MICHAEL'S MENAGERIE
“And the latest addition to this private zoo is a gibbon ape ... a real, honest-to-goodness ape! And what did they call him? Melvin!! Melvin has been keeping me awfully busy. He digs cherry plums the most! I have a cherry plum tree. So I have to pick cherry plums to keep Melvin happy! I didn't bargain for THAT when I signed the contract to play in Bonanza.” Lorne Greene (Talking about Michael’s animals)
“Melvin is a baby golden gibbon. He’s tall and skinny and loves to be bathed, but he hates the diapers he has to wear. Melvin came into the family when a guinea pig of Mark’s died. We buried the animal with an appropriate ceremony in the animal cemetery – that was a sad day – then I took Mark to the pet shop to get him another pet. I went in to buy him a racoon, but he became attached to the gibbon, so I bought him instead. Mark named him Melvin, because he remembered a story called Melvin of the Apes.” Michael Landon, 1961.
“We were so
poor, that we were living in a tiny room that was crowded with just one bed in
it. Mark stayed with Dodie’s parents,
and we had an unusual sleeping arrangement with our one small bed. We put the
mattress on the floor, where I slept. Dodie used the box springs on the bed.
Despite the crowded conditions and the lack of money, we had eleven cats! I
wanted to bring Dodie all kinds of gifts, but cats were the only things I could
afford. You could buy one at the pound for fifty cents, so I kept buying them
and bringing them to her. I’ll never forget that summer with
the eleven cats. It was so hot. The cats felt it worse than Dodie or I did, I
guess. I used to buy twenty-five cents worth of ice and put it in the back seat
of my run-down old car. The cats would all crawl in the car and spend the day
sitting on the ice. By the time I got home at night, the water would would be
running out of
the car doors, but the cats woul
d
be cool and contented. We have three cats at home now. Pogo is a Siamese. Reggie
Van Landon is the aristocrat of the family. He’s a 22-pound, orange tiger cat.
The other cat is a black named Cyril. We’ve had others, but we’ve given them
away. They’ve all gone
to very good homes I might add.” Michael (talking
about just after he married Dodie), 1961.
"The other animal in my life, of course, is the Pinto I ride on Bonanza. His name is Cochise, and he's nuts. He hates all horses. No one can ride either in front of him or behind him. If there's a horse in back of him he kicks, and if there's one in front of him, he bites. That's why you usually see us riding abreast. The trouble with the horse is that he's only bold when I'm mounted. When no one is riding him, he's timid. He's been trained to rear up, and this looks great, even if it does make me look like the Lone Ranger. I just wish he wouldn't rear on my lines. Pinto's are almost always psychos. They're good runners, but they've been inbred so much they're high strung. I'll say one thing for Cochise. He knows where the camera is. He can be standing on the set looking every which way, then someone yells action. As soon as he hears that, he stands still and looks into the camera.” Michael Landon, September 1961.
“Lions roared after dusk our first evening here. That petrified Dodie – until she recalled that the city zoo was just across a few canyons. We brought along ten cats and our beagle, “Honeybear” and installed a turtle named “Henry” in the patio He lifts up his head to peer at everyone who passes through, and we’re convinced he’ll live forever.” Michael talking about moving into his new house, 1960.
“One
evening a
couple of years ago we were looking at a picture of the Duke and Duchess of
Windsor
and their pug dog. I made some remark about how much I liked an animal
like that, but having a house full of animals already, I didn’t give it a
serious thought. A few weeks ago our beagle passed away. I was so broken up
about it
that I was still crying when Michael came back from the studio. He promptly left
again and didn’t show up until almost
“Ten days after my romantic bridegroom moved in with Mark and me I was welcomed when I returned from the office by three little kittens. Coal-black ones. I’ve always had cats, but Mike had avoided them until the night he came to call on me and a couple crawled on his lap. ‘I was driving along and noticed these three little kittens without any mittens sitting forlornly on a corner,’ he explained. I was so delighted. The next day a scrap of paper I noticed turned out to be a receipt. He’d wanted to give me a present, and he’d gone clear downtown to the city pound, where he’d paid fifty cents a piece for them. A week afterwards he was puzzled as one purred. ‘Could this one be a Persian?’ he asked innocently. I was astounded by the fluffy hair it was developing. Later I learned Mike had tripped back to the pound for a fourth kitten, just to surprise me. Easter came within a month. Not only the day, but the goose! We were out for a drive, the three of us, that afternoon, when Mike suggested we buy a goose as a pet. Of course, he declared, we had to name her ‘Easter.’ And that night, naturally, our goose couldn’t go to sleep in the house. She stepped back and forth noisily, so we couldn’t sleep, either. Then I dozed off and woke to absolute silence. Mike was peering at me in the dark, breathless, for my question. ‘What did you do with ‘Easter’? 'I wrapped her up in a Turkish towel and put her in the oven!' I shrieked. ‘Relax,’ he commanded. ‘She’s sleeping calmly there and she has the pilot light on to keep her warm.’” Dodie Landon, Feb 1961.
Even during Michael's performances on his television shows he was often seen with animals.....
Here we see Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven .......
as a child he had pets.......
and even later in his personal life Michael was always drawn to animals......
