I was under contract to Universal at the time. Universal was making the show and so they brought in a number of actors, including young actors like myself, and we auditioned. In those days we did [it]--the old fashioned screen test. It's not done that much anymore because of videotape and we spent the whole day testing and the man I tested with happened to be Peter Duel and there were a number of people going up for his role, and I remember looking at Peter, never having met him, and sort of sizing up his personality, and thinking to myself, knowing the lines and personalities of the characters, and thinking to myself: "What kind of a personality do I want to adopt that works with his? That would create a relationship that would be interesting?" I remember having that thought during the test and I remember thinking to myself: "The most important thing about the show is the relationship--not my character, not his character."
The stories were cute, but it was the
relationship, I felt was important. I remember trying to do that
the rest of my life, after Peter died and after the show died,
always trying to find the next great relationship on film. And
I never achieved it. That was just a very special marriage of
two people and we weren't that close off camera, because we were
so busy. He had his life, I had mine. It was like being married.
When you are with somebody twelve, fourteen hours a day, five
days a week, you don't get much time to do anything else with
him. But our on-camera chemistry was marvelous and it fueled my
desire to keep acting--the attempt to find that again.
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