nbc hit series Bonanza was one of the longest-running westerns in history and starred Michael Landon as Little Joe Cartwright. The Cartwright family has wealth, and the show features their lives in Virginia City, Nevada. Unfortunately, many of the Cartwrights were unable to maintain relationships with women, and Landon said that this led to rumors that Cartwright men might be gay.
Many of the Cartwright family members on ‘Bonanza’ did not have long-term relationships.
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the carters they always had each other Bonanza, as they certainly couldn’t depend on having a long-lasting relationship. According to Stranger, the “Cartwright curse” is named after the family. The curse meant that the main character of a series does not get to have a close relationship with the person he is in love with, whether he dies or leaves.
Lorne Greene played Ben Cartwright, and Ben had three wives in his lifetime. Elizabeth Stoddard died in childbirth, Inger Borgstrom was shot with an arrow by a Native American, and Marie DeMarigny fell from a horse to her death.
Aside from Ben, Hoss Cartwright, played by Dan Blocker, was also unlucky in love. Emily Pennington fell in love with Hoss, but she is suffering from a fatal illness. She leaves without telling Hoss what’s going on, and he later learns the truth from the other Cartwrights.
Michael Landon’s character, Little Joe Cartwright, also deals with tragedy. His wife, Alice Harper, was killed by a henchman.
Michael Landon said there were rumors that the Cartwrights were gay
With so much death and disappointment in the Cartwrights’ lives, Michael Landon said that it made some fans wonder if Cartwright’s men were interested in looking for women.
“You guys never had girlfriends there, right?” Johnny Carson asked Landon about the characters in Bonanza. “You are four grown men and you never had girlfriends.”
“There are a lot of rumors about that,” Landon joked. “There were! There were a lot of rumors that the Cartwrights were gay. Landon pointed out that he was there to ‘set the record straight’ with Carson. “We weren’t,” he said, but joked that “Hop Sing was.” Hop Sing cooked to the Cartwrights in their home and was very influential in their lives.The Cartwrights considered him a close family member and not just the chef of the house.
Michael Landon had several wives throughout his life.
Although Cartwright’s relationships did not always dominate the Bonanza stories, Michael Landon had several marriages of his own In 1956 he married his first wife, Dodie Levy-Fraser. They divorced in 1962, and in 1963 he married actress Marjorie Lynn Noe. Their marriage ended in 1982 after reports suggested that Landon was having an affair with the little house on the prairie makeup artist
Less than a year after his divorce from Noe, Landon married makeup artist Cindy Clerico. The two remained together until Landon’s death in 1991.
Landon encouraged Clerico to date after his death. In 1992, Clerico said that she had not dated, since at the time she was not open to romance. she never remarried after Landon’s death.
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