Have Gun – Will Travel — Television Debut 1957 by Kaye Spencer #classicwesterns #classictelevision #westernfictioneers

Have Gun – Will Travel – September 14, 1957

During my growing-up years, I watched reruns or as-they-aired episodes of what are now classic television westerns: Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Lone Ranger, The Big Valley, High Chaparral, Rawhide, Laredo, The Virginian, Sugarfoot, Cheyenne, Maverick, Wagon Trail, Tales of Wells Fargo, Branded, Wyatt Earp, Johnny Yuma, Laramie, Broken Arrow, Guns of Will Sonnet, Zorro, Lancer, Cimarron Strip,Yancy Derringer... The list goes on and, no doubt, you have your favorites, too.

It just so happens that one of my favorite classic western television shows is celebrating its premiere date this week.

The adventures of a gentlemanly gunfighter for hire.

Sixty two years ago, the television-watching population enjoyed the premiere of the thirty-minute, Saturday night western show Have Gun - Will Travel starring Richard Boone as the somewhat mysterious soldier of fortune, but always a gentleman, Paladin. The premise of the show was Paladin worked as a gunfighter-for-hire who traveled the west c. 1875 offering his special kind of problem-solving skills. He was a high-dollar gunman—$1000 per job wasn’t unusual—but he also provided his services for free to those with a worthy cause who couldn’t afford him otherwise. However, violence by gun-play wasn’t his only weapon. He was a pugilist and dueling champion of some renown in his former life.

General Trivia

• The word ‘paladin’ derives from the knights in Charlemagne’s Court, who were champions of worthy causes.
• Paladin was a Union cavalry officer and graduate of West Point.
• His residence is the luxury Carlton Hotel in San Francisco.
• When not riding about the countryside doing good deeds—dressed as the original “Man in Black”—he lives the life of a cultured businessman who wears custom-made suits, consumes fine wine, plays the piano, and attends the opera. He also has a weakness for women.
• With just a sip, he can determine a particular bourbon’s distillery.
• Paladin is an expert chess and poker player, an accomplished swordsman, and possesses skill in Chinese martial arts having studied under a Kung Fu master.
• His level of education is such that he quotes classical literature, philosophy, case law, and he speaks several languages.

• Paladin’s weapons: 1) custom-made, single action .45 Colt (Army cavalry model) that he carries in a black leather holster adorned with a platinum chess knight symbol, 2) lever action Marlin rifle, and 3) concealed derringer.
• He has a signature calling card/business card. In Paladin’s words:  “It's a chess piece, the most versatile on the board. It can move in eight different directions, over obstacles, and it's always unexpected.”

• The show’s four note opening motif was done purposely to create a musical memory akin to other popular television shows at the time: Highway Patrol, Dragnet, Twilight Zone, and Perry Mason.

• The show closes with the song, “The Ballad of Paladin”, which was written by Johnny Western, Richard Boone, and Sam Rolfe. Johnny Western sings the ballad.

• The show ran from 9/14/1957 to 4/20/1963 with 225 episodes.
• A radio version began in 1958 with actor John Dehner portraying Paladin.

From 1974 to 1991, a trademark lawsuit against the concept of the show moved in and out of court culminating with a substantial settlement. You can read the details here: HGWT Website

Hollywood Trivia

Notable Episode Writers:

• Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek)
• Bruce Geller (Mission Impossible)
• Harry Julian Fink (Dirty Harry)
• Sam Peckinpah (directed a plethora of western movies)

Unusual for the era, many episodes were filmed outdoors and not on the Old West film lots – Bishop and Lone Pine, California – Paladin Estates between Bend and Sisters, Oregon – the Abbott Ranch near Prineville, Oregon.

Notable Guest Stars:

• Angie Dickinson
• Ben Johnson
• Buddy Ebsen
• Charles Bronson
• Dan Blocker
• DeForest Kelley
• Denver Pyle
• Dyan Cannon
• George Kennedy
• Jack Elam
• Jack Lord
• James Coburn
• Johnny Crawford
• June Lockhart
• Ken Curtis
• Lee Van Cleef
• Lon Chaney, Jr.
• Pernell Roberts
• Robert Blake
• Suzanne Pleshette
• Vincent Price
• Werner Klemperer

Who was Paladin?

Paladin was a West Point graduate, a Civil War cavalry officer, and his base of operations was the Hotel Carlton in San Francisco, California. While it's been too many years since I've watched these episodes, I've read that in the episode entitled "Fandango", Paladin encounters a sheriff who knew him from their Civil War days. The sheriff calls Paladin 'Bobby' and goes on to say, "It's been a long time since Bull Run." Maybe Paladin's real first name was Robert.

Generally, though, the consensus is his real name is never revealed. However, Paladin’s backstory is shown in flashback sequence in the first episode of the last (6th) season, “Genesis”, which aired September 15, 1962. This episode explains how Paladin came by his pseudonym and his subsequent mission to champion the causes of the less fortunate. It isn't his shining moment. Through his actions, another man dies, and Paladin takes on the dead man's identity and mission as a type of penitence to atone for his own actions.

 Read the episode details at the HGWT Website link above.






Until next time,
Kaye Spencer
Writing through history one romance upon a time

Stay in contact with Kay via these venues:

Amazon Author Page | BookBub | Blog | Twitter | Pinterest





Sources:


Tagline - IMDb website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050025/

Have Gun, Will Travel website: http://www.hgwt.com/

Have Gun, Will Travel Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_Gun_%E2%80%93_Will_Travel

Image: Richard Boone - By CBS Television (eBay item photo front photo back) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Richard_Boone_Paladin_1962.JPG
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARichard_Boone_Paladin_1962.JPG

Image: Paladin - By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33548427

Image: Calling Card - By CBS Publicity; http://www.thrillingdetective.com/paladin.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15170596

Image: John Dehner - http://blogs.pjstar.com/mindingbiz/2013/12/23/before-he-was-mr-wilson-he-was-mr-radio-10-tv-stars-who-made-it-big-on-radio/

Remembering Neville Brand - television and movie actor by Kaye Spencer #westernfictioneers #westerns #goldenageofhollywood

I'm turning once again to the Golden Age of Hollywood for the topic of this month's article. (Read my John  Wayne article HERE).

Lawrence "Neville" Brand, a familiar face in movies and on television from 1949 through the early 1980s, was born on August 13, 1920 in Griswold, Iowa. He died in Sacramento, California on April 16, 1992.

Neville Brand was one of seven siblings in a family that moved several times before he ended up in high school in Kewanee, Illinois. In 1939, he joined the Illinois Army National Guard as a private then enlisted in the US Army as a corporal (infantryman) on March 5, 1941 and was discharged in 1945.

During his military service, he rose to rank of sergeant and platoon leader. He was wounded in action in 1945. Of his many military awards, he received the Silver Star (gallantry in combat) and a Purple Heart (wounded in combat).

According to his IMDb bio, "It was while he was in the army that he made his acting debut, in Army training films, and this experience apparently changed the direction of his life. Once a civilian again, he used his GI Bill education assistance to study drama with the American Theater Wing and then appeared in several Broadway plays. His film debut was in Port of New York (1949). Among his earliest films was the Oscar-winning Stalag 17 (1953)."

He reportedly once said of himself in an interview, "With this kisser, I knew early in the game I wasn't going to make the world forget Clark Gable."

Neville Brand as Al Capone

(attribution below)

Two quotes about Brand's acting from Wikipedia:

Early roles: "His hulking physique, rough-hewn, craggy-faced looks and gravelly voice lead to him largely playing gangsters, western outlaws, and other screen 'heavies', cops, and other tough-guy roles throughout his career."

(Doesn't this also remind you of Charles Bronson?)

"He had the distinction of being the first actor to portray outlaw Butch Cassidy in the film The Three Outlaws opposite Alan Hale, Jr. as the Sundance Kid."

Brand rose quickly as a bankable actor in other movies: Halls of Montezuma (1950), Man Crazy (1953), Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), Return from the Sea (1954), and Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). 

He played a tough guy in the Elvis Presley movie Love Me Tender (1956). He received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Willie Stark in Kraft Theater's All the King's Men (1958). He portrayed Al Capone on television and film. His first film role was as a sadistic hoodlum opposite Edmond O'Brien in D.O.A (1950).

D.O.A. (attribution below)

Television acting offered countless opportunities. He took on a variety of characters, and it wasn't long before his career balanced on the edge of being typecast as a villain. He managed to sidestep the typical-for-the-time Hollywood character typecasting and created a unique persona through his diverse roles from comedy to drama to out-and-out villainous characters whether it was television, stage, or big screen.

The New York Times wrote in his obituary,

His looks helped him get parts but also tended to stereotype his career. A sympathetic news article in 1963 said that 'in 50 screen roles he has never been without a gun and has consistently been cast as a soldier or a gangster,' a pattern that was being broken then with a new role as a spear-brandishing Viking.

This is a quote from his Bio on the IMDb website. He said of himself about playing villains:

"...I don't go in thinking he's a villain. The audience might, but the villain doesn't think he's a villain. Even a killer condones what he's done. I just create this human being under the circumstances that are given. I don't think he's a villain. Everybody just condones his own actions."

When you look at his list of acting credits on the website IMDb, you can follow his career through his early uncredited performances to his plethora of bit parts to his recurring television roles to his movies.

His television credits are impressive. In the 1960s and 1970s, it seemed he showed up in just about every popular television series: Fantasy Island, Baretta, McCloud, Kojak, Police Woman, Bonanza, Marcus Welby, M.D., Alias Smith and Jones, The Virginian, Daniel Boone, Tarzan, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Rawhide, Death Valley Days... The list goes on and on.

I remember him most for his recurring character Texas Ranger Reese Bennett in the television western Laredo (56 episodes from 1965-1967) and Disney's That Darn Cat! (1965). [What can I say? I was a kid, and I had two Siamese cats.]

Neville Brand as Reese Bennett - Laredo 

(attribution below)

What memories do you have of Neville Brand?


Until next time,

Kaye Spencer

Writing through history one romance upon a time

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Images: 
**D.O.A. image attribution: By Film screenshot - D.O.A. film, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3262102
**Neville_Brand_1966 image attribution: By NBC Television - eBay itemphoto frontphoto back, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19597155
**Neville_Brand_as_Al_Capone_The_Untouchables_1959 image attribution: By NBC Television - eBay itemphoto frontphoto back, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19597155

WESTERN TOONS FOR SATURDAY MORNING TV - Meg Mims

WESTERN TOONS for SATURDAY MORNING TV

Where have all the cartoons gone? 

Long time passing... 

Where have the west 'toons gone? 

Long time ago... 

Watched by Boomers Saturday morn, 

What did they learn?

What did they learn?*

Maybe we learned how to mourn, given cable TV's Longmire cancellation! We Baby Boomers scrambled out of bed on Saturday mornings to catch a whole slew of our fave cartoons! The western-themed few whetted our young appetites for the afternoon classic western films with the Duke, Jimmy Stewart, Roy Rogers, etc., and evening TV shows like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Maverick, The Rifleman, Cheyenne, High Chaparral, Lancer, Alias Smith and Jones, even the comical F Troop.

Here are the hilarious and heroic Saturday morning western cartoon characters. If I missed any, let me know.

QUICK DRAW MCGRAW

Who can forget Hanna-Barbara's dim-witted sheriff Quick Draw, his loyal sidekick Baba Looey, El Kabong - the Zorro-like masked and caped good guy (er, horse). I especially enjoyed El Kabong swinging on his rope and bashing the bad guys on the head with his guitar.

But you gotta love Deputy Baba Looey (no doubt a take on Desi Arnaz's popularity at the time), the sweet little -- what was he? Supposedly a Mexican burro, although I never realized that as a kid - hey, I'm a city girl so don't laugh! I'd never seen a real horse until I was a teen. Baba Looey did speak with an accent, calling his boss "Queeks Draw," but that went right over my head too.

I also loved Snuffles, Quick Draw's bloodhound, who would point to his mouth with an "uh-uh-uh," jump up after getting a dog treat and float back down. HA! He'd put his nose on the ground and follow the trail if Quick Draw needed a good tracker - and if he didn't get a reward, he'd shake his head in disgust. I never blamed him.

Quick Draw also appeared as a cereal mascot for Sugar Smacks - lip-smackin' good for kids of my generation hooked on sugar. Gee thanks, Big Biz. No wonder we have weight problems today.

YOSEMITE SAM

"I'm the roughest, toughest, root'nest, toot'nest, fastest gunslinger west of the Pecos!"

Did this cowboy braggadocio really have something to boast about, with his six-guns, huge mustache and hat? Or was he making up for his small stature? Yosemite Sam claimed to be Bugs Bunny's archenemy, always saying, "Ah hates rabbits." Looney Toons were always fun, with wonderful art work in detail. I'd put Warner Brothers as the best of the best in writing, antics and one-liners, too.

Sam often changed venues to catch Bugs out, appearing as a Confederate general, a captain in the Roman Imperial Legion, a pirate up against Captain Hareblower, the Black Knight against Bugs's White Knight, as well as a Viking, an Indian chief, a mountain climber, a chef, a prison guard, a sailor and an alien in outer space. Sam sure got around!

Yosemite Sam sure had range as an actor, too.  And we kids loved the big-nosed old coot and laughed at his determination to get that rabbit. Bugs, however, never lost his cool.

DEPUTY DAWG

Lesser known, and of less quality in illustration and writing, the Terrytoon character of Deputy Dawg worked for a human sheriff and tried to keep the "varmints" out of trouble. Most of the time, though, Deputy Dawg preferred "fishin' for catfish" and keeping company with his friends (also the varmints) Muskie Muskrat, Moley Mole, Ty Coon, and Vincent Van Gopher. As a kid, I didn't care for whoever voiced Deputy Dawg. I liked the varmints and their antics best. Call me a rebel at heart.

Once the 70s faded, and the 80s cartoons such as the blue Smurfs, My Little Pony and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started taking over, western cartoons bit the dust.

A sad day, since western television shows soon followed - moseying down the lonesome trail to the forgotten, barren deserts of TV Land. Sigh. Perhaps with the resurgence of western movies, cartoon illustrators of today will find inspiration (God forbid, not Johnny Depp's bird-head Tonto!) and bring about something better than the sharp angles and awful colors on the 21st century cartoon shows. 

Children are in dire need a good hero figure. Come back, El Kabong! Come back!!

*Apologies to Pete Seeger for parodying his "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" song. (I'm no Weird Al Yankovich.)

Mystery author Meg Mims lives in Southeastern Michigan with her husband and a 'Make My Day' Malti-poo dog.Meg loves writing novels, short novellas and short stories, both contemporary and historical. Her Spur and Laramie Award winning Double series is now among the Prairie Rose Publications book list. Meg is also one-half of the D.E. Ireland team writing the Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins Mystery series for St. Martin's Minotaur. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. 

Kaye Spencer, western romance author – New to Western Fictioneers

Hello everyone.

I'm romance author Kaye Spencer, and I'm a new member with Western Fictioneers. Since today is the first of my regular blogging contributions for Western Fictioneers, which will occur on the fourth Saturday of each month, I thought it appropriate to share a little about myself and where my fascination with the American Old West came from.

I'm a native Coloradoan, and I also write under the pen name, A.L. Debran. I grew up on a cattle ranch in northeastern Colorado and, during those childhood and teenage years from the mid-1950s through the early 1970s, I spent hour upon hour reading Louis L'Amour's westerns and listening to Marty Robbins' gunfighter ballads. I watched all the *classic* television westerns when they were the primetime shows, and I didn’t miss a western movie when it came to the downtown theater or to the double-feature drive-in.

I loved the 'Sons of Katie Elder' so much (well... maybe I had a teeny-weeny crush on Dean Martin), that my grandfather carved a wooden pistol for me and carved in the name 'Tom Elder'. I had a bucking-barrel in my backyard so I could pretend to be a rodeo cowboy. I used my allowance to buy candy and gum cigarettes and roll caps for my pistols and rifle so I could run around the yard pretending to be whichever Hollywood cowboy I was currently obsessed with.

I was nine years old when I got my first horse—a black and white Welsh pony named Corky. It was Katie bar the door after that. I couldn’t get a saddle on Corky, but bareback was okay with me. Since he rode with a hackamore, I didn’t have to struggle with getting a bit in his mouth. All I had to do was sidle him up to the rail fence and hop on.

When I needed a new storyline to act out in my sibling-less imagination, I wrote my own, even though they were clearly retellings of episodes of the Virginian, High Chaparral, or even Yancy Derringer. This is where my writing began. I believed early on in my life that I was born in the wrong century. I’ll even confess that I named my oldest son Heath (after Heath Barkley) and my youngest son’s name is Cameron (after Cameron Mitchell – Uncle Buck on High Chaparral). My daughter, the middle child, is named Robyne—oops! A story there, just not a 'western' one. :-) 
 
I can, and often do, get lost in historical research of just about any time period, but it’s the Old West that I love the most—myths and truths alike.

My first novel, Lonely Places, published in June 2006,is a western romance that I started some 27 years before I finally decided to polish it up and submit it for publication. My western novella, Gunslingers & Ghostriders, followed in October. While my choice of story-writing genre is historical, particularly westerns, I’ve penned a vampire and a couple of contemporary stories—cowboys included.

My latest western is in an anthology from Prairie Rose Publications, which will release in a couple of months. The anthology is called Lassoing a Mail-Order Bride, and my story is A Permanent Woman.

I retired June 1, 2013 from a long career in public education that included administration and teaching English and history. I am loving every writing minute of retirement. ;-) I'm a review editor for the romance review site, Joyfully Reviewed, and I take on occasional manuscript editing projects.

I’m excited to be a member of Western Fictioneers, and I’m looking forward to sharing my love of the American Old West here on the fourth Saturday of each month. I’ve been reading the WF blog for a year or so, and I’ve learned so much from the wealth of Old West history that many of you have shared in your blog posts.

To read reviews of my books, watch my book videos, or download my old family recipes, visit my website and blog – http://www.kayespencer.com

You’ll find me on Twitter – @kayespencer – sharing daily history trivia, and I’ve recently started a recurring blogging topic on my blog called “Spotlight on History”.

Until next time,

Kaye

Fall in love…faster, harder, deeper with Kaye Spencer romances