Lorne Greene

Lorne Hyman Greene, born Lyon Himan Green on February 12, 1915, in Ottawa, Ontario, was a Canadian actor, singer, and radio personality. The son of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire, Dora and Daniel Green, a shoemaker, Greene grew up in Ottawa before pursuing studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, where he acted and developed broadcasting skills through the Radio Workshop of the university's Drama Guild on campus station CFRC. He had initially aimed for a career in chemical engineering before his interests shifted to theatre. Following graduation, he moved to New York to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, then relocated to Toronto in 1939 to work as a newsreader for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He rose to become the principal newsreader on the CBC National News, earning the informal title "The Voice of Canada." His deep, resonant delivery of wartime news also earned him the darker nickname "The Voice of Doom." During this period, Greene invented a countdown timer that allowed radio announcers to track remaining segment time while speaking.

Greene served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, holding the rank of flying officer from 1942, while continuing his CBC work. He also narrated newsreel and documentary films, including the National Film Board of Canada's Fighting Norway in 1943. After the war, he left the CBC staff following a dispute over income from film narration and became a freelancer, reading news for private Toronto radio station CKEY while also returning to stage and radio acting. In 1945, he founded the Lorne Greene Academy of Radio Arts in Toronto, serving as its dean until closing the school in 1952, after which he relocated to the United States.

Greene's Broadway career spanned 1953 to 1958. Katharine Cornell cast him in two of her productions in 1953: The Prescott Proposals and the Christopher Fry verse drama The Dark Is Light Enough. His other Broadway credits during this period included the play Edwin Booth and the melodrama Speaking of Murder. Alongside his stage work, Greene began appearing in live television productions in the 1950s, including the title role in a one-hour adaptation of Othello in 1953. In 1954, he made his Hollywood film debut as Saint Peter in The Silver Chalice. The following year, he appeared as Ludwig van Beethoven in an episode of the television series You Are There and played Marcus Brutus in Julius Caesar at the Stratford Festival. In 1957, he played the prosecutor in the feature film Peyton Place.

Greene secured his most enduring role after his performance as O'Brien in the CBS production of Nineteen Eighty-Four led to his casting as Ben Cartwright, the patriarch of the Cartwright family, in the Western series Bonanza, which ran from 1959 to 1973 and was the first one-hour Western series filmed in color. The role made Greene a household name. In the 1960s, he recorded several albums of country-western and folk songs, performing in a mixture of spoken word and singing. In 1964, his spoken-word ballad "Ringo," referencing the real-life Old West outlaw Johnny Ringo, reached number one on the music charts.

Following Bonanza's cancellation after fourteen seasons, Greene joined Ben Murphy in the ABC crime drama Griff in 1973, playing a retired Los Angeles police officer turned private detective. The series was cancelled after thirteen episodes. He then hosted the syndicated nature documentary series Last of the Wild from 1974 to 1975. In the 1977 miniseries Roots, he played John Reynolds, the first master of Kunta Kinte. Through the 1970s, he served as spokesman for Alpo Beef Chunks dog food commercials. Greene also co-hosted the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC with Betty White for nearly a decade.

Greene went on to play Commander Adama in the science-fiction television series Battlestar Galactica from 1978 to 1979 and its follow-up Galactica 1980 in 1980. In 1981, he appeared in the series Code Red as a fire-department chief whose subordinates included his own children. He appeared alongside former Bonanza co-star Michael Landon in an episode of Highway to Heaven and with former co-star Pernell Roberts in a two-part episode of Vega$. In 1986, he appeared in the HBO mockumentary The Canadian Conspiracy. In the 1980s, Greene hosted and narrated the CTV nature series Lorne Greene's New Wilderness, which focused on wildlife and environmental awareness.

Among his honors, Greene was made an Officer of the Order of Canada on October 28, 1969, for services to the performing arts and to the community. Queen's University awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree in 1971. He received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1974 and was named King of Mardi Gras by the Krewe of Bacchus in February 1985. He was the 1987 recipient of the Earle Grey Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Canadian Gemini Awards. Greene holds a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1559 N. Vine Street, and in 2015 he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto. In May 2006, Canada Post honored him on a 51-cent postage stamp, among the first four entertainers to receive that distinction.

Greene was married twice. His first marriage, to Rita Hands of Toronto, lasted from 1938 to 1960 and produced twins born in 1944. His second marriage, to Nancy Deale in 1961, lasted until his death. In 1960, he built the Ponderosa II House in Mesa, Arizona, a replica of the Bonanza set house from the Ponderosa Ranch in Incline Village, Nevada; the property is listed in the Mesa Historic Property Register. Greene died on September 11, 1987, at the age of 72, from complications of pneumonia following ulcer surgery, at Saint Johns' Hospital in Santa Monica, California. He is interred at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City.