Alias Smith & Jones: The Story of Two Pretty Good Bad Men

by Sandra K. Sagala

  Larson continued to write spec scripts while touring with his musical group The Four Preps. The group had been discovered at a high school talent contest in 1956 and signed to a long-term contract with Capitol Records. They enjoyed a long string of hits including “26 Miles,” a song celebrating the island of Santa Catalina, located twenty-six miles off the coast of Southern California, and written by Larson and fellow group member Bruce Belland. That song set the tone for the West Coast beach sound of the sixties. “I wish we’d been as smart as Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys,” Larson muses, “because we figured one song and that’s over, you got to find something else.” The Four Preps traveled the world, performing for students at college campuses and for the troops in Vietnam. Larson made his first sale as a writer to the series 12 O’Clock High and saw his first screen credit — “Story by Glen A. Larson” — flash by on television just before he went on stage for a concert at the University of Arizona campus.

  By this point Larson was tired of traveling and of being one of four with “all the disadvantages of a marriage without any of the advantages.” He was ready to try a solo career as a television writer. His big break came with a spec script for It Takes A Thief. The series was a mid-season replacement show and was short on scripts, providing a welcome opportunity for a newcomer. Larson pitched a story to producer Gene Coon, who told him that if he could have the script on his desk by Monday, he’d buy it. Larson returned with the script on Monday. “They liked it so much they make me the story editor,” Larson remembers. He continued writing for It Takes A Thief, eventually becoming a producer. He also worked on McCloud and The Virginian before getting the opportunity to create his own show with Alias Smith and Jones. [6]

  For eight weeks Douglas Heyes and Glen Larson worked on the pilot script and finally at the end of September 1970, it was time to cast the roles. Into the West came two more men — Peter Duel and Ben Murphy.

  Peter Ellstrom Deuel was born on February 24, 1940, the eldest child of Dr. Ellsworth and Lillian Deuel. He grew up in the small town of Penfield, New York, in a one hundred year old house that served as both the family home and his father’s medical office. Behind the house were woods that Peter and siblings Geoff and Pam used as their own private playground. “We had a wonderful childhood,” Peter once told an interviewer. [7]

  Bright but not academically motivated, Peter skated through school, preferring a confrontation with the principal to the boredom of the classroom. [8] School was something that got in the way of his preferred outdoor activities. “I resented the way the school was ruining my day, making me waste time hanging around between classes.” [9] His lackadaisical attitude extended even to the drama department where he participated in school plays, but abstained from learning his lines, a habit he occasionally indulged in even after becoming a professional actor.

  Despite a happy childhood and a loving family, Peter became suicidal as a teen. His view of the world around him was bleak and he personally felt useless. “I didn’t know what was going to happen to me if I died, but it seemed the only sensible thing to do.” [10] He resisted the urge to kill himself at age sixteen, but never really recovered from the depression that drove the urge.

  Peter’s love of aviation had given him the ambition to be an Air Force pilot, but he was rejected when his vision tested at 20/30 rather than the required 20/20. However, in 1967 a journalist noted in her article, “Ironically, at the present — nearly nine years later — Pete has 20/20 vision. The only explanation for the previous reading would seem to have been fatigue…” [11] While it’s possible Peter’s eye test was influenced by fatigue, there is another explanation for his rejection. Peter had epilepsy. “He would have petit mal seizures,” former girlfriend Kim Darby confides, “You couldn’t really recognize them, but he would just go out for a minute and then come back.” [12] While this could be dealt with in day-to-day life, it would not be acceptable in an Air Force pilot. As an actor, though, it didn’t slow him down. As Jo Swerling recalls, “He never used [the epilepsy] as an excuse and it never affected his work.” [13]

  With the Air Force plan foiled, he attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, more because it was a family tradition than from a real desire for higher education. Officially, Peter majored in English, Drama and Psychology, a pretty full load for someone who disliked school. Unofficially, he “majored in drinking and girls.” [14] He moved in to Lee Hall, the freshman residence, and met a kindred spirit, Jack Jobes. The two became good friends. “We were always in trouble,” Jobes remembers, “because we just didn’t go with the mainstream.” Their early days at St. Lawrence were spent making sure they didn’t run out of beer and avoiding upperclassmen who delighted in hazing freshmen.

  One night Jobes and Peter, along with other friends, staged a panty raid, a very daring escapade at the conservative school. Someone hissed, “The Dean’s coming!” Peter put his head down and ran. Straight into a tree. The Dean of Men picked him up and commanded, “Mr. Deuel, I’ll see you in my office!” Jobes laughs as he recalls, “And that was it, he was busted again.” [15]

  In his sophomore year, Peter was cast in The Rose Tattoo. His father came to see the performance and afterward encouraged Peter to leave St. Lawrence and enroll in drama school instead. “Why don’t you go to New York now and stop wasting your time and my money?” [16] he asked his son. This advice coincided with the Dean’s announcement that Peter Deuel was now persona non grata at St.

  Lawrence, so Peter left the university and auditioned for The American Theatre Wing. He was accepted and spent two years there learning his craft and gaining practical experience. He returned to St. Lawrence as a visiting actor in what would have been his senior year, starring in Born Yesterday with Jack Jobes and Connie Ming.

  His first television role came in 1961 when he appeared in an episode of Armstrong Circle Theater, one of the major dramatic anthology shows from television’s “Golden Age.” A part in the theatrical film Wounded In Action followed, which in turn led to a co-starring role in the national company of Take Her, She’s Mine. The six-month tour provided Peter with his first glimpse of Los Angeles and after the tour ended he made up his mind to give up New York and the pursuit of Broadway in exchange for Hollywood and the pursuit of film and television.

  In 1963 Peter made the move across country in a trip he described as an adventure wherein he scorned hotels and simply pitched a tent when he was ready to stop. He complained about a rainy spell in the Rocky Mountains, but the overall impression is that the journey was one long camping trip for this solitary young man. [17] However, he didn’t make the trip alone. “His mother came out with him. They made the drive from New York. ‘Come on, Petey, I’ll get you going.’ Isn’t that neat?” friend Dennis Fimple recalled, still finding her devotion to her son charming after all these years. [18]

  Once settled in Southern California, Peter made the rounds of auditions, where he won parts in series such as Combat!, Gomer Pyle USMC, 12 O’Clock High and The Fugitive. While these early roles were small, he was consistently employed and was becoming known in the industry. He developed a plan for his career — five years in Hollywood to establish his name, then back to New York and the Broadway stage. He also began playing with the spelling of his name, being variously credited as Peter E. Deuel, Peter Deuel, and Pete Deuel, before finally settling on the short and snappy Pete Duel. In 1965 he got his first real break when he became a regular on Gidget, playing stuffy brother-in-law John Cooper opposite Sally Field’s free-spirited Gidget. The series lasted only one season, and Peter did not appear in every episode, but he was already being noticed by the teen magazines.

  In 1966 Peter won the role of David Willis in Love on a Rooftop, where he co-starred with Judy Carne and moved into the ranks of full-fledged Hollywood heartthrobs. Suddenly every aspect of his life was fodder for movie magazines and his status as a handsome, eligible bachelor was of the utmost importance to teenage girls across the nation. Love on a Rooftop was a new breed of
sitcom that found humor in realistic situations rather than in the fantasy worlds offered by Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie or the improbable rural antics of Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies. Julie and Dave Willis were average people faced with average problems, inhabiting the same world the audience did. This realism contributed to its demise, because “it delivered very human, very funny characters in mildly realistic situations that many young adults could identify with. In doing so, the program was years ahead of its time — and it was totally destroyed by the more familiar competition of NBC’s movies and CBS’s Petticoat Junction.” [19]

  After Love on a Rooftop’s cancellation, Peter signed a seven year contract with Universal and interspersed television guest spots with movie roles, appearing in feature films The Hell with Heroes in 1968, Generation in 1969 and Cannon for Cordoba in 1970, as well as in two failed television pilots — The Scavengers (a.k.a. Only One Day Left before Tomorrow and How to Steal an Airplane) in 1968 and The Young Country in 1970. During this time, Peter also became involved in politics, campaigning for Senator Eugene McCarthy during the 1968 presidential election. As a celebrity worker he was invited to the Democratic Convention in Chicago where he found himself facing a National Guardsman’s bayonet in the midst of the riot. Jo Swerling recalls, “He witnessed all of this stuff and came back having nightmares about it…It affected him very, very deeply, that whole experience.” [20]

  Peter was enjoying the variety and the challenge that came with his guest star roles and wasn’t particularly interested in starring in another series when Alias Smith and Jones came along in late 1970. But he was still under contract to Universal and they wanted him for Hannibal Heyes. Price explains, “Clearly we wanted Ben. The hard one to get was Peter, because he was a little mercurial, very talented. If we could get him, it was ‘Lock him in.’ ” Somewhat to Price’s surprise they were able to lock him in. Peter later complained that he was forced into accepting the role, saying, “I had no choice…As a player under contract, I had to do what Universal told me.” [21] However, this claim might have been an attempt by Peter to justify his unhappiness, because Frank Price had been by no means certain they would be able to convince him to take the role. Forcing Peter to accept it just because he was under contract was not a tactic Price would consider using. “It never did any good to hold [a contract] over anyone’s head,” Price recalls. “You had to persuade them it was the right role because you didn’t want an unhappy actor in there. Going in you know they’re going to be unhappy ultimately because it’s very difficult to do a series week in and week out.” So while Peter might have felt he was obligated to take the part being offered to him, from Price’s perspective it wasn’t a sure thing. “I look back on it and say it was sort of fluke time. I was pleased to have him. He was in the right mood.” [22]

  During Alias Smith and Jones’s too short run, journalists referred to Ben Murphy as television’s Robert Redford. [23] Kid Curry, who remarkably resembled the other half of the Butch/Sundance duo, Paul Newman, had become the small screen’s answer to the Sundance Kid.

  Benjamin Edward Lesse Castleberry was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, on March 6, 1942. His parents, Ben, Sr. and Nadine, divorced when he was two years old and Ben lived with his grandparents in Memphis. While his mother worked as an accountant, Ben spent his early years on the Tennessee farm. After his father died in 1956, his mother re-married and Patrick Henry Murphy officially adopted Nadine’s young son and gave him his own surname.

  As an only child, his early years accustomed Ben to seclusion. Eventually though, life on the farm grew too quiet and he was glad when, during his elementary school years, his parents moved to a house on Indian Head Drive in the Chicago suburb of Clarendon Hills. When his stepfather’s business, wholesale produce, was hit by a recession, he and Ben’s mother opened a women’s clothing store. It was a profitable business venture. Mrs. Murphy, who also owned the land and the building, became a successful entrepreneur.

  Ben was fifteen years old when a baby brother was born. Because of the difference in ages, Ben was not particularly close to his brother but took care of little Timothy Patrick while his parents worked and admits to doing his share of “diaper duty.” By the time Tim was past babyhood, Ben was out on his own, working and pursuing higher education and then investing in his acting career. When Tim grew up he studied law and passed the bar exam, eventually clerking for a California Supreme Court judge. Sadly, he was killed in a rock-climbing accident in 1984. [24]

  As a college student, Ben was hardly typical. Over the course of acquiring his degree, he attended several universities for the education, of course, but also to avoid being drafted. He began his studies at Loras College, a Catholic school for men in Dubuque, Iowa. Sophomore year was spent at Loyola in New Orleans. For the next two years, Ben studied International Relations at the University of the Americas in Mexico City. During that time he began a serious romance with an American girl who was a fellow student. They were young, in a foreign country, and the magic of his first love remains strong in his memory.

  After their breakup, Ben headed back to the States to Chicago’s Loyola University and then to the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana where his interest in world affairs and his accrued credits led him to major in political science and history. He remains a lover of history and an observer of politics. In his senior year, Ben joined the university drama group. Though he had only a small part in the class’s production of Julius Caesar, he found that he enjoyed acting. Because he had decided it was something he really wanted to do, he worked hard at it. As he does with most things that require his concentration, Ben centered all his attention on his new interest.

  After graduation in 1964, he set out for Hollywood and attended the Pasadena Playhouse, graduating two years later with a second Bachelor of Arts degree, this one in Theater. In succeeding years, he also did some graduate work at the University of Southern California and spent only one day at San Fernando Valley State College. “I was so used to going to college that I just wanted to go to college [for] anything! It didn’t make any difference. I signed up and then I realized…I could be just as busy with private classes and workouts and working that I didn’t necessarily need to be in school any more. But it was almost like a security blanket, I didn’t want to let it go.” [25]

  During the time he was at Pasadena Playhouse, he performed in all kinds of stage plays, some in very minor roles evidenced by his name listed with twenty-five others under “Soldiers, Townsfolk, etc.” in The Devil’s Disciple. As stage manager of Always with Love, he learned the importance of behind-the-scenes supervision. “It was the most work I had ever done in my life, but I felt I had found myself, that finally this was the real me.” Bob Thompson, a talent executive at Universal, saw him in the role of the eldest son during the production of Life with Father and signed him to a seven year contract in 1967, promising him he was headed for the top, not just on television, but in the movies. It was a good contract but, of course, it was also in the best interest of Universal. It was regularly reported that actors who signed eventually came to regret the decision, feeling indentured, but Ben cites that as a common complaint of the time and not necessarily true. Under the old studio system, as many as fifty contract players were kept on payroll. Then Lew Wasserman launched a new talent program headed by Monique James. Since studios no longer had time or money to teach the craft of acting, actors were expected to come prepared to work. James said that actors might “get a script one day and be in front of the camera the next.” [26]

  It was that way with Ben. Shortly after he was signed, his first appearance was in the 1967 film The Graduate but it’s hard to spot him. His face is lathered with shaving cream and his only line is “Save a piece for me,” referring to the party cake. It wasn’t much, but it got him into Yours, Mine and Ours the next year with Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball in which he played the hippie boyfriend of one of their daughters. After that he spent two years as Robert Stack’s sidekick Joe Samp
le in The Name of the Game. [27]

  In the fall of 1970 when Glen Larson and Frank Price held auditions for the roles of Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry, Ben was brought in. “I had such little chance for the Alias Smith and Jones co-lead that they didn’t call me until the night before the auditions were going to be held,” he remembers. “I was strictly from left field. Another young prospect was getting all the attention…I remember there were five chairs and six actors and I was the only one who didn’t get a chair that day, so I sort of thought maybe I didn’t have a good chance…” The studio spent the whole day testing and Ben was fortunate enough to be tested with Peter Duel. He clicked with the dark-haired young actor, the casting director liked what he saw, and he got the role. [28] Jo Swerling, associate executive producer on the show, believed that while Peter was a more accomplished actor and comedian than Ben was at the time, Ben had that inexplicable something called charisma. [29]

  Before the series could begin production, one more man needed to come into the West. From the beginning Frank Price realized that, although Glen Larson had some producer credits under his belt, he was not experienced enough to be a showrunner. He needed a mentor. Price turned to a man with a wealth of experience; a man who was talented, who was available and who was, incidentally, his father-in-law — Roy Huggins.