From Dan LaRue, June 2021

Dear Geoffrey,

I have lots of letters from Jim Ludwig, from the time he contacted me in 1988 till his death in 1997; he was a prolific writer. He first wrote when he saw a planter I left at Pete’s grave in 1988. I don’t recall doing so, but I must have left my name/address with it; I usually don’t. I was there for a project for Graduate School and drove there with a lady friend who was just glad for a day away from campus to do research at the George Eastman House, and swung around … Read More

by Tex Maddox; Movie Life, June 1967

“Does he dare enough? That’s the sure way to test any fellow! Add up all he tackles, how he proceeds, to discover what he is. Mere claims mean little compared to this measure of a man.

“In my case, the jury’s debating. But I’m not afraid of the verdict. Why shouldn’t I make my own decisions on how I want to live? Who knows better about where I’d rather wind up, or when I’ll be ready to marry?”

“Of course,” Peter Deuel confesses promptly, “I’ve often been accused of being too much of a rebel. But … Read More

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS!

Hannibal Heyes in Pictures is a 136-page perfect-bound book featuring more than 150 pictures of Pete Duel as Hannibal Heyes from the 1971 television series, Alias Smith and Jones. Some photos are small, some are full-page, some are color, some are black-and-white.

The book is published by the Pete Duel Memorial Site and all proceeds are donated to The Animals Voice in Peter’s name.

by Douglas Snauffer; Epi-log Journal, Spring 1994

Over the years, Larson has truly experienced the best and worst of his profession. The best things, he said, are the simple things. “I’m doing something I love. I’m creating. The first time someone answered the phone on the set and said, Battlestar Galactica—it was such a rush. It sent a chill up my back.”

But there is the other end of the spectrum, and the worst times can be devastating. Twice, Larson has had to deal with the deaths of the leading men in his series.

One afternoon in the fall of 1984, actor Jon-Erik … Read More

by Brian Viner; The Independent

In December 1971, when I was 10 years old, an American actor called Pete Duel killed himself. To my friends and me, the news came as a horrible blow. Duel played the outlaw Hannibal Heyes, alias Joshua Smith, in our favorite TV show, Alias Smith and Jones.

Heyes and his partner Kid Curry, alias Thaddeus Jones, played by Ben Murphy, were icons in the Farnborough Road Junior School playground. They seemed to be able to cope, with unfailing good humor, with everything life threw at them. Yet Duel, it turned out, could not. On New Year’s Eve … Read More

as told to Marco Amedeo; Movieland and TV Time, February 1967

What makes one letter more appealing to a star than the next? This month Peter Deuel tells what catches his eye. “I can’t skip being honest when I reply to a fan letter I particularly like,” Peter points out. “If a person treats me with the sincerity I want, I respect it and respond as frankly. I’ve always felt I deserve the truth. I remember how I was sidetracked and disillusioned if I didn’t get it, so I’m not going to inflict a lie on anyone who could be my … Read More

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 17, 1968

“I don’t see why I can’t function like anyone else, if I want to, as a political activist, or as an individual who is concerned about the way things are going.” That is how Peter Deuel, a Penfield boy who made good on television and in Hollywood, expressed his views on actors in politics.

Resting below a large poster of Sen. Eugene McCarthy, D-Minn., on the walls of the 37th district McCarthy headquarters, 321 Genesee St., Deuel said, “Actors are people who just happen to go into acting and are as conscientious or unconscientious as … Read More