REMEMBERING PETE DUEL
Thank you to everyone who leaves such poignant and heartfelt expressions in The Memorial Book—and for all your kind words about this site. Your kinship is extremely appreciated. —Laura
Please post your thoughts below. The previous Memorial Book was receiving too much spam, so I had to close it and start this page instead. The previous memorial page also had hundreds of remembrances. I hope to someday transfer them here.
There may be a delay between when you leave your thoughts below and when your post appears, but rest assured, the post will eventually be published. Please keep in mind that many questions still remain about Peter’s state of mind in those final days of his life. One recent question is how much of a role the anti-seizure drug, Dilantin, played on his thoughts. Perhaps Pete was a victim of a pharmaceutical drug and not so much of self-inflicted depression. Also note that Geoffrey Deuel sometimes visited this page. Thank you.
Pete you were and still are my dream valentine thinking of you today with all my heart will love you forever sue ukxxxx
For a few weeks now we started to watch Alias Smith and Jones again. I watched this series when I was young (more then 40 years now) and as I remember it it was always fun watching it. I think here in the Netherlands the series for very popular too. I never knew what realy happened to Pete Duel until know. I Always have a sad feeling now every time we watch Alias Smith and Jones now. Pete Duel was a man with charisma, he was funny and he was good looking. It is so sad to read the story about his life, how he felt. I think he was a good man and as he self discribed a complicated but simple man.
such a lovely poem it saids everything i feel about pete.
Dear family and friends,
I grew up watching westerns and when Alias Smith and Jones aired I was in I think the second grade…. I had a very best friend and he and I would play Heyes and Kid Curry… I was Hannibal Heyes, since I had the darker hair and wanted to play Heyes, my friend Mark was blond and he was the Kid… I have many fond memories of watching the show together with my friends and family and reenacting the many hours of make believe cowboys… I was totally crushed when I heard of the death of Peter Duel… I remember my dad telling me that it was an accident, that he had died as a result of the gun going off while he was cleaning it… I feel my father was trying to protect me as we lived in South Dakota and were not privy to all of the news…. I remember going through a period of denial… and watching the new episodes was not… no offense… but watching no longer was a priority… reruns with Peter Duel were treasured…. I wonder often how this affected, impacted Ben Murphy?? I cannot imagine how the family and his girlfriend and other friends felt and how they coped with this tragic event…. he had such a future and so many fans…. In reading the “history” of his last year — it seems that those who had control over his life had NO CLUE as to how popular he was…. it almost seems as though he and Ben were used…. used by the network to rake it in and hardly paid compared to todays standards…
I have grown up to be rather like Pete in relation to his politics…. I am married to a beautiful woman who shares these ideals… Peter Duel is someone who had a very positive and dramatic effect on an impressionable young man…. I think about Peter Duel often and cannot help wonder what he would have become had he lived… Thanks for the memories! God Bless
PS Peace and Ecology 🙂
DH
Having just obtained and read the biography on Peter by Paul Green, what comes across vividly is Peter’s often overlooked wonderful sense of humour and his fun-loving nature, particularly is his early years as an actor in New York.
One astounding and unknown fact that had me roaring with laughter (as I’m sure it will to all his fans in England!) was that, in the early 1960s, while appearing in a stage production of ‘Take Her She’s Mine’ in Philadelphia, he and a fellow actor met and spent a week drinking and carousing with Wilfred Brambell of Steptoe fame! Hannibal Heyes meets Albert Steptoe; how surreal! Talk about truth being stranger than fiction! I just wish there had been a photo of it!
P.S. Like all who have read this, I would have LOVED to have listened to Peter’s delivery of the famous line “You dIRty old man!”