Daily Express, early January 1972
The television cowboy Pete Duel was dead under a Christmas tree when police found him. He had a single bullet wound in his head. The co-star of the light-hearted Western TV series Alias Smith and Jones was 31. Now police are trying to piece together the hours that led up to the actor’s death early on New Year’s Eve [Day]. They were called by Duel’s girlfriend, 29-year-old Dianne Ray, who said she went to his Hollywood home to see the latest episode of Alias Smith and Jones. She told them that after Duel had watched a … Read More
Daily Mirror, early January 1972
Girl sees TV star shoot himself.
Actor Pete Duel, star of the BBC 2 Western series Alias Smith and Jones, was found shot dead yesterday. Duel, a 31-year-old bachelor, who lived in Hollywood, played Hannibal Hayes, alias Smith, in the series.
Last night police were trying to determine if the shot was deliberate or accidental. Duel’s girlfriend, Dianne Ray, told police that he had been depressed recently. She said he had called her into a room in his Hollywood home and, as she ran in, he put a revolver to his head and pulled the trigger. Earlier in … Read More
‘Success Did Not Spoil Pete Duel’
by Charles Parker (Herald-Examiner Staff Writer); Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, early January 1972
Pete Duel’s friends always had a problem thinking of him as a television star.
It’s inconceivable to them to think he might have taken his own life. Pete Duel — or Peter Deuel, as he was known when he came to Hollywood from New York about eight years ago — wasn’t the type to take himself or his problems seriously, they said.
He was serious about his work. An off-Broadway actor before he came West, he thought of the theatre as the proper milieu for a … Read More
by Eleanor Roberts; unknown source
“Man in a turmoil” — is the way Pete Duel, star of ABC-TV’s Alias Smith and Jones described himself to me over luncheon at Universal Studios in Hollywood. Underneath the dashing, carefree manner of the Western outlaw (alias Smith) that millions saw on television was a rebellious 31-year-old star who felt he had never attained the artistic heights he was capable of as an actor.
Only one role, the drug addict in the World Premiere pilot of a series called The Psychiatrist utilized Duel’s ambitions. “It was my best role,” he said. “I would rather do drama … Read More
Spanish newspaper, early January 1972; translated.
When the present series of “Alias Smith and Jones finishes, we will no longer see television appearances by the actor Peter Duel because he has died. He was 31 years old. With Ben Murphy, he formed the partnership starring in the adventures of the two cowboys, Smith and Jones. More than a thousand fans attended his funeral. Ben Murphy proved to be so affected by his death that he could not take part in the funeral. Peter Duel’s fiancee, Dianne Ray, read a poem entitled “Love” at the memorial ceremony in the cemetery at … Read More
by Fenton Bresler; Pageant, January 1975
On the night of December 30th, 1971, handsome, 31-year-old Pete Duel left his girlfriend in bed, walked naked into the front room of his house–and blew out his brains. “Cerebral destruction,” are the grim words of the police report that I read in the office of the local coroner. Why did he do it? Why did the star of the highly successful television series, Alias Smith and Jones, a top success on both sides of the Atlantic, destroy himself in the early hours of that December morning?
It could only happen in Hollywood. “I don’t know … Read More
Penfield Post Republican, January 6, 1972
“He was home on vacation between filming schedules of Love on a Rooftop, a TV series he was doing about four years ago, and what impressed me was that he was more concerned with people and with causes than he was with his own career.” Former Penfield Post Republican reporter and now public information relation officer for Penfield Schools, Mrs. Michael Fonte was reminiscing over an interview she had with the late actor Peter Duel, 31, who died Friday in his home in Hollywood Hills.
His death followed by a gunshot wound which police believe to … Read More