What Happened to Betsy on 'The Virginian'? The Actress Broke Her Contract
What happened to Betsy on 'The Virginian'? Actress Roberta Shore printed why she quit the successful Western after not up to 4 seasons.
When speaking about classic TV Westerns, the general public name-drop Bonanza or Gunsmoke. But for a certain technology, NBC’s The Virginian is solely as memorable.
Like maximum long-running series, the display — which spanned nine seasons for a total of 249 episodes — went via a few rough patches. The departure of primary character Betsy Garth in the starting of Season 4 nearly sunk the drama, but The Virginian managed to survive the upheaval.
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What happened to Betsy on 'The Virginian'?
In the 1965 episode "The Awakening," Judge Garth’s most effective daughter weds former minister David Henderson and moves to Pennsylvania to get started a brand new existence with her husband. The storyline reflected actress Roberta Shore’s personal decision to spoil her seven-year contract with the display in order to focal point on her real-life marriage.
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"I moved from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City and never wanted to come back," the religious Mormon defined in a 2016 interview. "I had a couple of children and I have five grandchildren. Having grandchildren and children is the best part of my life."
By the time she hand over Hollywood at the age of 22, Roberta had a lengthy and impressive resume. She secured a place at Walt Disney Productions regardless of unsuccessfully auditioning for The Mickey Mouse Club. "I'm only five-three-and-a-half but I was too tall," she said of the coveted gig.
"But then I did a lot of Disney films and voices on cartoons, I did recordings, I toured — but I was never under contract. So I was never a Mouseketeer but I did a lot of work with them."
For instance, you'll hear Roberta yodeling on "It's a Small World" at Disney Parks, and she performed Annette Funicello’s romantic rival in 1959’s The Shaggy Dog.
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Though she thankfully selected love over her profession, the 77-year-old up to now admitted, "I did regret giving up music. Music was my first love. I started out as a singer, and I did a lot of singing back then."
She in short returned to acting to star in the 1974 LDS Church brief "Cipher in the Snow," which used to be produced by way of Brigham Young University Motion Picture Studio.
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Roberta Shore has fond memories of 'The Virginian' set.
The brunette attractiveness was employed to play Betsy after her different TV activity, The Bob Cummings Show, got canceled. "[The sitcom] was horrible and only lasted about two weeks," Roberta recalled. "From there, [Universal Studios] put me in The Virginian."
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The California native adored her on-screen father, Lee J. Cobb, who had two Academy Award nominations below his belt by the time the Western started airing. "I loved him. He was my favorite," Roberta stated of the actor, who played Judge Garth for four seasons.
"He was professional, kind, and witty. He could just look at me and make me laugh. I really loved him as a father image."
Roberta additionally raved about working with a young Robert Redford on the 1963 episode "The Evil That Men Do." "He was right out of Broadway and I think it was one of the first TV shows he had done," she shared. "He was just really nice."
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