Introduction

 'Interview'   1

This is an interview mainly with Mr. Graves mother, where she talks about the boys lives.

The Minneapolis Star Fri. Aug. 1958.

Jim’s Actor Brother Doing All Right Too.

By Barbara Flanagan.

Peter Graves Aurness was sold on show business early.

Long before his brother, big Jim Aurness (now Arness), had so much as learned a line of dialog, Peter knew he wanted to act.

Today, as Peter Graves, he is a successful actor in both television and motion pictures.

His children’s western series ‘Fury’, is a Saturday morning success. In the movies he’s had meaty roles in ‘Stalag 17’, with William Holden; ‘Black Tuesday’, with Edward G Robinson, ‘The Raid,’ with Van Heflin and in ‘Fort Defiance.’

Graves co-starred in the first film he ever made – ‘Rogue River’, with Rory Calhoun.

He’s also been a familiar face on such top television dramatic programs as ‘Studio One’, ‘Climax’, and ‘Hall of Fame’.

Graves isn’t idolized as yet to the extent that Arness and his smash program, ‘Gunsmoke’ are, but Pete’s doing fine, than you. And big brother Jim s one of the first to say so.

Said their mother, Mrs. M E Salisbury:

“When the boys realized that they would be competing against each other, they sat down and talked it all over. That’s when Peter decided to change his name to Peter Graves. Jim’s name was finally changed three years ago when he began doing ‘Gunsmoke’.

The two remain close and often get together and talk over their problems. But they operate as separate individuals in the industry. That’s what they want to do”.

Personalities Poles Apart.

Looking back at her youngest son, born in Minneapolis in 1926, three years after Jim’s birth, Mrs. Salisbury recalled:

“Jim and Peter are brothers, but they are complete opposites. Jim was restless and adventuresome… always in search of some experience beyond the immediate.

“Peter was happy and adjusted from infancy. He was a healthy, superior baby who even as a youngster displayed amazing powers of concentration. He always knew what he wanted to do and went quietly about doing it.

“And unlike his big brother, Pete was a fine student throughout his school days. He also was a fine athlete in swimming, diving, skating, skiing and track”.

And there was music. “peter loved it. He wanted to play it. Jim was pushed into piano lessons, but it wasn’t a favourite activity. I’ll always remember one of Jim’s first recital pieces was a thing called ‘Giants’”.

Arness’ height – he stands 6 feet 6 inches today – was always a source of worry to him in his growing years. He grew fast. His brother, Peter, didn’t. Today he’s a rangy 6 feet 3.

At Ramsey junior high, Peter signed up for the band. He wanted to play clarinet like his idol Benny Goodman.

“But he was a big boy, so the director gave him the tuba”, Mrs. Salisbury recalled. “That first day when he came home from practice he was the most dejected, miserable boy in town.

“The next day, his father went to school and explained Peter’s deep desire for the clarinet. The director weakened and from that time on, Pete and the clarinet were one”.

Graves proved so eager that, at one time, his teacher wanted him to study with the first clarinetist of the Minneapolis symphony orchestra. This was not to be, but Graves did organize a band.

A Hit With Bobby-soxers.

Throughout high school, Graves and the band played at dances. “Once Jim and I went to hear Pete’s band. And Jim couldn’t get over how the bobby-soxers screamed when Pete played”.

For his graduation from Southwest high school, Graves was picked to perform on the commencement program. It was his one concession to the classical. He played Weber’s concerto for Clarinet.

Graves thought music might be his entry into show business, but at the same time, he was becoming a regular on the high school dramatic programs conducted in those days by the late Madeline Long, radio consultant for the public schools.

His dramatic and announcing abilities on radio won Graves state championship honours, and he also charmed quite an audience with his singing and piano playing.

“Peter doesn’t have Jim’s singing voice”, said their mother, “but he has an easy, kind of Hoagy Carmichael, style that’s fun to hear”.

Graves went into the air corps from high school. The army had discontinued pilot training by that tie and je wrote his mother:

“All I’m doing is playing nursemaid to a B27”.

After a year, the war ended and Graves returned home to major in speech and dramatics at University of Minnesota.

He was a big man there. A regular in University theatre plays, Graves also was active in his fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, and other campus activities. One year he reigned as king of the university winter carnival.

Graves had entered the university as a sophomore after passing freshman year exams. He stuck to his studies for almost three years. Two months before graduation, Graves chucked it all and headed for Hollywood.

It ‘Just Had to Be’

He was impatient to get started on his chosen career-acting.

“I remember going down to see him off on the train”, Mrs. Salisbury said. “And he looked so young and so alone as he went off to make his fortune. But he had told me, ‘Mother, you may think this is funny, but I just have to be an entertainer”.

In California, Graves moved in with his brother and sister-in-law for a time. He won a good role at Pasadena playhouse in “Blithe Spirit” and found himself an agent.

“I had moved out to California by then”, Mrs. Salisbury recalled. “Peter and I had an apartment together and he was driving a cab all night and making the rounds of the picture studios all day. And he called his agent every day. You had to admire Pete’s tenacity. He really kept after those jobs and finally landed the role in ‘Rogue River’”.

Pete’s best girl in college, the former Joan Endress of St. Paul, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. E K Endress, had moved to Los Angeles, California and was working as a receptionist in a doctor’s office.

A year later, in 1950, Peter and Joan were married in St. Paul. They now are the parents of three youngsters and also live in Pacific Palisades – not far from Jim and Virginia Arness.

For the future, Graves wants to continue playing good roles on stage, screen and television.

“Peter has the talent and stamina so that if he is jostled off the merry-go-round, he’ll climb back on again,” said his mother.

“I’m as proud of Peter as I am of Jim, but fortunately or unfortunately, I can’t gush. And I don’t get all crumpled up when I see them on the screen.

“I would be as interested in their careers had they been doctors, lawyers or businessmen. The fact that they are in the theatre doesn’t mean a great deal.

“And of course, I’m very pleased that both of them are doing what they like”.