Lorne Hyman Greene (February 12, 1915 – September 11, 1987) was a Canadian actor, radio personality and singer. His television roles include Ben Cartwright on the western "Bonanza", and Commander Adama in the original science fiction television series "Battlestar Galactica" and "Galactica 1980". He also worked on the Canadian television nature documentary series "Lorne Greene's New Wilderness", and in television commercials.

In the 1960s, Greene capitalized on his image as Benjamin "Pa" Cartwright in "Bonanza" by recording several albums of country-western/folk songs, which Greene performed in a mixture of spoken word and singing. In 1964, Greene had a #1 single on the music charts with his spoken-word ballad, "Ringo" (which referred to the real-life Old West outlaw Johnny Ringo), and got a lot of play time from "Saga of the Ponderosa", which detailed the Cartwright founding of the famous ranch.

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