This past weekend at the 17th annual Festival of the West,
http://www.festivalofthewest.com/ Roger Davis showed up with his "Alias Smith and Jones" costar, Ben Murphy. What a pair of cutups! They were obviously great good buddies with a wonderful rapport. I think if more of that had appeared onscreen and Roger Davis had been able to employ more of his obviously considerable comedic talents the show might have been another "Wild, Wild West." He was certainly a good Artemus Gordon type, with the many voices and impressions he can do. When I handed him my program to sign, he said, "Sure I'll sign it. RIGHT ON THE COVER." I was like, "Oh, no you don't!" and grabbed it back, but he was just having fun with me and signed it very nicely inside. (I wasn't so lucky with the last person, who I think was just tired and spaced out and scrawled right on the cover before I could even notice and stop them, being tired and spaced out myself. So I ended up with a crummed-up cover AFTER getting everyone else to sign. NEXT YEAR: COVER PROTECTOR!) Yes, I AM going next year! The event was WONDERFUL and everyone was GREAT! Charlie LeSeur, who did the Q & As, is a true genius! He only had to look up Roger Davis's credits when he told me he "thought he was on 'Dark Shadows.'" I said, "That's the first time I've seen you look up anything!" and he said, "Well, 'Dark Shadows' wasn't a western." Man literally knows EVERYTHING ANYONE EVER did on a western!
During the Q & A Roger Davis shared with us a chilling story about the events surrounding Peter Duel's suicide on "Alias Smith and Jones" and what it was like replacing him. Everyone seemed to like him and he came across as a heck of a nice guy. I've corresponded with Denise Nickerson but this is the first DS alum I can say I've actually met, and liked what I saw.