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Please note that "articles shown on WildestWesterns.com are not shown in their entirety, as those are reserved for those who purchase the magazine!" The following are excerpts from those articles.
"Peter Breck, TVs Toughest Cowboy" by Ed G. Lousararian Collectors #2, page 16
"With such treacherous villains as marauders, assassins, and psychos running rampant on the 1960s television series, The Big Valley, a good guy with twice the edge of the traditional Western hero was in order. Enter sharp-tongued, two-fisted, fast-on-the-draw Nick Barkley, who outside of running the Barkley Ranch of Stockton, California, enjoyed stomping on those who would dare oppose him and the people he cared about. Peter Breck immortalized such a champion." ...
"Westerns: Learn to Like 'Em or Else!" by Peter Breck Collectors #3, page 76
"Hey there. If you don't remember my Nick Barkley character, you just best turn on the tube and get your dose of The Big Valley, and quick! Nick, like most cowboys depicted in Westerns, was a rugged individualist. In all honesty, that defines Peter Breck, too. The hero of the Western film and television show is patterned after the Old West's rugged individualist who was never asked what his name was or what he did for a living, because it was nobody's business but his, and he was not too shy in letting people know that. The rugged individualist is just that -- an individual ..."
column by Peter Breck Collectors #4, page 82
"Hey there, friends. Long before you got to know me as The Big Valley's Nick Barkley, or even before that, as Black Saddle's Clay Culhane, I was predominantly performing on the stage, and becoming a cowboy was the farthest thing from my mind. I grew up in Rochester, New York. Sure, that's the hometown of Western legend Buck Jones, too. But this one commonality didn't make me a cowboy. Not by a long shot. After all, I had never really been around a horse before I came to Hollywood, nor had I ever owned a pair of cowboy boots. In fact, I wasn't raised all that much on Westerns, although I did take a liking to singing cowboys when I was younger, such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers who heroically cut the villains off at the pass." ...
column by Peter Breck Collectors #5, page 17
"On The Big Valley, I was fortunate to get a variety of scripts with a variety of demands, which encompassed working with animals, including wildcats, an eagle, and even a wolf. Generally when there were more unusual animals involved, I ended up getting those shows. Perhaps the producers filet I worked well with critters. In fact, a few years prior I had a collie for a co-star in a family film called, Lad: A Dog; and after The Big Valley a wonderful mutt in the children's classic, Benji. In the latter, I played a doctor who worried the tramp dog might have some kind of rash or sickness, kicked Benji out of the house (and was booed by everyone in the audience!). Actually, I have always owned animals. Humans can learn a lot from 'em. To me, one of the most interesting episodes of The Big Valley involved my Nick Barkley character and a carnivorous mammal. It was called "Night of the Wolf" which aired on December 1, 1965." ...
column by Peter Breck Special Edition #7, page 17
"With my fists and my fury I wiped up the floor with George Kennedy, Claude Akins, James Whitmore, and even a bartender who may have looked at me funny. With my six guns I shot bullets in all the right places, and that' wherever I was aiming at the time. With my mouth I hurled back the insults and also shouted louder on the ranch (and in the house) than any other Barbara Stanwyck could name. A man of action, and that's putting it lightly, was who I was on The Big Valley between 1965 and 1968, while playing my Nick Barkley character. But Peter Breck also has some real hell to raise ..."
column by Peter Breck Collectors #8, page 23
"I always loved doing plays. In between films and television, even right up to the time that I got the Nick Barkley role for The Big Valley, I worked the theater circuit whenever I could. One play I did was an adaptation of the original motion picture, We’re No Angels. I played the Humphrey Bogart role and Broderick Crawford played the Peter Ustinov role. I miss old Brod. He was a good actor (He won an Oscar for All the King’s Men!) and a very nice man. The only problem, though, was that ya couldn’t understand a word he was saying. He spoke so fast to start with, and he could hit the bottle pretty good, and he would ad lib a lot. Of course, we had to talk him into wearing his teeth. He just wouldn’t wear ’em." ...
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