so, before heading to Universal, Swerling and Bailey stopped at Ben’s apartment. [15]