With the script, director, and guest stars in place, another of Swerling’s many jobs was to check the authenticity and readiness of the set. As itinerant outlaws, Heyes and Curry didn’t need a permanent house or cabin, so the only standing sets were the saloon, the sheriff’s office, and the western street on Universal’s backlot. These could be dressed up or down to reflect any town into which Heyes and Curry rode. The sheriff ’s office set could be revamped for a lawman’s office anywhere. Set crews could use two of the walls and install two new walls to make the appearance different. Because there were only a few permanent sets, the series was slightly more expensive. The more shooting done on standing sets, the more the studio saves money. The crew can prelight them and arrange them in other ways that save time in the shooting schedule. Swerling was very aware of costs because he was also in charge of enforcing the budget. Besides his head for numbers, Swerling’s talent for the Spanish language also came in handy. Because the Universal sign shop was working so fast to keep up, they would often make horrendous mistakes. If an episode was taking place in Mexico, it seemed inevitable that the signs in Spanish would be wrong. Swerling was on hand to correct the spelling or idiomatic expressions before they got on the air.
When principal photography was done, Swerling worked with Huggins in the editing room where Huggins supervised the editing closely. “I work with the editors over their shoulders — drive them crazy — and do all kinds of things with [the] film…If you want to write a book about how films are made, write about what you can do in editing, because that’s where films can be remade — the whole story can be retold.” [21] Huggins had definite opinions on how it should be done. On an occasion when he was stuck for an idea, he was very open to suggestions. But it rarely happened that Huggins was stuck, because he always had ways to fix a problem. “You can flop a film, you can blow it up, you can run it backward.” [22] Since scenes were not shot in script order, the challenge might be to match colors from reel to reel or camera to camera or to make sure the sound quality was consistent throughout. If many takes had been required to get a scene on film, the actors’ movements and objects on the set had to match from one scene to the next. Huggins also had to make sure that everything, including dialogue needed in the scene, had been filmed. Getting the story told was paramount to him but he was aware of all the errors that could occur on the set during filming. He also knew that “a bad editor will screw it up again even worse.” [23]
When the show was finally locked down in terms of its film editing, it went to the composer who did the score. Huggins would usually be in the music room and he, Swerling, and the composer would run the show and share ideas about how and where the music should go. Once the music was recorded, the film would go on to the dubbing stage. Often, an actor’s dialogue needed to be re-recorded because of technical problems on the set or unwelcome background noises, such a jet plane passing over. This is known as looping. Then the film ended up back in Swerling’s court because he supervised the dubbing on all the shows. Finally, he would approve the answer print, that is, the finished product, at the lab. If problems arose with the answer print, he’d “make sure it was sent back through the soup again…” [24]
The timelessness of Alias Smith and Jones reflects the dedication of Huggins and Swerling. But Swerling remembered that, at the time, they were immersed in problems that come with every project. “None of them are easy, they’re all difficult in one way or another starting with the fact that you never have enough time or money to do what you really want to do…[We were] into just getting the shows out and making them as good as [we] can, trying to make them sort of the minimal level of quality.” [25] If any one problem was bigger than the others, it was the rush into production and the continued harried pace to keep up with having a show to put on the air each week. The day before the pilot aired, the Los Angeles Times quoted Peter Duel, “This whole thing happened so fast I don’t know [Heyes] very well yet. We have to kind of find him as we go along.” [26]
Various interviews Peter gave to contemporary newspaper and magazine reporters are the only measure available to gauge his feelings about Alias Smith and Jones. In most, he is a paradigm of contradiction, proving that from the beginning he was of two minds regarding the show. Shortly after the series began, in a moment of frustration, he admitted to John Walker of the Chicago Tribune that he didn’t want to do the series at first. “I was fighting with myself. I didn’t want millions of people to see me do a poor job in a silly western. Then I accepted it and committed myself to it. And I’ve had a ball.” Because he was under contract to Universal that he could only break by initiating a lawsuit, Peter felt put upon and for that reason considered it justifiable to criticize the show. He was especially angry when reporters compared Alias Smith and Jones to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. “It’s supposed to be humorous,” he said, “but this is TV and any similarity to a class motion picture is purely coincidental.” [27] But in another interview, he says about the comparison, “It was always the first question asked, and in my opinion a moot point…It would be funny if the series runs a couple of years, then the film is re-released and a new audience that hasn’t seen the movie will say Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid resembles Alias Smith and Jones.” [28] Peter told a reporter for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner that he regretted being stuck in a western comedy after coming off acting in some pretty intense roles. He thought those easier and that “comedy takes more effort to get the juices going.” [29] Yet previously he had expressed the opinion that “after the parts I’d had in recent years — from drug addicts to draft-dodgers — I was glad to have something with humor.” [30] His co-star, Ben Murphy, felt the same way. “Comedy is a lot more fun to do. No question.” [31]
Sometimes Peter found humor in the most mundane circumstances. One day Peter’s friend from college, actor Jack Jobes, stopped by the set between shots. As they talked, Nature called, so they headed down to the end of Denver Street, took a turn and were out in the backlot’s wilderness area. Although this area represented the wide open spaces of the Wild West, it was still a part of the bustling studio and a regular feature of the popular tram tour. “Oh God, we hated those tours,” Jobes remembers. Outdoor shooting was challenging enough given Universal's proximity to the Burbank Airport; shuttling tourists through the sets was a nuisance the actors could do without. As the men stood there relieving themselves, a tram full of tourists from “East Nowhere, Iowa, or whatever…” moved slowly past. “Pete and I are there taking a wee-wee,” Jobes laughs. “The tram drives by and the two of us just wave and say, ‘Hi! Welcome to Hollywood!’ ”
Peter seemed resigned to being Hannibal Heyes, appearing to give up his self-imposed five-year plan for success. “Making a TV series is the same thing day after day, after day, after day. I confess to being a little restless. I was footloose and fancy free at Universal before this came along.” [32] Then, with the hectic pace of production, his freedom was greatly curtailed. He complained, “Ben and I are in every damn shot. We don't have time for anything. I’m so tired I’m confused.
My ears are ringing. Ben is dingy…It’s been so cold and by 11 a.m. I start to drag. By 4 p.m., I can’t do anything.” [33] “Still,” he contradicted himself, “if I have to make a TV series, I prefer being in the great outdoors and around horses than playing a lawyer, say, in a courtroom.” [34] When reminded that the exposure in a weekly television series would be good for his career, Peter wondered why he needed the following of a television audience if independent Hollywood producers were willing to put him in movies. “I don’t care if they know who I am in Ohio. I spent two years after Love on a Rooftop and Gidget trying to learn to act.” [35]
Other reporters heard still more contrasting opinions from him. The Chicago Tribune reporter wrote later in the year that Peter said of the series, “I’m able to accept it and enjoy it. That’s the only way to handle it, unless you want to become a recluse. Besides, it’s only a passing phase. Five years from now, I d
on’t want to look back and say, ‘Why didn’t I get into that?’ Now I’ll be able to look back and say, ‘I enjoyed it and played the role to the hilt.’ ” Still others like Judy Stone of TV Guide found him to be a perfectionist who would pester the director with pertinent questions about character motivation. Producers could verify that he would protest if the script were inadequate or the acting not up to his standards. On the other hand, even if he didn’t like a script page, he realized that the writers have a very difficult job so he tried to “often work around the situation and dialogue, trying to have fun.” [36]
Despite his negative outbursts, in daily work, he was very cooperative with his fellow actors. Dennis Fimple remembered that Peter never said, “ ‘You should do it this way’ or, ‘you should do it that way.’ Maybe he did to some, but he never [did] to me, he never said that. He was just supportive and he was a star, so it made you feel good and you felt strong enough to do what you wanted to do.” Peter tried to make other actors feel at ease but “he’d get the giggles sometimes,…” Fimple said. “And you could see it coming, and you go, ‘Oh no, no, no, no! Take seventeen!’ ”
But to Fimple, too, it was obvious that Peter and Ben were being worked hard. “I would come in and work a day or so and they would be working on another episode that they hadn’t finished, kept falling behind on…” For awhile, it got to be so bad that Peter confided to him, “ ‘I haven’t had a chance to shower. I just do my armpits and private parts and that’s it.’ He said, ‘I just don’t have time.’ And it was hard on him because he couldn’t drive.” [37]
On the evening of October 24, 1970, in the midst of shooting the pilot, Peter had been involved in an automobile accident. After work, the cast had gotten together at a restaurant. “Pete was getting pretty smashed, and…he said, ‘Who wants to go with me? I’m going driving up in the mountains.’ ” [38] Only Jon Shank went along, the rest wished him well. The next day they learned that Peter’s car had collided with a sportscar driven by Wayne H. Zitter, a 21-year-old cook at Los Angeles City College. Diana Lachman, Zitter’s date, was with him. As a result of the collision, Zitter suffered minor injuries but Lachman was hospitalized in serious condition for several days with major head injuries, deep cuts and the loss of her front teeth. California Highway Patrolman Paul Lehner was first on the scene. In a preliminary hearing held in Beverly Hills Municipal Court three days later, Lehner testified that Peter Duel appeared drunk and “began to shake and tremble” when he was asked to perform a field sobriety test. After the test in which he rated a .17 on the breathalyzer, Peter became “very emotional, started crying, staggered and fell to the ground.” [39]
His case was bound over for trial in Superior Court where he denied all the charges. Court and entertainment pundits guessed he would be able to continue his work at Universal. Ordinarily a jail sentence would not be indicated, though a possible probation might include the loss of his driver’s license for a time and restrictions on where and when he might drink. [40]
In May 1971, while Peter was on hiatus after the first season, his drunk driving case came up in court. He wrote to the judge, Bernard S. Selber, “In recalling my feelings on that night, shame and terror were in my mind. Sitting here eight months later it is very difficult to re-create the events of the accident or even try to find justification for my conduct. But I do want Your Honor to know that I am a person basically interested in other people and I would not knowingly harm anyone.” [41] Roy Huggins and a probation officer testified in his favor and the charges were not pursued. He was fined $1,000 for dangerous driving and put on probation for two years, during which time his license was suspended. If Duel had had trouble paying the fine, Universal might have advanced him the money against his salary. But Lew Wasserman would be more likely to tell him, “If you’re getting into trouble, it’s your expense.” [42]
Fenton Bresler, a reporter for Pageant magazine, wrote in 1975 that Hal Frizzell, Peter’s stand-in, became his chauffeur. Frizzell told Bresler, “I used to collect him in the morning, bring him to the studio, give him his script for that day — he said it was so much rubbish he couldn’t read it except in small daily doses — then work with him all day, and collect him at the end and bring him back home.” [43] No doubt the suspension of Peter’s driver’s license was a terrible hardship for him, as it was meant to be. He and his girlfriend Diane Ray enjoyed getting away from the city and heading into the mountains where he felt more at peace. However, he managed it, finding a degree of happiness in his relationship with Ray and in the comradeship and care of their canine pets. Ray would frequently join him on the Universal lot, bringing at least three dogs. Earl Holliman, outlaw Wheat Carlson in the pilot and second season premiere, remembered that “they always had dogs and they would be in Peter’s trailer…They were real dog people. They loved the animals.” [44]
During the summer of 1971, even after five months of playing Heyes, Peter told another Los Angeles reporter, “I still haven’t found my way in playing Hannibal Heyes. I know what Heyes should be, at least I did in the pilot. He favors sweet talking, card playing and safe cracking and needs situations to display those attributes.” [45] The series seemed to grow on him as it did the audience. A few weeks into the second season, he said, “I’m not so sure I’d want it to fold. You develop an affection for the crew and the show. I have affection for the character of Hannibal Heyes…I can sit on a porch with a horse tied up at the rail and relax and take a trip back to a time when it was dangerous, but there was a lot of peace.” [46]
Peace was an important virtue to Peter, both in the world and in himself. Monty Laird, who was on the set every day as stand-in or stuntman, only saw him lose his temper one time. It was late at night. Assistant director Mike Kusley and Peter, “for some reason or another,” clashed a lot. “Mike was trying to get everybody off the clock, you know, save the production money…and he was pushing Pete and Pete finally just had it up to here. He came up out of his seat and (hollered), ‘Get this goddammned guy outta here.’ I never saw Pete lose his temper before…Then he apologized to the crew after that.” [47]
Peter was already an experienced actor when he was hired to play Hannibal Heyes, but Alias Smith and Jones was Ben Murphy’s first foray into a television series as star. “It took four shows before I knew where the camera was! Except of course for close-ups. You’d have to be pretty dense to miss the lights and lenses just two feet away from you. Otherwise, I was so concerned about where they were putting me and what I was supposed to do, that I literally had no idea from what angle they were shooting. All I did was relate to the other actors in the cast and do as I was told.” [48]
One of the things Ben remembers vividly thirty years later was the daily routine. “I had a little one bedroom apartment with a mattress on the floor…and that was the greatest thing in the world to just roll out of bed and be at work…I’d just drive three blocks and I was there. I was always barely awake, because it was always six in the morning or something like that…You go through makeup, you go get a donut, you have your coffee…” Peter would have been going through the same morning routine but because he was so concerned with keeping the Earth ecologically pure and wanting everything healthy and natural, he tried to get rid of donuts and other unhealthy foods like that on the set. He wanted fruit and vegetables. “He put his foot down, and he got it.” Peter’s pet cause was ecology and he hated pollution. “He would not use plastic cups on the set — only glass ones. He would not use anything that would not dissolve and go back into the earth.” [49] Yet, despite his complaints about the snacks, he smoked and drank, another indication of his contradictory nature.
Ben remembered that once he was on the set, “you hope you got your lines down for that day, if not, you kind of wing it the best you can…A lot of it’s survival on television, especially doing an hour show. The grind is so hard that you just want to survive…and I was a young man then…Eventually it grinds you down because the days are so long and by law, by SAG agreement,
they’re supposed to give you twelve hours off, but they can even give you less than twelve and just pay you double-time or double overtime. It doesn’t amount to much; it’s worth their while, so you can end up with ten hours off. That’s ten hours to drive home — in my case it was a short trip — eat, sleep and then back the next day. But it’s okay because you’re either making a lot of money, or in my case you’re starting your career, which is enjoyable. But what I remember mostly is it’s a grind, it’s not a lot of hijinks and fun.” [50]
At 7 a.m. the clapperboard clapped and the cameras rolled for the first sequence which might require several takes to get right. Blocking out the scene took about ninety percent of the time while the other ten percent was the actors acting. “And that’s why it’s boring,” Ben said. “There’s very little acting, it’s mostly just that technical part and that’s why it’s hard work.” [51]
Finally the director would call for a break or the stand-ins would take over for a while as crews adjusted lighting or camera angles for the next scene. While waiting to do his next bit, Ben might be changing clothes or studying lines. Or, he remembers with a smile, “You might be just horsin’ around with members of the crew, we certainly horsed around our fair share.” During the down times, guest star Dennis Fimple recalled, “Ben was always off to himself, reading or something.” The “or something” [52] often included Ben questioning the prop man. Heyes and Curry always traveled with saddlebags presumably carrying all their worldly goods including everything they needed in the way of clothes, shaving gear, etc. Besides their various vests and coats, during formal occasions, such as visits to governors or even bank presidents, the boys wore suits and derby hats. Ben had the same realistic question each time, “ ‘Well, where’s our stuff?’ — because the saddlebags were always empty, they were just props.” The prop man whispered, “Don’t worry about it. It’s on the back of the horse.”
Alias Smith & Jones Page 17
