The new Netflix documentary "Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed" covers a lot of
ground, but it doesn't tell the whole story about this beloved artist and his lucrative business.
Here are some of the details of the Bob Ross story that got painted over.
The Bob Ross we knew from "The Joy of Painting" was the exact antithesis of someone like,
say, R. Lee Ermey's Gunnery Sgt. Hartman from "Full Metal Jacket."
"You got a war face? Ahhh. That's a war face. Now let me see your war face. Ahhh."
But that's a pretty good way to imagine how Ross was as an Air Force officer. "Bob Ross:
Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed" did touch on the iconic painter's military career,
but one specific thing that wasn't discussed was how the short-haired
Air Force first sergeant version of Ross was drastically different from the big-haired,
gentle version people got to see on PBS.
"Here we go with my smaller tree, because I think he needs a friend. There."
Ross talked about his time in the Air Force during an
interview with the Orlando Sentinel in 1990, saying:
"I was the guy who makes you scrub the latrine,
the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work.
The job requires you to be a mean, tough person. And I was fed up with it.
I promised myself that if I ever got away from it, it wasn't going to be that way any more."
Clearly, barking orders and insults at airmen was not how Ross wanted to be remembered.
It didn't jibe with his personality one bit, and once he got out of the military in the early '80s,
he was free to paint all the happy little trees he wanted.
"There's all kinds of trees that live in here. Just wherever you think they should live."
Most fans of "The Joy of Painting" are probably familiar with Bob Ross' son, Steve Ross,
who was interviewed at length for "Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed."
Steve regularly made appearances on "The Joy of Painting,"
where his dad would often describe him as a great painter in his own right
and offer words of encouragement as he showed off his talent on television.
"So I tell you what, we're gonna turn it over to
Steve and let him do a fantastic little painting for you. Steve?"
But were there more children in the mix? On the Netflix documentary, there was no mention of
any of the rumors that Ross had any other children aside from Steve. However, The Daily Beast alleges
that Ross fathered his first child when he was a teenager. Someone claiming to be Ross' first wife,
Vicky, took to the comments section of an article from Today I Found Out, claiming that in 1961,
the would-be art instructor and his high school sweetheart had a baby whom they named Bobby.
In addition, it's been rumored that Bob Ross had a stepson, Morgan, from his second wife,
Jane. Is there any truth there? Well… it's tough to say. According to Ross's obituary in the
Orlando Sentinel, he only had one son -- Steve -- when he passed. And as for any alleged stepsons,
Jane's obituary states that she had no children of her own.
Considering that Ross was notoriously private about his personal life,
touching on those rumors would have added some intrigue to the Netflix documentary -- and maybe
it would have been a chance to clear them up once and for all. Then again...who knows!
"Everybody was sleeping with everybody else. Okay, let's get back to...you know,
you can cut that out, but that's the way it was."
"Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed" covers the painter's final years in detail,
including the death of his wife Jane from cancer in 1992.
"Thank you for sharing my grief and for making my wife a very special person in your life, too."
It also covers Ross' own lymphoma diagnosis, which came just weeks later, according to his son Steve.
We get to see family and friends talk about how Ross wanted the proverbial show to go on for as
long as it could. Even as he was getting progressively sicker, he was still able to
make an appearance on the children's show "The Adventures of Elmer and Friends" in early 1995.
However, it isn't mentioned that he dealt with some serious health issues
well before he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in the early '90s.
According to The Daily Beast, Ross apparently had a lingering feeling that he was going to
die young. A regular cigarette smoker, Ross suffered a heart attack in the mid-1980s.
He had also survived cancer previously, though the second diagnosis proved to be fatal for
the beloved painter, who died on July 4, 1995. Allegedly, this didn't deter business partners
Walt and Annette Kowalski, the former of whom sent Ross a six-page contract that sought control
over his name and brand. Steve does reference this in the documentary,
suggesting that the papers were presented while his father was on his deathbed.
Throughout "Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed," Annette and Walt Kowalski are almost
unambiguously portrayed as the bad guys. As alleged by several people featured in
the Netflix documentary, the couple didn't care as much for Ross as a person and a painter as
they did about the bottom line. They were also accused of stealing ideas from other artists,
specifically flower painters Gary and Kathwren Jenkins.
But the film doesn't bring up how Walt and Annette's daughter Joan, who runs Bob Ross Inc.,
was instrumental in introducing Ross to younger fans via social media.
According to The Washington Post, Joan Kowalski was partly responsible for
orchestrating the "Joy of Painting" marathon that streamed on gaming platform Twitch
back in 2015. This was part of her plan to, quote, "inject some youth"
into what the publication described as Ross' "aging" fan base. The marathon went viral,
attracting close to 6 million viewers. Furthermore, the younger Kowalski was
credited for how Ross' official YouTube channel and Instagram account both became big hits.
As it's been over two and a half decades since Ross died,
we don't know how he would have felt about having such a large following on social media.
Maybe he'd consider it all to be just another happy little accident.
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