PETE DUEL

From DUEL INTERESTS WENT FAR BEYOND ACTING
Rochester Times Union, December 31, 1971:

In an interview at his parents' home here last year, Duel discussed pollution, which he said was more worth talking about than his career.

"After two or three interviews, talking about pictures and how they're made and what I do in them and what I'm going to do next, there's nothing more to say," he said.

He said "there isn't much to smile about anymore," with air and water pollution, oil-smeared beaches, DDT, over population, racism, and the deliberate killing off of species.

Duel also said he was concerned because "there was a lot left out of the history books we used in school." He said that he learned a lot from working on Sen. Eugene McCarthy's 1968 presidential campaign.

Among the strongest of his ideas was that over population is a very real problem.

He maintained that couples should be limited, voluntarily or involuntarily, to one child. Duel used to argue that "the human race is already doomed."

In between acting and ecological involvement, Duel found time for piano lessons, writing free verse, guitar-playing and sketching.

STAR GUN VICTIM

DUEL FOUND DEAD IN HOLLYWOOD
probably Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, December 31, 1971

Miss Ray told police that she had been invited to Duel's Beechwood Village home at 2552 Glen Green to watch the "Alias Smith and Jones" series, which airs Thursday at 8 p.m.

Police said Miss Ray told them Duel had been drinking heavily and after that show watched the Los Angeles Lakers-Seattle Supersonics basketball game.

Miss Ray said she went to bed in an adjoining room before the game was over, according to investigators. The woman told police Duel suddenly came into the bedroom around 1:25 a.m., took a .38 caliber revolver from a box, and left the room saying, "I'll see you later."

Minutes later she said she heard a shot fired in the living room.

Miss Ray, who told police she was an unemployed secretary, said she found Duel's body underneath the Christmas tree. Investigators said a single bullet hole was found in the right temple.

A gun was found at his feet, they added.

Investigators said the way the gun was found, the position of the body, and the angle of the head wound led them to believe it was suicide.

The bullet that killed Duel entered the right side and exited the left side, police said. There was a half-dollar-size hole in the front window of the home through which the bullet is believed to have passed.

At 9:45 a.m., Det. Sgt. John Edwards found a bullet laying in a carport at 2545 Glen Green, directly across from Duel's house. The detective said it looked like a slug from a .38 caliber weapon.

Hollywood police said they originally thought Duel was murdered when it appeared two shots were fired. Investigators said, however, a second spent round in the chamber was fired last week by Duel.

They said Duel apparently fired a shot from the same gun at a notice on a wall in a room near the living room. Investigators said the notice informed him he had not been elected to the board of the Screen Actors Guild.

An associate of Duel said the actor had been cheerful during a full day of performing on the set yesterday.

"He filmed an episode for the show, and he was due on the set at eight o'clock this morning to wrap it up," said Allen Cahan, unit publicist for "Alias Smith and Jones."

"I spent Christmas Day with him too," said Cahan. "He was fine, in good spirits."

"He was so talented it was unbelievable," said Cahan. "Certainly he was not unhappy with anything in his professional life."

Brent Unger, 24, a student said he had just moved in next door to Duel at 2556 Glen Green about a month ago and "only knew him to say hello.

"Last night, I had my girl friend over," he said. "We watched TV. We could hear his (Duel's) stereo playing, and all the lights in his house were on."

Unger said he didn't hear a shot. He said he wasn't aware of anything going on next door after he went to bed until police awakened him at 2 a.m.

Two sisters, neighbors on the other side of Duel's home, Mrs. Jean Kepley and Mrs. Betty Mathison described the actor as "just a peach of a young man."

PETER DUEL'S DEATH A 'PROBABLE SUICIDE'
by Tom Ryan

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, January 1, 1972

Detective Lt. John Konstanturos of the Hollywood Division of the Los Angeles Police Department said the possibility of homicide had been all but ruled out.

Konstanturos said an investigation indicated Duel "had been upset over several ... personal matters," but said there was no indication of severe despondency.

The detective said the shooting was reported by Diana Ray, 29, an unemployed secretary said to have known Duel about two years.

She told police Duel invited her to his house Thursday night to watch his show on the ABC network. (The program was aired here between 8 and 9 p.m. Thursday.)

Police Sgt. Daniel Cooke, news media liaison officer, said Miss Ray told detectives Duel switched channels to watch a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game and she went into another room.

Miss Ray said she was awakened by the rattling of paper and saw Duel unwrapping a gun he had taken from a bedroom dresser. It had been in a box wrapped in paper, Cooke said.

Miss Ray said the actor then muttered "I'll see you later" and went back into the living room. Moments later, Miss Bay, said she heard a shot and ran into the living room to find Duel dead.

GUNSHOT KILLS TV'S PETER DUEL
Chicago Tribune, January 1, 1972

Most of Duel's friends were shocked and puzzled, Alan Cahan, publicist for Alias Smith and Jones, said, "He was an intense kind of guy. I saw him Christmas and he was excited because a TV movie which he had done for the educational channel was a success. His series had been renewed. He didn't seem unhappy."

'ALIAS SMITH' FOUND SHOT AFTER SEEING HIS TV SHOW

by Harry Edgington in Hollywood

Daily Mail, January 1, 1972

He complained that the actors in the series were worked like horses. 'My big fear for next year is that the series will be renewed and I'll have to go through this for another year.'

COULD I HAVE SAVED MY FRIEND HANNIBAL HAYES

by Harry Edgington

The Sun, January 1, 1972

My friend Pete Duel - Hannibal Hayes in the BBC series Alias Smith and Jones - died under his Christmas tree yesterday, a bullet in his head. The tragedy happened in Pete's Hollywood home… and I'll always wonder if I could have saved him. Because as he died, I slept in my home just twenty yards away.

Pete was 31, successful and bitter. He hated working on the Smith and Jones series, but it gave him his big break. He was on the brink of international stardom when a bullet, apparently fired by himself, ended his life.

It was Pete's girlfriend, 29-year-old Diana Ray, who phoned the police in 'an emotional and agitated state.' She said she was in a bedroom and Pete had just been watching himself in a Smith and Jones episode on TV. Then she heard the shot. She ran downstairs and found Pete sprawled under the Christmas tree.

Could I have saved him? I'm not sure. In fact I'll never know. But I had known Pete for six months. We were neighbours and close friends. When we met he always complained about the company making the series. He said they were inhuman, working their actors like horses. He said the show was 'junk and I hope it gets scrapped.' His biggest fear was that the company would continue it for another year and 'I'll be lumbered with it.'

Pete complained that they had to work every day. He was on the set, playing opposite Ben Murphy's Kid Curry on Christmas Eve. His death leaves a nagging doubt in my mind. For late last night as I drove into my garage. I saw the lights on in his tree shrouded house. I was going to pop in for a chat - but decided it was too late. I made a note to call on him today. I knew about Pete's drinking problem - he had been convicted twice for drunk driving, the last time in June when he was put on probation for two years - and was also prone to depression. A police spokesman said later that Pete had been drinking heavily before he died. Perhaps I could have saved Pete's life. If only I had dropped in for a chat.

TV ACTOR SHOT TO DEATH

Australian Associate Press

January 2 or 3, 1972

His 38-calibre revolver was near his feet, his fingerprints on the gun and there was a bullet wound in his head, police said.

The Los Angeles County Coroner (Mr. Noguchi), who performed an autopsy [also performed autopsies on Marilyn Monroe, RFK, and John Belushi]. said: "The autopsy findings are consistent with a self-inflicted wound".

But he ordered behavioral scientists to study the life style of Duel, reported to be despondent lately over a drink problem, to try to establish further the manner of his death.

PETE DUEL DEATH PROBABLE SUICIDE; PROBE CONTINUES

Variety, January 3, 1972

Exec producer Roy Huggins of "Jones" said the death came as a shock to him and added he believed it was accidental. U TV prez Sid Sheingberg said everyone at U was "terribly disturbed," that Duel was a personal friend.

Sheinberg added that U had a commitment with ABC for the series. Studio will recast the Duel role to finish production. They will have to reshoot four days of one segment.

Filming was cancelled Friday morning, but resumed in the afternoon with Murphy working in scenes not involving his costar. U TV senior v.p. Frank Price said studio hoped to have the new lead set in time for resumption of production today.

Article on Pete's death

Daily Mirror, early January 1972

A close friend and neighbour of Duel's said yesterday: 'He was a tremendously likeable fellow. He liked to go off camping in the mountains. He told me he hated the thought of having to work on New Year's Eve.'

SMITH AND JONES--WITHOUT SMITH
By Cecil Smith (Column Writer)

Los Angeles Times, January 5, 1972

"Contractually. I have to do this series--or some other trash," Pete told me last month.

"He was making the all-star episode, "21 Days to Tenstrike," that will be shown Thursday night. It was gussied up with such actors as Walter Brennan, Steve Forrest, Linda Marsh, Glenn Corbett, Pernell Roberts--even Dick Cavett as a western sheriff--to offer competition to the My Three Sons hour special Thursday, inaugurating its new CBS slot. Such things Pete felt were no concern to the actor.

He was a bitterly depressed young man, feeling that any TV series "is a big fat drag to any actor with interest in his work" Pete felt thwarted and frustrated. He said he'd been trying "to patch together my private life which fell apart with the help of this series." He was bitter about the series, any series.

The most ironic twist of all is that Pete felt the only satisfying work he'd done in the last year was playing Squire Talbot in Percy MacKaye's play of witchcraft and demons, "The Scarecrow," on Hollywood TV Theatre. "It's the only thing I've done in a long time that I've really looked forward to seeing," he told me.

It's on KCET next Monday night.

PETER DUEL'S FANS HAD THEIR OWN EULOGIES
Rochester Times Union, January 6, 1972

Downstairs at First Baptist Church of Penfield, where actor Peter Duel was eulogized, a knot of Penfield boys traded reasons why he appealed to them.

"He was like a con man - trying to get amnesty - he was perfect for the part." said Bill Palmer, 14, of 2154 Five Mile Line Road.

Duel, 31, played Hannibal Heyes in the television series "Alias Smith and Jones."

"He was like a man's man, went after the chicks," added Palmer.

"He always caught people cheating at cards." said Paul Banks, 14, of 12 Fosbourne Road.

"They'd put him in jail and he'd escape," offered John Mahaney, 15, of 195 Timber Brook Lane.

"The show just wasn't about good guys.'' added Banks.

Every Friday morning at Denonville High School they'd talk about "all the stuff that happened" on the show the night, before, they said.

They'd talk about forming a fan club, but they never got around to it.

Duel died Friday in his Hollywood Hills home of a gun-shot wound which police say was apparently self-inflicted.

"He was in the TV mailbag (Democrat and Chronicle Sunday feature) and it said he wasn't happy," Palmer noted. "It said he wanted to be in the movies. He didn't like the TV series."

"They're going to have some guy take his part who used to be in 'Dark Shadows.' It's not going to be as good," added Banks.

David McHugh of New York City, sang his own composition, "And Love was All Around," at the organ.

"He was a wonderful guy," he said, as he gathered his music from the organ

PETE DUEL VIEWS RECOUNTED ON FEATURE FILM, YOUNG FANS

By Joan E. Vadeboncoeur
Syracuse Herald Journal, January 7, 1972

It looked as if wild acclaim from the teenyboppers was only the matter of one record when Pete Duel died last week of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his Hollywood Hills home.

The actor spoke of it last summer while lunching with tv editors in the executive dining room of Universal where his Alias Smith and Jones series was shooting for ABC.

He had signed a three-year contract with the studio, "enticed by the inclusion of a feature film," as he put it, "which in fact I did." The movie was "They Call It Murder" which, when finally released, was a television offering and was so old the press material came with the star's last name as "Deuel," a spelling he discarded about a year ago. [Carolyn's Note: There was a 1971 TV movie entitled "They Call It Murder", but Pete did not appear in this film. I think that the writer has confused Pete with Jim Hutton. The movie that Pete may have been referring to could be "Cannon for Cordoba".]

The contract didn't appear much rosier to Pete when Smith and Jones entered the scene, although he said "I love to be in Westerns, playing cowboys and Indians" and wished he had been in "The Wild Bunch."

"What bothered me about it was being in a half-baked success," Duel remarked. Then the studio press agents told him that he was becoming a person that every teenybopper had on their walls.

'The Idol Bit'

"So I started looking at the magazine racks," he said still rather bewildered at the results. "One said on the cover: Would you dare date Bobby (Sherman), David (Cassidy), Pete or Ben (Murphy, his series co-star)? Well, that's good for about five years before you're finished."

"I'm still not sure this idol bit is true," he continued. "But we've started to get the 'groupies' on our set. It looks like the Thursday night taping of the Lucy Show."

Records were also a part of the actor's Universal package, but he said "I got out of that portion; now I can negotiate my own contract." This would have permitted him to go for a more lasting record career in the type of music he liked best, "very easy things like pop and country-Western."

Duel would have enjoyed a music career and was annoyed with himself that the only time he was given a chance to sing on the series--"an old Shaker song"--he had a cold.

One of the editors could not comprehend an intelligent man's desire to desert a business in which he was already a star for a shaky new career in an area the editor clearly deemed inferior. But, in Rochester, Pete's home area, music is considered a highly respected profession, even the field of jazz. As Duel himself said, "Music's cool in Rochester."

When he died, the studio's publicist for the show was quoted as saying the actor had no career problem, but that drinking may have have led to his depression. That is simply not true.

First, Pete was one of the increasing number of Hollywood stars to go the health food route. He brown-bagged his own simple diet to lunch, refused a cocktail which most food fadists deplore, and groaned about having just finished an eating scene that "damn near choked me it was so huge."

Second, he was frank about his acting status. "I didn't want to be in the series; I was down on it. I was as close to a nervous breakdown as I ever want to be about getting involved in another one. Inch by inch, day by day, I was getting more upset until I was standing at the edge. I'd never been there, but I finally drew back and said 'It's not gonna happen to me.' So I went for total acceptance and now I try to enjoy the show; not take it too seriously."

Yet the network's publicist saw what I saw in the actor who I had met before and whose personality I knew from a joint friend in Rochester. Unlike personal press agents, network men are not required to take a perennial upbeat view. "He's down," said the ABC man, who liked Duel personally.

Three weeks ago, on another California trip, I checked Pete's status. The network man told me, "He's broken up with that lovely girl he was going with. I've never seen him so down."

'Magic Time'

The summer of 1970 was one of the actor's happiest times; he recalled it as "magic time". He had done four of five things, as he put it "bing, bing, bing," one of which was a Psychiatrist episode for The Bold Ones which satisfied his actor's ego. "I only missed one or two moments in that," he said, a rare smile crossing his face.

Discussing our mutual friend, a summer theater operator, Duel sighed over his tight tv schedule. "I'm so tired when I get home, but somehow I've got to find two weeks to play. I've owed it to him for three years."

On his way back to the set, the actor stopped and called back to me, only half in jest, "Call Barry when you get back and tell him the longer he has to wait, the more valuable I'll be." The three-year wait is over.

Extolled by Friends

'SUCCESS DID NOT SPOIL PETE DUEL'

by Charles Parker (Herald-Examiner Staff Writer)

Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, early January 1972

Good-looking, barrel-chested and with a go-to-hell attitude, the rare time that the broad grin slipped from Pete's face was when he was cussing the "blanky-blank" Hollywood producers who would not deign to let him in their offices.

One night at dinner he told me his formula for success.

"Most actors have guilt feelings," Pete said, "because they don't think they've really worked to earn success. So I started getting up in the morning, instead of lying in bed feeling sorry for myself, and made a point to telephone at least one producer or director every morning.

"I don't know if the calls did any good, but they made me feel I worked for whatever jobs I got."

As Pete moved up in Hollywood, he appeared to change very little. He let his close-cropped hair grow long. He switched from beer to good white wine--now that he could afford it.

He still spent an occasional evening in his favorite night spot--Barney's Beanery.

DUEL'S SELF-APPRAISAL: 'I'M MAN IN A TURMOIL'

by Eleanor Roberts

Unknown source (Los Angeles newspaper?) and date (early January 1972)

"Man in a turmoil"--is the way Pete Duel, star of ABC-TV's "Alias Smith and Jones" described himself to me over luncheon at Universal Studios in Hollywood.

Underneath the dashing, carefree manner of the Western outlaw (alias Smith) that millions saw on television was a rebellious 31-year-old star who felt he had never attained the artistic heights he was capable of as an actor.

Only one role, the drug addict in the World Premiere pilot of a series called "The Psychiatrist" utilized Duel's ambitions. "It was my best role," he said. "I would rather do drama like that then this series junk."

Yet Duel, found shot to death by his own pistol early Friday, was a success by Hollywood standards. His series had been renewed for the remainder of the season by ABC-TV despite tough sledding against Flip Wilson.

"We will continue the series for the rest of the season," said Allan Cahan, unit publicist for the show at Universal Studios where we contacted him.

"We filmed 19 episodes. Five have not yet been aired. We have four more to film to complete the season."

ABC-TV had not yet indicated whether or not it would renew the series for next season. But such announcements are rarely made this early except for unusually high-raters.

Duel was a pull-no-punches guy who was devastatingly frank about getting "trapped" in a series, even when studio executives were breathing down his neck. He openly said they killed any artistic drive an actor had and he fervently hoped his younger brother, Geoffrey, a rise you actor would not do one.

When "Alias Smith and Jones" was first launched, Duel said, "I'm not the happiest I've ever been. But I am working. And I suppose I should be damn grateful in a whole town full of unemployed actors. You're probably thinking how many people would give their [CJC's Note: Right or left? There's a blotch in the paper covering the word] arm to be working--let alone co-starring--in a series. And this guy sits here complaining."

Last fall, when he visited Boston, he still seemed restless but said he had decided to take a positive attitude towards working in the series, "Why make oneself unhappy?" he shrugged.

In demand for guest star roles, Duel had appeared in several series.

He will be seen on Monday night Jan. 10, in a Hollywood TV Theatre drama, "The Scarecrow" on Ch. 2. He joins a cast of famous names. It was the type of television he preferred--drama.

He felt frustrated, he often said, after having started in two series that were all froth. "Gidget" was the first and he played the brother-in-law. "Love on a Rooftop" with Judy Carne, was the second and it had a short life.

He used his family name then--Peter Deuel--and I remember how cautious he was about his success enduring. He lived in an apartment over a garage and even after he made it, he kept his modest quarters until shortly before he started "Alias Smith and Jones" co-starring Ben Smith [sic].

Pete had a pretty low opinion of the World Premiere movie, "How to Steal an Airplane" in which he starred. Aired three weeks ago, it had been on the shelf for some time (he was still spelling his name Deuel) and was a pilot film for a possible series. Pete did not consider it a step up. "Trash," he labeled it.

An omnivorous reader of political science journals and books by contemporary thinkers, Pete loved the outdoors. He often climbed into his camper, threw in a Coleman stove, tent, and a [Another blotch] canned provisions, then took off for the remote Nevada or California [? possible 'waste']land areas.

"It's the only place I really feel at home," he remarked.

Excerpt from IT'S HAPPENING IN HOLLYWOOD

by Funky Duke Lewis
Tiger Beat, March 1972

On the other hand, Pete Duel, the Joshua Smith of "Alias Smith and Jones," voiced a more general sentiment of actors in long-lived TV shows.

"This series, that series, is a big fat drag to an actor who I any interest in his work," Pete said. "It's the ultimate trap. You lose any artistic thing you had, utterly destructive. It isn't the work that tires you, it's that it's all dreadful bore that makes you weary, weary.

"Our show is good and I don't blame its writers and directors, w A person holding two dogs

Description automatically generated hat's wrong is the whole system. Finish a show one night, start another the next morning with no time between shooting to study the scripts and prepare. At first you're on guard against sloppy work. After awhile you don't care.

"TV acting is the worst kind of slavery there is," Don Adams agreed. "Up early in the morning and working 12 to 14 hours a day. Is that any way to run a life?"

Photo Caption: PETE DUEL SEEMS happy at home with his dogs Carol (left) and Shoshone. Only three weeks after this photo was taken, Pete died, apparently of a self-inflicted bullet. Read what Pete told Duke Lewis about his work.

Excerpt from WALTER SCOTT'S PERSONALITY PARADE

By Walter Scott

Parade Magazine, 1972

Q. Did actor peter Duel, who comitted suicide last December, leave much of an estage? --J.O.

A. The star of "Alias Smith and Jones," 31, left an estate valued at $70,000 [over half a million dollars in today’s money] to his parents. Girlfriend Diane Ray, who was with him at the time of his death, will get some of his home furnishings.

Excerpt from IT'S HAPPENING IN HOLLYWOOD

by Funky Duke Lewis
Tiger Beat, April 1972

He was a tall, dark and handsome actor on the verge of superstardom, and he had money, security, fame, physical health, professional respect, he loved and was loved by his family and devoted fiance, DIANE RAY, yet he killed himself with his own gun in his own home.

Peter Duel had everything, didn't he?--or did he? No, he certainly didn't have emotional balance, peace of mind and mental health. Pete told a recent interviewer:

"I've suffered personal tragedy, unhappiness, depression and frustrations that beat me down into the mud of despair because I don't know how to handle them. I brood about myself so often that I forgot other human beings have problems as important to them as mine are to me. The difference is: they can overcome."

"Pete had many problems that he magnified out of all proportion until he couldn't cope with them," agreed his sister Pamela.

He was very close to Pam, to his brother Geoffrey and to Diane whom he described as "compassionate, generous, intelligent, wise and beautiful with a crazy sense of humor and the patience and understanding to put up with my moods."

"I want to marry you," he told Pamela--yet he couldn't make himself set a wedding date. [CJC's Note: Yes, it just said Pete wanted to marry his sister. Tiger Beat wasn't known for its accuracy!] "I want a home in the country, and lots of children. I want out of the TV series, into movies. I need time to pursue my poetry writing and sketching, and to learn and grow."

But Pete didn't give himself the time for his dreams to come true before he "went down the tongueless silence to the dreamless dust."

"Working on 'Alias Smith and Jones' was no worse than other outdoor saga series," he often said, but all weekly shows are "a dreadful bore," "big fat drag", "frustrating" and "fatiguing," "putting actors into pressure cookers."

People who can't take the heat are apt to freak for drugs or alcohol. Pete didn't dabble in dope, a no-no for working actors, but he did get loaded regularly on whiskey, which is socially acceptable in his crowd.

The other half of the Smith-Jones team, Ben Murphy, is a "fun guy" with no self-inflicted hangups or apparent frustrations. Ben and all TV regulars however agree that doing a weekly series is a grind.

Usual schedule: Morning reveille at 5:30 or 6 a.m., into make-up at 7:30 a.m., on the set from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. if all goes well. If not, work until 8 or 9 p.m., or until the day's shooting is finished. Overtime is double or triple pay. Weekends are off and shooting involves only six months out of the year. Pay ranges from $5,000 per segment (for Mitch Vogel) to $30,000 per segment (for Lorne Greene, for example). [CJC's Note: Mitch Vogel was a teenager with a small part of Bonanza. If these numbers are right, he was making considerably more than either Pete or Ben.]

ONLY WE HAVE THE TRAGIC STORY!

PETER DUEL'S LAST MOMENTS!

"HE CRIED FOR HELP AND NO ONE CAME!"

TV Radio Show, April 1972

Peter Duel had worked all day in an exceptionally cheerful mood. He was finishing up shooting the final segment of the season for Alias Smith and Jones and this in itself was enough to put him in a good frame of mind. He didn't like being in a television series, even a successful one, but as an actor under contract to Universal Studios he's had little choice. [CJC's Note: It was, of course, not the latest episode of the season, but it was the last episode being shot in the calendar year, which was about to end.]

There was always hope something would happen and the network would decide to drop them next season--he teased his co-star Ben Murphy with this possibility. Ben, who enjoys the series, kidded in return, "Maybe we can keep the show and replace you with a sexy broad," and so it went, back and forth in a lighthearted atmosphere on the last day of Peter Duel's life.

Late that night (actually early the next morning as it was all after midnight) the successful young actor with enormous talent and seemingly everything to live for put a 38-caliber revolver to his right temple and pulled the trigger. He was dead by the time his girlfriend Diana Ray, who had been half-asleep in the next room, heard the shot. She rushed to the door to see his nude body sprawled on the floor, a bizarre caption for the Christmas tree he lay beneath.

What problems could a 31-year-old successful man possibly have that were so intolerable he couldn't face another day of life?

"You first have to understand that although Pete was successful in the eyes of others, he was not a success in his own eyes," explains an associate through Alias Smith and Jones.

"I've worked with him since the beginning of the series and he was a man driven by talent--he was incredibly talented--but he lived in a constant state of frustration because he felt the series--any series--limited him as a performer. It went further than that--he felt it was destroying him."

Less than three weeks before his death, Peter told Los Angeles Times TV editor, Cecil Smith, "That series, this series, any series is a big fat drag to an actor who has any interest in his work. It's the ultimate trap. You slowly lose any artistic thing you may have. It's utterly destructive. And you stay tired all the time...It isn't the work that tires you, it's that it's all such a dreadful bore that it makes you weary, weary..."

"Peter hated himself for drinking," says Diane, who had been seeing the troubled actor for more than a year. "He considered it a contemptable weakness and he despised the person he became when he'd had too much to drink. He'd go through different phases, from silly to loud and rowdy, but he'd always end up despondent.

"The thing that shook him up the most was when he was arrested for drunk driving last fall. It had been his second arrest for that in four years but this time he'd gotten into an accident and almost killed two people. He couldn't seem to get it out of his mind. Pete really cared about people and the idea that his drunkenness had injured someone, and could have killed them, was abhorrent to him."

He was aware of some of the anxieties that made him drink: boredom in a series; the fear that somehow his talent would dissipate if not pushed to capacity at all times; self-disgust at not feeling he was his own man when it came to decisions regarding his career.

Peter felt he had prostituted himself by signing a contract and he was so against the "system" that buys an actor like a hunk of beef he had told his brother Geoffrey, "the best thing I can wish [for] you is that your series is a flop," when the latter signed to do a series for next fall called Movin On.

"Peter was obsessed with success on his terms, " says another friend who's known him since he first came to Hollywood. "It wouldn't mean a thing to him to be the number one star in the country, if he wasn't proud of the quality of his work. He cared more about acclaim from his peers than he did about popularity with the public. Respect and honor were enormously important in Peter's family and I think that's where he thought he'd failed. That's why not being elected to the board of governors of the Screen Actors Guild hurt him so. In his mind they were saying 'You're not worthy. We don't respect you enough to give you a position like that.'"

Police found the telegram from the Guild notifying Peter he had not been elected when they searched his house. It was pinned to his wall with a bullet hole in it. Diane explained that he was so upset when he received the telegram (a few weeks before his death) he brooded and brooded over it. Then one night when he was drinking he tacked it to the wall, loaded his pistol and shot it.

"We all should have known then how disturbed he was," she sobbed remembering the incident.

That last day, at work, several of the guys began talking about New Year's resolutions. At first Peter made some jokes about making them just to have the pleasure of breaking them, but suddenly he became serious and said, "I'm going to give up booze in 1972. Hear ye! Hear ye!" The crew laughed and the comment was forgotten.

That night Pete got drunk. Before he became totally despondent, he told Diane, whom he'd invited over to watch Alias Smith and Jones with him, that he couldn't live with himself the way he was any longer and that drinking was "killing" him. "I've got to stop," he kept saying, "I've got to stop." Diane assumed he meant he was determined to change. He had often before said similar things.

A basketball game came on television then and he continued to drink was he watched. She went into the bedroom to lie down because she didn't care to see the game and she cared less to watch Peter drink and make himself even more despondent.

By the time he came into the room a few hours later to get his pistol he was drunk. Rousing her while fumbling to find the gun, all he said was, "I'll see you later."

A few moments later he was dead by his own hand.

His brother Geoffrey thinks maybe Peter was just "fooling around" with the gun and didn't really mean to kill himself. "I think he just wanted to stop drinking," he says sadly.

Perhaps he did. Perhaps it was just an accident that it turned out to be his dying wish.

PETE'S EX-GIRL REVEALS HE WAS AFRAID TO RISK LOVING
by Nancy Debara

Movie Mirror, April 1972

"I'm shattered," Judy said after the tragedy. "Totally a wreck! Anyone but Pete."

"He wanted so much, searched so hard.' We were alike in so many ways..." her voice trailed off.

Years ago Pete Duel made a statement that now seems a fateful prophecy: "I don't believe that anyone is ever perfectly contented in any situation. That's a fact of life we have to accept. Thinking otherwise is what goofs up kids. When they realize they can't be perfectly happy, they're disillusioned and feel somebody has played a dirty trick on them."

WHY PETER DUEL TOOK HIS LIFE
by Margo Anderson
Photoplay, April 1972

"Pete invited me over to his place to watch his show, 'Alias Smith And Jones,' " she told police.

Diane, an unemployed secretary and a former beauty queen, knew Pete for some time, although lately it had been rumored they were going their separate ways. Some Hollywood people alledged that Pete's involvement with another old flame was the cause, but that apparently had been resolved. A person wearing a cowboy hat

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Pete and Diane had lively and devoted interests. Diane, for example, introduced him to a whole new world of organic health foods. Both did more than talk about the ecology problem: Pete, in his individual way, tried to be of help even if it meant gathering and saving aluminum for recycling, or preserving the water supply in his own home.

He wrote: "I am a person basically interested in other people, and I would not knowingly do harm to anyone." That was true. But what about himself?

To his friends, Pete was a successful human being, but success, for Pete, was not to be measured by the $6,500 a month he received from his television show, or indeed from the series itself. Just a month before his death, he told an interviewer, "Any series is a big fat drag to an actor who has any interest in his work. It's the ultimate trap. You slowly lose any artistic thing you may have. It's utterly destructive. At first you're on guard against sloughing off the occasional good script, but after a while you simply don't care."

Stories spread about constant trouble on the set of "Alias Smith & Jones," and rumor had it that Pete in no small way was responsible.

Actress Belinda Montgomery lunched with the star at the studio commissary about 12 hours before the shooting. "He appeared to be a little depressed but not to the point where anyone would believe he would do anything desperate, she said, then refuted the "Alias" stories. "Everybody who worked with him liked him, and everyone wept when he heard the news."

His neighbors felt the same way about Pete. "He was a peach of a person," said Mrs. Betty Mathison and Mrs. Jean Keply.

Even Diane claimed Pete "was in a happy mood all night long" on the evening before he died. After watching his own show on that fatal night, he had switched channels to watch a basketball game.

Diane left to lie down in one of the two bedrooms off the living room during the game, and testified: "At about 1:15 A.M. he came into the room, removed a revolver from a box in a drawer and left saying, 'I'll see you later.'

Diane, half-asleep, heard a shot, leaped to her feet and dashed into the semi-dark living room brightened only by the lights of the gaily decorated Christmas tree. Peter was huddled on the floor.

EXCLUSIVE! THE TRUE STORY BEHIND PETE DUEL'S DEATH
by Richard Morris
Motion Picture magazine, April 1972

MOTION PICTURE had run an earlier story on Peter in September, 1971, and it has sadly proven to be the truth. Titled HE CARRIES THE WORLD ON HIS SHOULDERS, the first page showed a stern-faced photo of him with Diane, the blurb next to which read: "Things bother me too much...war, pollution, prejudice. I can't smile." And underneath the photo was the simply-worded caption: "Diane Ray is the magic that keeps Pete's life sorted out." The only question one can ask is: what made the magic fail?

From the report issued by the Los Angeles Police Department, it appears as if time alone was the victim's executioner.

"You wouldn't believe the mail I'm getting," Detective Sergeant Paul Estrada, who has been assigned to the case, confided to our reporter. "I've been hearing from high school girls all around the country who want to take over the investigation." And he added in grotesque understatement, "They don't believe there was anything in the world that would make Pete Duel want to shoot himself--but actually he had quite a bit on his mind."

Peter Duel died the way he did because his whole life had been geared to it. It seemed inevitable that he would someday take his own life. And--whether you'd like to believe it or not--if Duel had not committed suicide on December 31st, he probably would have done it at some later date.

Sounds scary? Even farfetched? Then consider what Pete said in 1967.

"My father took great pains to get me ready for college. But I had been watching the world and I didn't see one thing in my future that I really wanted. Everything seemed phony. I was down, terribly depressed. I knew that if I went to college I'd be educated like every other guy who ever went to college. I'd be given little chance to become Peter Duel...."

"That's when I decided to commit suicide. I thought about it a long time. I felt useless. I was ambitious for nothing. I kept feeling I was on the wrong track and would never get off. I didn't know what was going to happen to me if I died, but it seemed the only sensible thing to do. Then I discovered there was one thing I didn't have--the guts to take my own life. So, in truth, I just chickened out and after awhile the urge went away."

DUEL TRAGEDY

by Army Archerd

TV Radio Talk, April 1972

The tragedy of Peter Duel lived on at the studio as the series continued to shoot after his death. The set was almost in a constant state of mourning. And I can tell you it barely got thru filming in the remaining segments of the season. It was a tremendously difficult job for everyone in the company, but for Roger Davis, who replaced Peter, it was the most difficult of all. On the first day, everyone was in such a state of shock they really didn't know what they were doing--but on the second day, the realization of what had happened took effect. Roger broke down completely and was in such an emotional state, Roy Huggins, executive producer of the show, confided to me, "I really didn't think he'd be able to go on."

Roger and Pete had been friends despite what some people tried to infer when Pete got the series and Roger didn't. It was a result of their joint acting in "Young Country." They were both in that wonderful show. Pete was spotted for "Smith and Jones." But they were very fond of one another, Roy reminded me.

For Ben, it was even more difficult. He and Pete had lived together on the set, they had argued about the series, the value of the show to their careers, and talked of life in general. Now, Ben found he was doing scenes with Roger--scenes that he had done the week before with Pete. It was a test of more than acting on Ben's part, believe me.

Adding to the tragedy of Pete's frustration with himself and his life, was the fact he thought his acting was being prostituted in the series. And in show number 19, the one that had to be redone, Roy said, "Pete was never better. As a matter of fact, my last words to him that night before he went home were to tell him that he was never better. I had just seen the 'dailies' and was impressed, I'm going to save those dailies for everyone to know what a fine actor he was."

Everyone in town knew Pete as a quiet (maybe too much so), warm guy. Particularly Ben. The whole company pulled for Ben in those days after the suicide, to help get him and Roger thru their super-acting. From all I could find from those I spoke to, Pete just never planned to do it. Sure, he was depressed, but the tragic part was-- he had a gun. Guns kill.

I spoke to someone else who was in tears when we talked about Pete--Shirley Jones.

"We thought they were going to get married,'' she said sadly to me when we talked about Pete and his girl Diane Ray. Pete's romance with Diane was no different in many ways from others, on-again, off-again, stormy, beautiful, etc. As a matter of fact, Shirley revealed to me on many occasions when he was having problems with his romance, he'd come over to talk with Shirley and Jack, who, let's face it, have had plenty of their own.

"He'd been going with Diane a long time and then he broke up with her. He was more broken up about the breakup, I think. So he'd come over and we'd talk it out. He'd just pop over without any special invitations needed, and we'd have a long, pleasant talk. He was a very dear person. This whole year seemed ruined when it started this way."

During the long "talks" at the Cassidy house, I wondered it there was any indication of Pete having a drinking problem. Shirley has been around actors who drink--even drunks. And husband Jack is not a teetotaler, but she said to me about Pete. "I knew he drank, but I never saw him drunk. And I never knew he had a problem because there never was any report of it at work and you can't drink and do a series, believe me! We did several game shows together, and I can tell you there was never any indication that he had been drinking when we worked together."

PETE DUEL'S CONFESSION FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

by Joyce Wagner

TV Picture Life, April 1972

Dianne told police officers that Peter had been despondent because he felt he had been drinking too much. But why was he drinking so much? Why was he so unhappy, so moody and depressed?

Perhaps the answer lies within the context of an exclusive interview this writer had with Peter only a few weeks before his tragic death. In the light of his subsequent death, his words are haunting--like a confession from beyond the grave.

It had been a strange interview. Peter had been in a happy-go-lucky mood, but it was a mood tinged with bitterness and frustration.

He sat in the Universal studio commissary, a cigarette clasped tightly in his teeth, his shoulders hunched in subconscious rebellion against almost everything and everyone, and he had talked about his life and his career with, what at the time appeared to be resignation.

"Yeah. I've been pretty outspoken about how I feel about this television series. I hate it. I never wanted to do it.

"But," he had added, with a shrug, "I'm stuck. I'm under contract."

He had then sighed and, after taking a long drag on his ever-present cigarette, had continued with: "I think last season I hated everything and everyone. I hated the series and the whole idea of being in a television series. In fact, looking back I think I was as close to a nervous breakdown as ever want to be.

"I realize that's a very dramatic statement," be added. "but day by day, week by week, inch by inch, I was getting more and more unhappy, more and more frustrated.

"But then, one day, I drew back and took a look at what would make me happy and I realized I was taking the series too seriously. I realized that to survive I was going to have to have a hang-loose attitude.

"So now I'm simply trying to accept the series and trying to enjoy what I have to do. It isn't easy, though, especially when I think what I might have done, might have accomplished in this last year I've had to spend in this series.

"I really managed to trap myself," he continued, wrinkling his face in disgust. "I see now that signing the contract with Universal was a very foolish thing for me to do. I didn't have enough self-confidence, enough self-love to say no. I guess it was a blind spot on my part, but my agent recommended it. And it was a gamble.

"I almost won, though," he had added, with a wry smile. "Everything was going well until last year. Then time ran out. I owed Universal a series. and they came up with this one and that was that.

"If I'd only had one more year." he'd said, wistfully, "things might have been different."

Peter had only been kidding himself the day of our interview when he confided. "I'm trying to look on the positive side of things. I'm not enchanted doing a series but I've accepted the fact.

"Anyway," he'd added, with that wry laugh, "this series can't last forever, can it?"

Two weeks after being notified by ABC that Alias Smith and Jones had been renewed for the rest of the 1972 season, Peter Duel's life ended.

It was New Year's Eve day, the beginning of another year Peter obviously felt he couldn't face having once again to "settle for less."

HOLLYWOOD WHISPERS

by Paulette Lee

Movie Life, April 1972

Peter never married, though he had several close brushes with matrimony. He kept putting it off until, as he recently said, "I can get it all together for myself. How can I take on the responsibility of a family, until I know where I'm at?" He dated Sally Field, star of Gidget, for a long time. Then he became involved with actress-model Jill Andre, a divorcee with two children.

One of the women he related to best was his Love On A Rooftop co-star, Judy Carne. But they were never a romance. Pete introduced Judy (who had just divorced Burt Reynolds at the time) to the joys of motorcycling. They'd both jump on their cycles after work and ride into the hills. But it was never a romance. "We dig each other," said Judy at the time. "Pete's been good for me. He's taught me to leap into life and live every moment to the limit."

Peter once told this writer, "I think that everyone is an institution and everyone with deep problems believes that if they really look at their problems, and analyze them, they will die. It is a fear I live with all the time."

Perhaps that is what eventually happened to the handsome, warm-hearted, loveable Peter. Did he scrutinize too hard and decide he could not face another year because he had not yet "gotten it all together?" None of us will probably ever know. But this writer cannot help but be touched by a long piece of prose Peter once gave us. It is too lengthy for these pages, but it begins thusly: "Don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear. For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off, and none of them are the real me. Pretending is an art that's second nature to me, but don't be fooled. FOR GOD'S SAKE, DON'T BE FOOLED.

"I give you the impression that I'm secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name, and coolness my game, that the water's calm, and I'm in command. I need no one. But Don't Believe Me, PLEASE. Don't."

TORMENTED PETER DUEL COMMITS SUICIDE

Was He Only Trying To Grab Some Peace?

by Brooke Scott

TV Radio Talk, April 1972

He said he had only a few friends, yet hundreds turned out to bid him a last goodbye. The Windmill Chapel at the Self Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Los Angeles was full to overflowing, and outside, sober-faced mourners listened via a loud-speaker to Reverend Brother Dharmanda's final prayers. "He was a man who loved... who cared ... perhaps too deeply..."

Peter Duel was dead by his own hand at 31.

"We are all basically alike," he had said. "We all have similar problems, fears--fear of failure, fear of success, fear of other human beings. Some of us simply take a different way out."

He auditioned for NBC casting director Richard Wookey, who remembers him vividly. "He was simply amazing, bright, enormously talented, outgoing. I've heard since his death about the drinking, his depressions, his reclusiveness. I can't believe it. It's like they're talking about someone else altogether."

The fact remains. Peter didn't make friends easily. At a recent party, he was talking with fellow actor Roy Thinnes. "You're one of the very few friends I have in the world," Pete told him.

He opened his home to young struggling actors who constantly streamed in and out of Hollywood. If the neighbor's didn't like things, that was their problem. A man who came to complain once too often was met at the door by Peter who had come via the kitchen where he'd grabbed a knife. "What do you want, man?" Peter asked. Speechless, the man fled, never to be heard from again.

The day before he died, Peter had a full schedule at the studio and was expected at 8 o'clock the following morning.

"I'd like to be able to tell you I saw it coming," says Alan Cohan, Universal studio publicist assigned to "Alias Smith and Jones," "but I can't. Pete had his good and bad days, of course, but who doesn't? I know he had a drinking problem only because he admitted it, but he never once showed up late for work or did he drink on the job. He was an extremely talented guy and everyone here at the studio is shocked. He and Ben were close. Pete had been around longer than Murphy and taught him a few things."

When Ben Murphy, Peter's "Alias Smith and Jones" co-star was told of the tragedy he at first refused to believe it. Finally convinced Pete's death was a fact, Ben left for the house and then the funeral home in Hollywood. "I saw Ben at the mortuary on Friday," Cohan says, "and he was comatose. That's about the only way to describe it. Later in the day Peter's parents arrived at the mortuary and Ben spent a long time in a small adjoining room talking with Mrs. Deuel. Yes, it's true he didn't attend the services. He told me he didn't think he could take it."

WHO REALLY KILLED PETER DUEL?

by Chris Cross

Movie Stars, April 1972

Within a short time, Miss Ray heard a shot and ran into the living room. There, beneath a beautifully decorated Christmas tree, lay Peter. The police report stated that he was killed by a single shot in the ear which went through his head. His death was called a probable suicide. Some doubt remains, as he could have tragically killed himself accidentally.

"WE CAN ALL LIVE...AND SURVIVE"

Peter Duel's Last Interview, Right Before Dying...

by Charles Belden

Silver Screen, April 1972

Pete Duel hated to see anything destroyed--to see anything die. He contemplated life and its meaning. Yet in the twinkling of an eye, his own was snuffed out.

In the waning days of 1971, we talked, Pete and I. I was one of the last reporters to talk with him, shortly before the awful tragedy.

He was bowed down by the troubles around him and the troubles within his own heart. "If you're in the public eye, it very often makes for trouble within your private life," he said that day.

"That's something I simply cannot handle. I just emotionally could not handle that."

We'd been discussing today's freer attitudes. "Many people today find they can handle a responsible relationship with their partner and at the same time, maintain another lover." But not Pete. He was a one-woman man who found it easy to be faithful to one love. "A hell of a lot easier than for a lot of people. But everyone knows that to make a relationship work, you have to put an awful lot into it.

"And when you're unhappy with the way you're living your life, if you're not careful, you have a tendency to blame your mate--when you're close to someone...

Pete was "close to someone." He'd found love and he talked of marrying his Diane.

Ironically, Pete seemed to match that happy-go-lucky highwayman he portrayed, but in reality he was not at all like Hannabal Hayes. Ruggedly handsome, with a charm that belied his introspective nature, Pete was a serious, sensitive man--a man who drank too much because the cares of the world were too much with him--who didn't like sentimentality but saw it as a release. "It allows you to sit and cry."

The circumstances of his death made him seem a quitter, yet he was anything but that. There's no doubt he died by his own hand. But it could only have been an accident or a momentary weakness.

When last we talked, he'd been full of plans for a future. He talked in a positive, not a defeatist, manner.

"Love," he said, "means being willing to give as much of yourself as you expect the person you're in love with to give to you. It's the same 'Do unto others' principle on a personal basis, that's what love really is. If you have that--if you practice that--then you are in a love situation.

"With Diane, I find myself taking responsibility more and more. And the more I take, the more I enjoy it, which is a very pleasant surprise to me." The man who cared so much about others had not always understood love, he told me, nor been able to accept it. It had been a long hard upward climb for him. "I'm learning all the time," he said slowly, thoughtfully.

Survival--physical, emotional, personal--was important to Pete. His own, and that of his fellow man.

It was an empathy that ate at his very insides. When he found temporary relief with a few drinks that, too, became a problem in itself and became compounded by the boredom he found in his work. He was a dedicated actor, but his series work brought little challenge, and it pained him to give less than his best effort.

Peter was deeply interested in metaphysics and was a part of the Self Realization Fellowship despite being raised in a more common, more orthodox religion.

"There was a great interest in music in our family," he mused, when we tried to trace the beginning of his interest in a religion that accepts reincarnation as an actuality.

"Coupled with what I considered rather idyllic surroundings--woods and creeks--hills, meadows, farms..." the scenes of his childhood seemed to come alive in his eyes, his words. "I just naturally drifted into that line of thinking," he said quietly.

Our last talk was different. It was a friend-to-friend conversation, with talk ranging from Women's Lib to what he personally looked for in a woman. "I like a woman who is physically attractive, who is somewhat physical herself, who is strong--enjoys the outdoors and she has to be sensitive to the arts. To my work. To philosophy in general. She has to be somewhat metaphysical, because that's what I am."

Pete talked of a role he identified with far more than his series' role. It was the role of an ex-junkie. "He was a loner," he said. "There was much about life he didn't understand--he had a lot of hostility, felt himself misunderstood, the victim of circumstances. I could identify with that."

He, too, had always been a loner--a man with fears and hostilities he didn't understand. Undoubtedly, his own drinking, a problem he couldn't quite conquer, was itself a cry for help from a lonely and fearful man.

Four times he ran afoul of the law because of it and each experience was more traumatic than the one before. Peter Duel tried valiantly, but he couldn't lick that issue.

At the incident of his last citation, there had been an accident, too. It so unnerved Pete that, in his report, the arresting officer seemed to stress his emotional reaction nearly as much as his lack of sobriety.

Peter was trying hard to solve all of his problems. Only months ago, Diane said he was learning to relax. "He's changed," she said. "It isn't playing Hannabal that's done it--it's having moved to this house. Having the garden and the trees which he loves. He can be much freer."

"We can all live and survive," was what Peter had said, hopefully. Optimistically. "You start with two people--for me, it's me and Diane--and you go on from there."

He had much to live for and his own sensitive nature would have been shattered by the violence of his own death.

"Are you happy?" he'd asked me, as a friend. Had the question been prompted by his own unhappiness? Some deep and hidden sorrow even he didn't suspect?

No, there was a simpler reason. It was an honest interested question, asked by a man who cared about another human being!

PETER DUEL: HE CARED TOO MUCH TO LIVE...

by Morris Townsend

Silver Screen, April 1972

"He did have a drinking problem," noted Jo Swerling, Jr., producer of "Alias Smith and Jones." "I was aware of that. There wasn't too much any of us could do about it. It was his own problem and he had to face it. We tried to make his work as easy for him as possible. It's a grind--making a television series.

"He was a very sensitive individual," Swerling reflected, "I mean his feelings were intense. Whatever it was that affected him affected him very deeply--whether it was something happy or something sad."

WAS IT GUILT...

WAS IT LIQUOR...

WAS IT LOVE...

WHY DID PETER DUEL KILL HIMSELF?

by Sylvia Conrad

Modern Screen, April 1972

Even while working on the pilot for The Psychiatrist, Roy Thinnes saw something very vulnerable in Peter. He remembers the day, while on location, that Peter found a wounded bird and took it home with him.

A couple of days later when Peter came to the set with a stricken face, Roy asked, "What's the matter?" and Peter said, "It died." The bird he had tried to nurse back to health just hadn't made it.

There are people, doctors tell us, who suffer terribly when they see any other living thing go through pain. Peter was like that.

THE SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT PETER DUEL'S SUDDEN DEATH!
by Stephen Lewis
Movie World, April 1972

"There was always something tragic about him," an executive who had worked with Pete at Universal Studios, where his show was filmed, said. "He seemed so strange and so somber--as if he were lost in Hollywood.

THE LAST DAYS OF PETE DUEL

by Gary Denton
TV Radio Mirror, April 1972

At approximately 1:25 A.M., December 31st, the beginning of the final day of 1971, a bullet ripped through Peter Duel's brain ending the life of one of Hollywood's most popular young actors. "I'll see you later," he told his girlfriend, and reportedly with his own gun--a .38 caliber revolver--in hand walked into the living room. Moments later Diane Ray, 29, heard a sickening blast. She dashed out of the bedroom to discover a most horrendous sight. Beneath a colorfully trimmed Christmas tree (Pete had decorated it himself the week before) the lifeless body--the head in a pool of blood--was sprawled bizarrely on the floor. Ironically, the actor's big brown eyes were wide open and deathly staring, or so it seemed, at a tiny Santa Claus hanging from the tree. Diane screamed out hysterically, then quickly called the police. But she was in such a state of shock that the desk sergeant at the Hollywood police station recalls--"the woman caller could hardly talk and blurted out something about a shooting at 2552 Glen Green Terrace (an address in the Beach wood Village section of older homes). She was so emotional that she hung up before giving her name and we listed it as an anonymous caller."

Immediately, though, the sergeant issued a Code 3 police call (proceed to scene as fast as possible) to a squad car which was on a routine patrol in the area. The two officers responding to the call didn't know what to expect. They approached the moonlight-lit small wood-frame house with extreme caution. Their guns drawn in case a killer was lurking on the premises.

Entering the unlocked front door, they found Diane-sobbing uncontrollably near the body. She was so grief stricken that she couldn't offer any explanation at that time, so the two officers suspected that a homicide might have been committed. Homicide detectives were dispatched to the scene.

The homicide team noted that the revolver lay at Duel's feet, and there was a bullet hole the size of a half dollar in the front window. The body was completely nude, and in the kitchen an empty vodka bottle stood in the sink. There were no overt signs of violence--though there were two empty shell casings in the .38. Only one shot had been heard by Diane.

In the pre-dawn hours at the Hollywood Police Station that morning Diane regained enough composure to be questioned at length by detectives.

Diane told them she works as a secretary and that she occasionally drove Duel to work. Following the actor's conviction for felony drunk driving last spring his driver's license was revoked for a year. So either Diane or a friend had to drive Pete to Universal Studios where Alias Smith And Jones is filmed.

According to the statement she gave police, Peter had started drinking heavily after he had finished the day's filming. Reportedly, he had dinner with two friends earlier that Thursday evening and they had returned to his rented house to watch his show--which comes on at 8 P.M.

In that particular episode Hannibal Heyes (Duel) is called upon to help clear his buddy Kid Curry of a murder charge. After watching it, Pete switched channels to watch the final quarter of a Laker-Supersonic basketball game being televised from Seattle.

Shortly after 10 P.M. the game ended, and Pete poured himself another drink, turned off the television, and began listening to music on an FM station. Ironically, one of the selections played by the station was Don McLean's hit "American Pie"--part of those lyrics are "This will be the day I'll die."

Detective Eugene Kamadoi says Diane told him that she had gone to bed in an adjoining room before the basketball game had ended. The two friends left later (they were also questioned by the police), and she only heard music from the stereo from the next room. Around 1:20 A.M. (she noted a clock on the nightstand) she said the 31-year-old actor suddenly entered the room with a drink in his hand.

"He appeared dazed and confused," she said later. "His eyes were glassy." Diane figured Pete was getting ready to go to bed as he had drunk a staggering amount of alcohol. Instead he fumbled around the top drawer of the dresser and took out a box containing his revolver.

He carefully unwrapped the cloth that he kept around the weapon to protect it from rusting. Diane reportedly told friends that Pete had purchased the gun some months ago for protection. There had been several robberies in the area, and even a couple of murders.

Perhaps Diane should have realized that a tragedy was about to occur when Pete left the bedroom saying, "I'll see you later." However, she figured he was taking the gun into the next room to clean it. Both the girl and Pete's brother, Geoffrey Deuel, admitted later that the TV star was despondent over his drinking problem. Neither believed however, that he would kill himself because of this hangup.

Investigators came to the conclusion that Peter Duel in all probability did commit suicide. They surmised that he stood by the tree next to the window and with his right hand fired a single gunshot into the right temple. The impact of the bullet was so powerful that the slug came out the left side of his head, went through the window, and lodged in a carport across the street--some 200 feet away.

Police Sergeant Dan Cooke later that morning found an explanation as to why a second bullet had been fired from the same gun. In front of witnesses, a week earlier, Duel received a telegram from the Screen Actors Guild informing him that he had lost election to the board of directors.

He was not angry or despondent about his defeat, according to Diane. He started laughing, and when he noted there was no period at the end of the sentence, he pinned the telegram to a wall, took his revolver and fired squarely into the message.

"This now makes my loss official," he quipped. "I put a period into it."

Though despondent over the past year or so, most of his friends believe the real Pete Duel didn't kill himself. Actually, there were two Pete Duels--sober he was a perfect gentleman--drunk, he was entirely the opposite, a bitter, confused, angry young man.

His friends believe the "bad" Pete Duel murdered the "good" Pete Duel.

"If he had been sober that night," his brother said, "there is no doubt in my mind that he would be alive today."

Though no suicide note was found, the official verdict was that Duel did deliberately end his life. If so, this fatal decision was certainly not premeditated. Earlier that evening he had left a call with his answering service to wake him at 6:30 A.M. the next day. He was due at the studio at 8 o'clock to finish filming another segment called "The Biggest Game In The West".

For the following day, New Year's, Pete had already made plans to watch the bowl games on television. He had invited his co-star on Alias, Ben Murphy, over for the afternoon, and also several other acting buddies had planned to stop by the house.

Shortly after his death was announced, another tragedy occurred. In the San Fernando Valley, a young girl took a fatal overdose of narcotics--presumably because she was so heartbroken over the actor's death. She had never met Peter, but idolized him as a fan. If only Peter Duel could have realized what joy he brought to others appearing in the series he once described as "trash!"

HIS ANGUISHED PLEA FOR HELP

HIS LAST LETTER

by Brenda Shaw

TV Radio Mirror, April 1972

According to Dennis Fimple, who played "Kyle" in the series: "He was a good man. He really was. The company worked well together. Everybody loved him. That's unusual, you know."

Dennis who was another of Pete's close friends, will never be convinced that the shooting was other than an accident.

"I don't think he checked out purposely at all. I think it was an accident, without any question or doubt in my mind."

He had been with Pete the night before. Pete brought out a collection of poems and thoughts he had written over the years. He had just had them bound and allowed Dennis to read them. One was a four-line piece of verse titled"Love," written by Pete in 1965.

Pete died at 1:25 A.M. on Friday, December 31. At a memorial service for him on Sunday afternoon, January 2, Diane Ray, who had gone through so much during the previous three days, read the little poem with great emotion.

"Love: an infinitesimal
piece of starbreak
That drifts into consciousness,
Entering in pastel waves
To become simply-LOVE!"

Excerpt from Candid Cameron Column
by Sue Cameron

TV Radio Mirror, April 1972

Word along the party circuit keeps cropping up about the late Pete Duel, who was a favorite among the Hollywood young set. Although no one will confirm anything, the story going around that won't die is that Pete was living with a well-known actress while her equally well-known husband was working in a movie in Europe. Supposedly, two weeks before Pete shot himself, the husband returned and Pete moved home. When word of Pete's alleged suicide reached the air-waves, there were a few people who thought that the husband might have found out and paid him a little visit--but nobody dared voice this theory. Behind the scenes, a big fight developed between Pete's supporters and the executives at Universal Studios, who make Alias Smith And Jones. Within 15 hours of Duel's death, another actor's name was on the call sheet at Universal. Naturally, all sorts of freaky stories keep circulating, but this one--from Pete's drinking buddy and fellow actor on Alias Smith And Jones--is amazing for reasons all its own. Says Dennis Fimple: "About two weeks before he died, Pete gave me a blender because I drink a health-food breakfast beverage each morning. It worked beautifully every day. The night he died, we had dinner and were supposed to go somewhere afterwards. He changed his mind right after dinner and said he wanted to go home to watch his show. I just went home and went to bed early. The next morning I got up to go to the studio and went to turn on my blender. It had stopped working. I was standing there, looking at it, when the phone rang--and it was a friend telling me about Pete. That blender just died and I won't turn it on again."

'ALIAS SMITH AND JONES' STAR BEN MURPHY: I WAS SHOCKED AT WHAT ABC-TV DID AFTER PETE DUEL'S DEATH

by Iain Calder

National Enquirer, April 26, 1972

TV star Ben Murphy says he was shocked at how quickly ABC replaced Pete Duel as his co-star on 'Alias Smith and Jones' after Duel's suicide.

'Pete's body was hardly cold when they had an identical costume fitted out for Roger Davis,' said the 30-year old Murphy. 'I don't know how to explain how shocked I was at that kind of action.

'I kept asking myself, "How could they do it?" But they could and they did. It was just standard TV practice and I had to accept it.

'I have no complaints about Roger. He's a real nice guy. But the way the studio rubbed out any memory of Pete so fast really upset me. It's taught me the greatest lesson I'll ever learn about Hollywood.'

Murphy said he thought the pressures of filming the hit comedy Western contributed to Duel's suicide. Duel was found dead in his apartment last New Year's Eve just a few hours after leaving the studio.

'Pete was upset about the punishing routine of grinding out a new episode every few days,' said Murphy. 'It's a killing twelve hour day, and I believe it helped to kill Pete. He couldn't cope with the pressures that fame and a big series brought into his life. He worried too much, and he drank too much through all that worry. Then he died so tragically. He was too young for that.

'I believe he ended his life because of the feeling that maybe he was just another hired hand in Hollywood,' said Murphy.

Excerpt from HOLLYWOOD HOTLINE

by Liz Dagucon

Tiger Beat Spectacular, April 1972

Everyone was saddened about the shocking news of Pete Duel's death. Hundreds of letters flooded into the office asking if it was true. How I wish the answer was that Pete is alive, well, and happy! But the truth is--on December 31, 1971, Pete died.

Your letters asking why a handsome, talented, and successful young actor should choose death over life can never be completely answered. One fact that is absolutely positive is that Pete's family, friends, and fans will miss him very, very much.

I interviewed Pete once. The afternoon of the interview was a particularly beautiful and clear California day. Pete wore a dark turtleneck sweater, levis, and boots. When we were introduced, he took my hand and flashed his dimpled grin! I knew instantly that I was going to like him--he was friendly and his answers to my questions were honest!

After the interview, I remember thinking what a wonderfully warm, witty, and charming man he was. His laughter was musical and a smile seemed to constantly play about his lips. That's the way I choose to remember Pete.

PETE DUEL: WHY?

Rona Barrett's Hollywood, May 1972

How about your work on Alias Smith & Jones?

He coughed before answering. "I like it fairly well. There's only so much you can do on a television series like that. You're really limited. You work long hours and hard hours and you don't have much to work with. There's only so much to do in the scripts."

Then has there been nothing he's done professionally that he liked?

"The part of Casey Poe on The Psychiatrist," he said. "I enjoyed that. I played a junkie. And then I came back and did the series' first episode as the same character, only this time I had a full beard..."

But what of Alias Smith & Jones? How could he continue his series if he didn't live here? Would he go on with it or quit?

Pete shook his head, indicating he wouldn't quit the show "providing it doesn't go on too long and I have my sanity left..."

A Psychiatrist's in Dept Study:

WHAT DROVE PETE DUEL TO SUICIDE!

By Carol Harrison

Screen Life, May 1972

Pete once quit smoking cigarettes but then he got a part in a show, and because of stage fright, he joined the wardrobe man in a cigar two or three times a week. "But it was still a mistake. Every book on breaking the habit mentions that you cannot touch anything even if you're not inhaling. So those three cigars a week set the stage. Then when I went back to Pennsylvania to visit my grandfather, I'd go to a little bar in Altoona and have a few beers and cigars after he went to sleep for the night.

"After two or three beers, I'd start inhaling the cigars while listening to sad music on the juke box. A month later, I was smoking many cigars each day--inhaling every one of them. So it all started again."

Excerpt from DEAR RONA

Rona Barrett's Hollywood, June 1972

a photo of Pete on the AS&J set that was taken by the writer's family on the afternoon before his death.

Dear Rona,

During the week between Christmas and New Year's, my family and I took a trip to Los Angeles. On Dec. 30th we took the Universal Studios tour. They were filming Alias Smith & Jones. The enclosed picture of Peter Duel was taken at 3 p.m. on that same day, when he was walking back to his dressing room. My Mom said to him, "Gee, Pete, you really are a doll." And with that, he gave us a great big smile.

A person in a white shirt

Description automatically generated

Can you imagine the shock we felt the next morning hearing the terrible news over the radio? To think we had seen him just a few hours before. I feel that perhaps ours was the very last picture taken of him. It certainly doesn't look like a picture of someone who would take his own life in just a few hours. What a shame! What a waste of talent!

Nancy Molinari

San Francisco, Calif.

BEN MURPHY: PETE GAVE HIS LIFE TO SAVE HIM FROM HIS DEATH TRIP!
Photo Mirror, September 1972

Alias Smith and Jones is anything but an ordinary Western. Oh, it's got lots of cowboys, six-shooters, and horses; but beyond that it takes its own course. Perhaps not as far-fetched as The Wild, Wild, Wild West, but it still has a television personality its own. The story of Alias Smith and Jones, both on the set and off, is a very unusual one.

Whatever the reason, Pete's action had a tremendous impact on the producers of the shows as well as on his friend and co-star, Ben Murphy.

The staff at Universal Television fully realized the tragedy of what had happened but they also bore in mind their responsibility to their viewing public. They immediately called an executive meeting to decide what to do with the show. Should they drop the series? Should they get a replacement? Should they postpone the show for a couple of weeks in respect for Pete. They decided that the best thing to do; for the sake of the cast, the crew, Pete's memory, and the viewing public would be to find a replacement (Roger Davis) and keep the show going on, without a break.

Although the show continued without interruption, Pete's death still had a tremendous effect, especially on his co-star, Ben Murphy. The death of his co-star had a strong and strange effect on Ben. Ever since the suicide, Ben has sobered up quite a bit. He doesn't go out as frequently, has been limiting his travel, and hasn't spent any time working on other jobs.

Excerpt from WALTER SCOTT'S PERSONALITY PARADE

By Walter Scott

Parade Magazine, October 29, 1972

Q. What's this about a Peter Duel cult springing up in England since the actor's death?

A. Ever since the star of "Alias Smith and Jones" shot himself last December, the BBC has received some 7,000 letters a week from fans demanding that the series be aired again. Therefore, the network is using the reruns rather than the programs with his replacement.

Excerpt from TELEVISIONARY
Rona Barrett's Hollywood, March 1973

Ben Murphy wasn't exactly bowled over by the cancellation of Alias Smith and Jones. According to Ben, doing a series is "...a killing 12-hour work day, five days a week. And I believe it helped to kill Pete Duel. He worried too much to cope with the punishing routine. And he drank too much through all that worry. Then he died so tragically. He was too young for that." But Ben's future looks bright--we hear Universal is already pitching a lush movie offer his way...

PETE DUEL - - TOO MUCH TOO SOON
by Fenton Bresler

Woman's Own, June 29, 1974

Harold Frizzell was not only Pete Duel's stand-in in Alias Smith and Jones. He was also his closest friend. Next to brother Geoffrey, he probably knew Pete better than anyone else.

"We were thicker than buddies - more like brothers. He was one of the greatest guys you could meet. He was a hard person to understand, but I could read him. He just had so much love that he wanted to spread it. He loved people in general, everybody. His attitude was that people are human beings and entitled to be treated as human beings. He loved kids. He wanted to settle down with a good woman who would look after him and give him kids. He had a girlfriend for the last two years of his life. He met her here at the studios. She was a secretary. He came back home with me to Kentucky and he would call my parents 'Mum' and 'Dad'. He loved his own parents too, and both his Grandmas. The simple things in life were what Pete loved - so simple that most other people would not like them. 'Let's take a walk in the woods,' he would say, and we would sit out all day beside a lake and fish. He was just about the best-liked person who ever worked at Universal studios. He was crazy about ecology and 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."

Alias Smith and Jones was a great success. Pete became admired and famous among millions of people all over the world. Yet he told a journalist I met over there that the show was 'junk and I hope it gets scrapped'.

Egbert Swackhamer, 'Swack' to his friends, is a leading television film director. He directed Pete many times. I spoke to him on the set at Warner Brothers Studios. He was brutally outspoken: "He had a self-destructive urge, that young man. I have seen it before in actors with a real natural, in-born talent. He was an instinctive actor. Pure gold! Yet he was self-destructive - and self-indulgent. He was into everything - drugs, booze, you name it. He did not spare himself in self-abuse."

In May 1971, while Alias Smith and Jones was still being churned out at the Universal factory, Pete Duel's drunken driving case came up in court. Pete wrote to the judge: 'In recalling my feelings on that night, shame and terror were in my mind. Sitting here eight months later it is very difficult to recreate the events of the accident or even try to find justification for my conduct. But I do want your Honour to know that I am a person basically interested in other people and I would not knowingly harm anyone.'

The probation officer spoke up for Pete. The drunken driving charge was not proceeded with. He was fined £400 for dangerous driving, put on probation for two years and disqualified from driving for two years.

"From then on I became Pete's chauffeur," said Harold Frizzell. "I used to collect him in the morning, bring him to the studios, 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."

"This series, any series, is a big fat drag to an actor who has any interest in his work," Pete told Hollywood reporter Cecil Smith in September 1971. "It's the ultimate trap. You slowly lose any artistic thing you may have. It's utterly destructive."

By then, Pete was finally and completely disenchanted with Alias Smith and Jones. "It isn't the work that tires you," he told Smith. "It's that it's all such a dreadful bore it makes you weary, weary." That was not the way the studio moguls would have wanted their star to talk.

"The publicity people used to almost tear their hair out with him," said director Egbert Swackhamer. "He'd come out to a reporter with something like: 'I smoke grass, man don't you?'"

"A successful series is, like Pete said, a trap for an actor who wants to do better things," top television script writer Bernard Slade told me. "It's very seductive. The money is fantastic. Of course, it makes pressures! An actor who wants to expand, to develop, finds himself trapped in a hit. He cannot go on, he has to stay where he is - the character does not develop."

Pete became even more outspokenly bitter about his work. In November 1971 he told Cecil Smith - for publication - "Contractually, I have to do this series - or some other trash."

The end was drawing near. Like any other factory employee, Pete began work at the studios on the latest six-day shooting of an Alias Smith and Jones episode early on the morning of Monday, December 27, 1971, two days after Christmas.

Shooting proceeded as usual. If anything, Pete seemed more relaxed that week. His parents had not managed to get over from New York State to spend Christmas with him, but they were due to arrive that Friday morning, December 31, and spend the weekend in Los Angeles with their two sons. The Christmas tree stood in Pete's front room with his parents' presents wrapped beneath the branches waiting for them.

"I was going to have dinner with the family that weekend," Egbert Swackhamer told me. "Those boys idolised their father. They loved, feared him. I thought he must have been eight feet tall - the way those boys talked about him! I was looking forward to meeting him."

On Thursday December 30 1971, Pete Duel finished work for the day at around 7 pm. An episode of Alias Smith and Jones was being shown on television that evening. Pete had telephoned his girlfriend Diane Ray and asked her to come over to his place. Harold Frizzell drove Pete home and came in to watch the show. Diane was already there and the three settled down to watch TV.

"Pete did not like it," Harold told me. "He said it was rubbish. He did not like the dialogue." Then he switched channels to watch the basketball game. Halfway through, Harold said he was tired and going off home. "All right man, see you in the morning!" said Pete. These were the last words that Harold Frizzell ever heard Pete Duel speak.

Harold assured me that Pete was sober when he left. "He had not been drinking all day long," he says. "He could quit drink whenever he wanted to." Yet at about half past one the following morning - when Dr and Mrs Deuel were flying across the continent to join their sons - a tearful Diane Ray telephoned the Hollywood police. [CJC's Note: While Pete's parents may have been planning to visit him soon, they apparently were not in flight to Los Angeles at the time of his death. In a late 70s TV interview, Pete's sister Pamela Deuel Hart said that they were at an appointment in Rochester when they heard of Pete's death, which leaked to the press before the family was notified.]

Pete was dead.

On arrival at the house Sgt Paul Estrada found the actor lying naked on the floor of his front room under the Christmas tree with his parents' presents spread out all around him. A .38 revolver was lying beside him.

"There was no doubt he had shot himself," Sgt Estrada told me. "It was a contact wound to the head. The angle of the bullet clearly showed he had held the gun to his temple and fired."

Diane told Sgt Estrada and his colleagues that after Harold Frizzell had left, Pete drank heavily. She said she went to bed in the small house's only bedroom. Pete stayed in the front room. About 1.25 am he came into the room, naked, took the gun from a box and left saying,"I'll see you later."

Minutes later, she heard a shot fired in that front room. She rushed in--and there was Pete, his head half blasted away. [CJC's Note: Not that it affects the end result, but this last statement isn't true and may have been added for sensationalism. There were only 2-3 cm entrance and exit wounds on each side of the head.]

Why did Pete do it? "The autopsy showed the guy had three times as much alcohol in his blood as would have got him convicted for drunken driving," Sgt Estrada said. "He was completely smashed! I guess there is a lot of pressure on these stars. I don't know why he wanted out of it --making steady money and all. I suppose it was the drink."

I went to the house where Pete Duel died. I stood in that front room. His landlady has tried for over two years to clean the blood stain off the carpet.

"I knew Pete very well," said the landlady. "I still can't believe he shot himself. He was under pressure - but, by God, so are we all! He was a young boy. He wanted to get out of his series and do some really good work that he thought he was capable of. All right! But why do something like this?"

Harold Frizzell believes to this day that Pete tried to call him shortly before he blew his brains out. "At about 1 am my telephone rang," Harold said. "But I was asleep. By the time I could get to it, it had stopped ringing. The only guy who would have phoned me at that hour would have been Pete. Often in the night when he was lonely and wanted a chat he would phone me and we would talk for hours."

At Universal Studios that Friday morning nothing was allowed to mar the shooting scheduled for that day. Ben Murphy, Pete Duel's co-star, went ahead and worked. The crew turned out. The cameras rolled. Said Pete's publicist friend: "They did all the shots for that week's episode that didn't require Pete."

Did they think they could possibly use that week's episode? Big money was at stake. Next Monday, three days later, it was announced that Roger Davis would take over Pete Duel's part. Wearing the same black hat, black shirt and gilt holster, he would -- with Ben Murphy -- reshoot the previous week's episode and complete the series.

Diane Ray left Hollywood after Pete's death. She now lives in Mexico. A friend of mine met her down in Acapulco a few months ago. He said she is a pleasant, friendly girl working as assistant manageress in a coffee shop. She seems happy. I spoke to her sister and she thought it unlikely that Diane will return to Hollywood.

Harold Frizzell still works at Universal Studios as a stand-in. But he has not found another Pete Duel: "You only meet a guy like that once in a lifetime."

"What I cannot understand," I said to my friends here, " is how on earth Pete Duel could choose that particular moment to kill himself --when his parents, whom he loved so dearly, were at that very moment flying out to see him!"

"But isn't that classic?" replied Bernard Slade. "Isn't that often the way with suicides? They do it in such a way as to deliberately hurt the people they most love. It's as if they want to destroy not only themselves but others whom they love the most."

Geoffrey Deuel did not want to talk to me about his brother's death. I only dragged two words from him about it. But I believe they supply the essential clue : "Accidental suicide." It's a descriptive phrase.

I think it all blew in his mind as he sat there in the front room of his country-style house, a drink in his hand and his girlfriend asleep in his bed behind. What was it all about? What was the use of it all? Perhaps we'll try something, see what happens!

Alias Smith and Jones did not long survive Pete Duel's death. "He was the real star. A lot of the success of the series was due to him," Egbert Swackhamer told me. And so it proved. Despite Universal's hurried recasting and the valiant attempts of Roger Davis to play the part created by someone else, the show ran for only 17 more episodes.

The new version was shown on BBC television. But by popular request they first had to show an extended nine months' run of Pete Duel's Alias Smith and Jones. Explained Mr Robin Scott, Controller of BBC2: "Viewers have made it clear they want to see Duel again."

That gives added irony to Charles Parker's comment on Pete's death: "Perhaps part of it was frustration in his work. He was successful, but he did not really feel a success."

I leave the last word to Geoffrey Deuel: "Peter felt there were other things he wanted to do. Acting was not enough in itself. He wanted to do other things for people that he considered more meaningful - and he wanted to have better parts! Possibly that was a shame, because he forgot how much happiness he gave to so many people."

WHY PETE DUEL BLEW HIS BRAINS OUT
by Fenton Bresler

Pageant, January 1975

I talked to Ben Murphy about his dead co-star. We met on the set of his latest success, "Griff".

"It's a pleasure, Fenton, to meet you. How are you?" he said when we were introduced. I told him I was writng about Pete Duel and asked: "What makes a man do a thing like that?"

"I have no comment."

"How did his death affect you?"

"I'm sorry, Fenton, no comment."

"Who made this rule, your or the company?"

"No, only me. So you know that if ever you see any comment by me in the press on Pete it didn't really come from me, it's not true."

"All right, thank you," I said.

"That's O.K., Fenton--I'm sorry."

And a successful, handsome, young television star went back to work in a television factory.

Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside

by Judy Carne

Rawson Associates: New York, 1985

pp. 191-193

March 3: I got a job within an hour of flying in. Rushed over to Universal for fitting in western gear for "Alias Smith and Jones," with Peter Deuel....

On my first morning of work I was sitting in a makeup chair on the Universal back lot when suddenly a pair of hands covered my eyes.

"It's the big whale, come to spout on you again!" said Peter. He lifted me high in the air and we hugged joyously.

It was divine to be working together again, as we laughed about old times. But soon Peter admitted he was unhappy about the mediocrity of the show. At first I thought he was overreacting, but as the week wore on, I began to see what he meant.

March 6: On the set of "Alias S & J" the director came up to me right before a take and said, "I'll give you the name of a doctor in Santa Monica who can fix those crow's-feet around your eyes...."

I was taken aback. I was just about to go on camera. It was one of the most insensitive remarks I've ever heard.

Every hour a trolley carrying a tour group drove by the set, with a guide barking through a megaphone: "And here, folks, is an episode in the making of 'Alias Smith and Jones,' starring Ben Murphy and Peter Deuel. Today they are joined by guest star Judy Carne, the 'Sock it to me' girl!"

Each time this happened, the director told us to freeze in our places, and we'd have to wait until the trolley was well out of sight before we could resume acting. I'd look at Peter and see him shaking his head in frustration.

Peter came over to my house that weekend and told me he was seriously depressed. He described feelings that were all too familiar to me, like lost confidence and lack of purpose. I insisted he take a drive with me to a special place. I wouldn't tell him where; I simply played some Ravi Shankar music in the car to relax him.

I drove to the Self-Realization Foundation near Malibu Beach, a beautiful shrine of Indian mystics with a tranquil lake, exotic gardens, and hypnotic sitar music emanating from speakers around the grounds. I'd been going there for years. "Every now and then," I told Peter, "when I feel incomplete and insecure, I come here to clear my head."

As we wandered around, he was wide-eyed, like a child, watching the ducks float gracefully along the lake. "It's so beautiful here," he said, smiling, "it makes me feel like a jerk to be depressed."

By the end of the day we'd talked out our anxieties and Peter was sounding positive. I was glad that our visit to SRF had cheered him up. But still, I noticed a sad, faraway look in his eyes. When we said good-bye that day, I left with a strange feeling of concern for his emotional well-being.

March 16: Recap: Party all day at my house. . . . About 65 people were in and out. Flip was into heavy raps, Peter Deuel was super fun, Sally Kellerman brought Bob Altman, Lou Adler, and some of the cast of "Brewster McCloud"--interesting. Burt Schneider showed, also Bob Rafelson. I met Barry K., Jr., son of the famous actor. Intriguing . . . we got on well together.

Cass arrived later, with Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys. Bruce played beautiful piano and we had a super sing-along ranging from old Beach Boys hits to even a few Boy Friend songs, with Cass. Rod Stewart joined us. A divinely degenerate little Englishman . . . very interesting. It ended at 5 A.M.

pp. 201-202

My New Year's optimism was shattered that day by a phone call from Henry Gibson, telling me that Peter Deuel had been found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, beneath the Christmas tree in his Hollywood Hills home. I was devastated--we'd only recently worked together. "Judy, he wanted to be buried at SRF," Henry told me.

I wept, recalling the time I'd first taken him to the Self Realization Foundation. I knew he'd been depressed about his work; his standards were so high that any form of mediocrity gave him an overwhelming feeling of futility. He'd point to his lines in the script and say, "It's all so meaningless."

Peter carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He was deeply affected by news stories involving any form of tragedy or suffering. He was always asking, "What can we do?"

Peter had helped me through a difficult time in my life. My only consolation was that I'd helped him find a moment of peace that day at SRF. Hollywood lost a brilliant actor and I lost a loyal friend. I shall never forget him.

ALAS SMITH AND JONES

by Paul Donnelley

from the book T.V. Babylon, 1997

In December he volunteered to spend two weekends working for a charity telethon - Toys for Tots. A picture taken at the time shows Duel holding toy gun to his head. Often, while in the make-up chair, Duel would place his prop gun to his head.

TRANSCRIPT OF BEN MURPHY'S STATEMENTS ON TV PROMO, PART 3
Granada Plus (UK Cable Channel)

Aired March 2002

I'll tell you what my ..... my lasting memory, what I'm always struck by, is that my career peaked with Alias Smith and Jones and, in a way, I knew it, at the time. I thought to myself, 'It doesn't get better than this,' and it never has. I've had other shows that I enjoyed and other situations, but, but, the chemistry and the reception that the show still has for people, I have never been able to find again. And so my lasting, my memory, sometimes when I run into Roger Davis on the street and we reminisce I wish that er [PAUSE, LOOKING AWAY FROM INTERVIEWER] I wish that Peter had stayed alive so that we could have those times together, so that we could look back fondly because a lot of people enjoyed that show. They enjoyed it more than we realized at the time. I think the audiences are like us, see the audience still likes the show and gets joy from the show. That's our, that's our, that's what we should be proud of, I think, as actors.

CUT

I was surprised about the death but, I wasn't surprised that something would happen because Peter, Peter was troubled. He was, Peter was the most lovable, gracious man. He, I mean, he was what you saw on screen. You would love him and like him but 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. And he did drink and he had a troubled relationship and he had a gun. And I think all those things came together, along with New Year's Eve, to create a moment in time which caused him to kill himself. I do believe it was suicide. I don't think it was an accident. I'm sure that if he were here today and I would look at him and I'd go, 'Petey.' He would give me that impish grin and he would admit he, he messed up, you know. But I'm not sure he wouldn't do it again. I'm not sure any of us wouldn't live our lives the same way but you would have loved him.

TRANSCRIPT OF BEN MURPHY'S RADIO INTERVIEW WITH BBC WALES

Huw Williams, Interviewer

Aired 2004

H: What was it like working with Pete Duel?

Ben: Uh. Well, the chemistry between Peter and I was wonderful. I’ve never quite had it since. It was a marvelous chemistry. However, it was like being married. We were there 12 to 14 hours a day with each other, and when the day was over we both went our separate ways, went home, and got enough rest to come back and start the next day.

H: But there seemed to be a genuine rapport there. You know, sometimes…

Ben: There was. There was a wonderful chemistry.

H: You seemed like a double act from vaudeville or something.

Ben: (laughing) It was a good chemistry, and it began right at the audition. I remember the day we auditioned. I was teamed up with him for the audition – it was done on film. And I sized him up and I saw his personality, and I chose another personality that contrasted with his, but got along with his. Because he was very open and gregarious so I chose a little more of a standoffish, quieter character. And it seemed to work. And we did that from the audition. And so we both got the roles from that audition tape.

H: So you hit it off straight away?

Ben: We hit it off. Peter and I weren’t friends off the set – we weren’t enemies obviously -- but we weren’t close friends away from work. We just had a good working relationship. Simply because he had his life, I had mine. You know there was no time after work.

H: So there was no time to get together for drinks afterwards or things like that?

Ben: No. So what you saw was a wonderful working professional relationship. And the tensions that came into Peter’s life before he died, I really was just minimally aware of.

H: Did he seem unhappy? Because, I mean, tragically as many people will remember, Pete Duel died on New Year’s Eve, 1971. What do you recall about the day you heard he’d died?

Ben: Well, I was living in a little, uh, what we used to call crash pads – a little apartment with a mattress on the floor. And I remember the associate producer, about 6am, or 4am or something like that coming and waking me to tell me that Peter had died, and it was, uh, it was a shock. The best thing to say about Petey, he was so lovable, so likeable. He was much more mercurial that I am. And took things to heart. You know, if the whales were migrating off the coast of California, and someone interrupted their trip, that bothered Peter. It just bothered his sensibilities. Uh. He was a much more complex man and I think that issue probably led to his suicide.

H: It was officially ruled a suicide, wasn’t it?

Ben: Yes, it was certainly a suicide. There was no question about it.

H: It must have been extremely difficult then to know whether to carry on with the show or not. Did you consider leaving?

Ben: I just didn’t deal with any of that. I figured that wasn’t my choice. That was the company’s choice. It was their show. I was an employee. If they wanted to carry on I would carry on. It certainly wasn’t a lot of fun, and it never -- you could never replicate that relationship and that chemistry again. And they soon figured that out. But that wasn’t my issue. I just sort of numbly went on.

H: ‘Cause you carried on with Roger Davis who had already been associated with the show.

Ben: Right. Very difficult shoes for Roger to step into, of course.

H: Yeah, because I don’t think, to be fair, I suppose that in the eyes of the public that they didn’t have that affection for him that they did for Pete Duel, did they?

Ben: No. There’s no way. You can’t make a change like that on a show.

H: Do you think that it would have been easier if they had cast Roger Davis as a new character?

Ben: I think the show was dead when Peter died. I think, I think that was it. I think Peter’s death undermined the fun-lovingness of the show. It sort of snapped people to a reality that this wasn’t just make believe, that there were real human beings with real problems, real issues and so the fantasy kind of got lost, I think, with his death.

H: Yeah, cause you bounced off each other, you and Pete Duel. I mean it was really sort of an excellent partnership. Was there much improvisation with what you did or was it all scripted?

Ben: Uh. Like any show, the script is there and Peter and I would go off on it occasionally and the directors would use whatever worked, so there was always improvisation. Especially with the time constraints. There was so much work to do. I can’t stress, I guess, too much, that was a difficult show to shoot, because it was an outdoor western. And outdoor shows are much more difficult, especially when you’re dealing with animals and a large cast. And just keeping two actors on a horse in the same shot can sometimes be a problem.

H: Tell us, what was your typical working day doing the show?

Ben: You mean in terms of the hours?

H: Yeah.

Ben: I think we probably started around 6:30 and finished when the sun set. That would depend on the time of the year. It was basically 12 on and 12 off.

H: Those are very long hours, aren’t they?

Ben: Those are long. Yeah.

H: The program finished in 1973. What did you do after that?

Ben: Well, I did about 6 more series, but none of them to the same acclaim, nor did they last as long. I did things such as “Winds of War.” I did a series with Rosemary Harris. She played my mother on a show, “The Chisums.” It was another western with Robert Preston. I mean, I worked with some wonderful, wonderful actors over the years. It was just that “Smith and Jones” had sort of a cult appeal.

H: Did you ever keep any mementos from “Smith and Jones?” Like a wanted poster or something like that?

Ben: Uh, I’m sure I have them around, but they’re not displayed, and they’re put away and …they’re put away, let’s put it that way.

H: Is that because you find it difficult to look at them now?

Ben: No it’s just that I find it difficult to find space, you know, for stuff, and like I say, my career, my life, moved on. There have been many shows since and many relationships since, and those are the pictures that are up on my mantelpiece, you know.

H: Yeah. Are you able to watch “Alias Smith and Jones” still? Do you have it on film or anything?

Ben: I have old tapes that people have given me. Ironically enough, it has been fans that have provided me with the tapes, because when “Smith and Jones” was on, there wasn’t even videotape in those days. It hadn’t quite begun, so over the years, as it would replay, different fans would send me the tapes and it’s their tapes that I have.

H: Well, you ought to let me know which ones you’ve got missing. Because I think I’ve got the whole of the first season.

Ben: Do you?

H: Well, they repeated it over here on the BBC about ‘95, ‘96, and me and my wife taped them all.

Ben: Well thank you for that.

H: It’s great.

Ben: I have watched them occasionally and it’s not that it’s painful, it’s just that it’s so long ago.

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