Actor Dale Robertson, best known for his starring roles on television and movies Westerns, died Tuesday after a brief illness.
The Oklahoma boy turned movie star passed away at the Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, Calif., said a niece of the actor. He was 89.
After his role as Zeke in the show “Harts of the West” in 1993, Robertson retired from acting to spend more time at his ranch in Yukon, Okla., where he lived until moving to the San Diego area in recent months, his wife Nancy Robertson said.
“Dale Robertson would want to be remembered as a father, a grandfather and an Oklahoman,” she added. "He came back a lot when he was in Hollywood, and he came back (to Oklahoma) after retiring.”
"I remember him as a larger-than-life fellow," she said. "When he was in town it was always very exciting. It always meant something magical was going to happen," such as another actor or performing artist accompanying him on his visits.
Robertson began his acting career by chance during World War II, when he was in the United States Army. Stationed at San Luis Obispo, California, Robertson decided to have a photograph taken for his mother; so he and several other soldiers went to Hollywood to find a photographer. A large copy of his photo was later displayed in the photographer's shop window. He found himself receiving letters from film agents who wished to represent him. After the war, Robertson stayed in California. Hollywood actor Will Rogers, Jr., gave him this advice: "Don't ever take a dramatic lesson. They will try to put your voice in a dinner jacket, and people like their hominy and grits in everyday clothes." Robertson thereafter avoided formal acting lessons.
For most of his career, Robertson played in Western movies and television shows, over 60 titles in all. His best remembered series were the NBC series Tales of Wells Fargo, later moved to ABC, in which he played a roving company 'trouble-shooter' named "Jim Hardie", and ABC's The Iron Horse, in which his character won an incomplete railroad line in a poker game and took the challenge of running it. He appeared in 63 films. In its March 30, 1959, cover story on television westerns, Time magazine reported Robertson was 6 feet tall, weighed 180 pounds, and measured 42-34-34. He sometimes made use of his physique in "beefcake" scenes, such as one in 1952's Return of the Texan where he is seen bare-chested and sweaty, repairing a fence.
