You ready to do another fantastic painting with me?

(bright music)

- [Narrator] You recognize his iconic image.

- Who's this?

This is Bob Ross.

This is the most famous painter

in the history of the universe.

- [Narrator] Signature phrases.

- A happy little cloud that floats around it,

just has fun all day.

- [Narrator] And soothing voice.

- Anything that you want you can build here.

This is your world.

- [Narrator] Bob Ross is one of public

television's most beloved personalities.

- The Bob you see on the show,

is the Bob that we all knew even behind the scenes.

- I used to watch Bob Ross all the time.

The thing I remember was his positivity.

He made you want to do that.

- He wasn't only a painter, he was

an entertainer in his own right,

without any flash, his paintings spoke for him

and he kind of took you by the hand and

led you along the way.

- I talk to only one person when I'm filming

and I'm really crazy about that person.

- [Narrator] Some watched for his

easy to learn painting technique.

- When I watch his method, I go it is,

wow how does he do that?

It's amazing and

he makes it look incredibly easy,

but the interesting thing is that when

people actually try to do it, they have success.

- Once you have the technique down,

all you need is a dream in your heart

and a desire to put it on canvas.

- [Narrator] And some we're just

captivated by his calming demeanor.

- And I think maybe that's part of the magic.

I think his voice was part of it, his presence,

his manner, his tone.

I think his sincerity came across,

and I think people relate to that,

they still relate to that.

- Every legend has an intangible

aura or something and I just imagine

whenever you're encompass of greatness

you know people just want to be around it.

- [Narrator] Bob Ross is public

television's most recognizable artist.

- Everybody knows Bob Ross and especially his hair.

- [Narrator] This is the story of a young painter

with a dream to share the joy of painting with everyone.

- My father, he spent most of his time

when he came home from work, watching public television.

He would have us watch Bob Ross,

where we would learn how to paint

and learn how to use our imagination.

- I'm sure the word magic gets used a lot

but I mean it really is like magic.

I mean, he'd mix up this color and

I'm gonna take a little bit of this yellow

and stick it in this black, and you think

what, right.

That's so counterintuitive, and then

takes like a palette knife and gets a little thing and

(whooshing) and there's a tree,

and it's like how'd you do that?

- People continually say I can't draw a straight line,

I don't have the talent, Bob, to do what you're doing.

That's baloney.

Talent is a pursued interest.

In other words, anything that you're

willing to practice, you can do.

- [Narrator] This is Bob Ross, the happy painter.

(bright music)

But before Bob became one of the

most popular artists on television,

Robert Norman Ross was just a

boy from Daytona Beach, Florida.

He was born on October 29, 1942

and grew up in the Orlando area.

Each of Bob's parents helped

shape his life in critical ways.

His father Jack was a builder.

- [Bob] I used to be a carpenter years ago.

My father was a carpenter and he taught me that trade.

I tell you what, it isn't that

easy to make a shed on a barn.

- He lost a finger helping his father.

When there's a pallet shot you can see the missing finger,

but because it was on his left hand and not his right hand,

it didn't affect his ability to hold the brush.

- Lender brushes are very very soft.

My father used to say their tender as a mother's love

and in my case that was certainly true.

I'm very prejudiced but I think I

had the greatest mother there was.

- [Annette] She had the largest influence on him.

She's the one who taught him the love of wildlife.

Second to painting or maybe even more than painting,

Bob loved wildlife.

- [Bob] I think when I was a kid I must

have had every kind of pet imaginable.

I lived in Florida so I had access to a lot of creatures,

but I had a pet snake.

I mean he got out of the cage and was

lost in a house for a long time.

My mother got up and went to the bathroom one night,

he was in there and scared her.

- [Narrator] But Bob's childhood wasn't all that easy.

- [Annette] Bob says that they were not wealthy

and really I think he viewed these wild animals,

anything he could get his hands on

as toys and entertainment.

- [Narrator] His mother and father

separated when Bob was very young.

His mother remarried briefly and had another son,

Bob's brother Jim.

- [Bob] When I was a kid I used to sit around and

you know my brother and I we'd look at clouds

and we'd pick out all kind of shapes,

we'd see the mean old which or the

or the Candy Man or whatever.

- [Narrator] 20 years later,

Bob's mom married his dad again,

but they didn't have long together.

Bob's father died soon after they remarried.

School was also tough for Bob.

- Do these little X's, see?

Little X's.

There, that's just the way the teacher

used to grade my paper in school.

She just run across it and go (clicking).

- [Narrator] When he was just 18 years,

old Bob joined the Air force.

- I spent half my life in the military

and I used to come home, take off my little soldier hat,

put on my painter's hat.

- [Narrator] He got married and had a son, Steven.

- He has been painting I think since he was born.

He was about 12 years old before he

realized everybody didn't paint.

- [Narrator] But Bob soon found

himself raising a son on his own.

His first marriage didn't last long.

Bob and his son had a close relationship

and years later after The Joy of Painting series took off,

Steve would occasionally appear on the program

and eventually became a certified Ross instructor, himself.

- Steve travels all over the country,

teaching hundreds and hundreds of people

the joy of painting and I've asked him

to come in today and show you what

he can do in just a few minutes.

So I'm gonna turn it over to Steve

and I'll be back at the end of the show.

Steve?

- Thanks a lot, dad.

- Steve was incredibly talented.

Bob said he talks better than I do

and he paints better than I do,

but Steve never was someone we could convince

to come on and work with the show,

and I always regretted that because

I thought he had enormous talent.

- [Narrator] Bob and Steve lived in Florida

for several years until the military transferred them

to Alaska when Steve was a young boy.

- I had been born and raised in Florida,

and was 21 years old before I ever saw snow.

- [Narrator] Bob remarried and settled down

near Fairbanks, Alaska with his new wife, Jane.

She was a civilian worker with the Air Force.

For more than a decade Bob worked mainly

as a medical records technician at the air base hospital

and cultivated his love of painting.

He was inspired by the snow capped

mountains that surrounded him,

and sold his paintings to tourists.

(upbeat bright music)

- He was a part time bartender,

and he was painting gold pans in Alaska

and selling them in the bar to make money.

- [Narrator] One day the tavern's

television was tuned to a PBS station.

Bob looked up and saw a painting show

hosted by a German man, named Bill Alexander.

- How long can you hide a dream?

How long can you have creative power?

You need that almighty creative power.

- [Narrator] Alexander was painting scenery

that Bob was familiar with, and he was using a

centuries old painting method called alla prima,

which means direct painting or all at once.

The basic premise is that a thin paint

will stick to a thicker paint.

Alexander called it the wet on wet technique.

- Years ago Bill taught me this fantastic technique

and I feel as though he gave me a precious gift,

and I'd like to share that gift with you.

- [Narrator] This method allows you to layer colors of paint

on top of one another and blend them right on the canvas.

Traditional oil painting requires you to

wait for each application to dry before adding a new color,

but the wet on wet technique is more user friendly

because it allows you to paint very quickly

and if you make a mistake you can just blend it away.

- [Bob] Because as you know we don't make mistakes.

In our world we only have happy accidents

and very quickly, very quickly you learn to

work with anything that happens on this canvas.

Anything.

- [Narrator] This painting style was

exactly what Bob was looking for.

- I remember when he was in the Air Force up in Alaska.

We went up there and he was excited about

watching someone on television and he says,

"That's what I want.

"I want to paint before the bubble bursts.

"I want to get my painting on the canvas

"before I lose my idea."

- About 1975 I saw Alexander on television

and like millions of other people I fell in love with him,

and it took me about a year to find him.

I studied with Bill and when I retired from the military

they offered me a position with his Magic Art Company

as a traveling art instructor.

- [Narrator] Bob's wife Jane and his son Steve

stayed in Alaska for a couple more years

until Jane was eligible for retirement.

- So she allowed Bob to leave Alaska with $1,000

and told him to either go out and

make his fortune or come back home.

He promised her, "I'll go and do this,

"if it doesn't work I'll come back home

"and do domestic stuff and be a good husband and father."

And so she stayed in Alaska and waited.

- [Narrator] Although he was leaving the land of snow

covered mountains, they left an indelible mark on Bob.

- I lived in Alaska for about a dozen years

and it has some of the most beautiful

mountain scenery there that I've ever seen.

Absolutely gorgeous.

- [Narrator] That breathtaking scenery

would serve as his inspiration for the rest of his life