Athletics and the arts aren't quite as different as your local high school makes them seem. Both require good temperance and a fair amount of determination. To be an athlete or a performer requires the knowledge that you'll need to work hard if you want to "make it" in any meaningful way.

While Lorne Greene was best known as an actor, he did have a bit of experience as an athlete, though it was incredibly limited.

"Just about the only sports experience I had while growing up in Ottawa was having my nose broken three times playing high school basketball," said Greene during an interview with The Standard.

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Still, Greene compared his career as an actor to that of some professional athletes, as both paths required an excess amount of effort and a great deal of patience.

"Just like these athletes, my fame and a good bit of fortune didn't come overnight," said Greene. "Athletes have to go through the minors to get to the major leagues. I spent four years as a CBC announcer, then a couple of years in the Canadian Armed Forces, some lean years as an actor after the Second World War, four years on Broadway, and then a chance meeting with a Hollywood director where I got the top job in Bonanza."

Bonanza, of course, is where Greene became known to a wide array of television viewers. Audiences became so accustomed to seeing the actor that they began to believe that Lorne Greene and Ben Cartwright were one and the same.

"When the show was running 'live,' people used to ask me if I used to be Lorne Greene; now they ask me if I used to be Ben Cartwright. They don't seem to understand that I've always been Lorne Greene."

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