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Dan Blocker tried to return to teaching— but learned he couldn't!
Hoss was just too darn recognizable!
Whether or not Hollywood recognizes an actor as a commodity, if the public recognizes that person, their life will change forever. It's a tricky thing; recognizability doesn't always equal profitability. Just because someone is famous doesn't necessarily mean that the industry is willing to hire them.
Dan Blocker was very famous but in a very narrow way. He wasn't exactly the type of thespian to disappear into his every role. Instead, Blocker was forever associated with Hoss Cartwright, the character he played in Bonanza. In a 1967 interview with the Associated Press, Blocker spoke about his fame and the ways it was both a gift and a curse.
"Bonanza has brought me all kinds of good things and some bad. Mainly, loss of privacy. We play to 500 million people around the world every week, and there's nowhere my family and I can go and participate like a normal family."
Truly, Blocker was recognized everywhere he went. Not only was his face plastered all over the television, but his hulking frame also made it hard for him to evade detection. —
'like money or health, we don't appreciate the value of privacy until we've lost it," he said.
It was a good thing that Bonanza continued to be as popular as it was, because the show may have cost Blocker the opportunity to do anything else.
"Four years ago I attempted to go back to teaching," said Blocker. "But my old principal said, 'Forget it. You'll never be Mr. Blocker again. You'll always be Hoss.'"
While Blocker had previously worked in education, his fame made it so that he could never return to that field. However, it didn't stop him from holding teachers in the highest regard.
"There are people who work so much harder than I do for so much less," he said. "Like every teacher in the country. It's a damned shame."
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