When I was a boy I used to like to watch TV Westerns.
Leif Erickson (real name William Wycliffe Anderson) played John Cannon in the High Chaparral which I have to say was never one of my big favourites. This seems to me to be a strange alternative name to choose, he wasn’t even from Minnesota and Will Anderson sounds like a perfectly good name for a cowboy actor to me.
Challenge – Here are the birth names of ten more western actors – Do you know what they changed them to and how they became better known?
Marion Mitchell Morrison (an easy one to start with)
James Scott Bumgarner
Jack Carlton Moore
Buddy Lee
Norman Eugene Walker
Leonard Franklin Slye
Lyon Himan Green
Eugene Maurice Orowitz
Orison Whipple Hungerford
and finally Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg (just one TV western series but a famous actress)
I’ll give the answers in a day or two…
Have Bag, Will Travel 
Well, I know the easy one and think I can name a few more. If you’re ever in Arizona, then you should go by Old Tucson Studios. A lot of western movies and tv shows were filmed there.
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I nearly got to Tucson once but it was just too far to drive in the time available. I did once stay over in Page and there was a lot of western memorabilia there too,
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I am going to lose at this game for sure…I await the education. 🙂
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Nope, totally useless with actors or singers names 😦
But I do remember High Chaparral well, even the music. Sits in the memory pod along with Daktari…
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I never liked Daktari or that cross eyed lion!
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Clarence!
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My favourite ‘Clarence’ was the Angel in ‘Wonderful Life’.
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Hahaha – a bit of exercise for little old gray cells – because I watched Bonanza in my younger days 😀 I know Eugene Maurice Orowitz/ Michael Landon or “Little Joe Cartwright” – I think he got better known through that rather than through his roles in Little House on the Prairie of Highway to Heaven?
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Absolutely correct. Bonanza was always one of my favourites but I always wondered why there were no women at the Ponderosa or why poor old Hop Sing had to do all the work. Also how they always managed to wear the same clothes in every episode – did they never wash them?
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Hahahaha – they were so good that laundry never crossed our minds, but hey, they perhaps washed the clothes before bed and by morning they were dry 😀 well regarding no women there maybe that was the draw-card for hopefuls, or fodder for female viewer daydreaming 😀
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One more thing about Little Joe – whenever he fell in love you knew the girl was going to die!
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😦
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the only one i know is john wayne, but i loved my westerns so much! can’t wait to hear the answers.
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Yes, the great John Wayne, everyone should get that one! Thanks for the comment.
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I know the faces but never knew the names.
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Answers in a couple of days. You will know them all!
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I look forward to reading the answers. 😀
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I loved High Chaparral! SD
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I preferred the Virginian. Thanks for the comment.
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I used to love this show, caught each episode more than once – but then again, I used to watch all the old oaters.
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Henry Darrow who played Manolito wasn’t a Mexican, his parents were from Puerto Rico
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Good info – thanks! His real name was Enrique Tomas Delgado.
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