'Head 'Em Up And Move 'Em Out': How The TV Western Series 'Rawhide' Launched Clint Eastwood's Career

 

This Saturday morning, I watch a rebroadcast of Rawhide on the ME channel.

I loved the Western show when I was a kid, loved Frankie Lane's opening song, and I enjoy watching the shows again as an adult. It was on Rawhide that I first saw Clint Eastwood, who went on to e a major film actor. 

Courtney Campbell at WideOpenCountry.com offers a piece on how Rawhide launched Clint Eastwood’s career.  

The '50s and '60s were a glorious time for TV westerns. Has there been any other time in American television where we had such strong cowboy characters to watch every week? We had Bonanza, the Lone Ranger, Wagon Train, and Gunsmoke. But we also had the TV show that kicked off Clint Eastwood's western career: Rawhide. 

The show is set during the 1860s, capturing the cattle drive lifestyle. Eric Fleming stars as trail boss Gil Favor. Eastwood stars opposite him as Rowdy Yates, the young and feisty accomplice, who Favor continually keeps in check. Sheb Wooley played scout Pete Nolan, Paul Brinegar played the cook Wishbone, James Murdock played Wishbone's assistant "Mushy," Rocky Shahan, played drover Joe Scarlet, and Steve Raines played drover Jim Quince. It was a great group of characters to follow season after season.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.wideopencountry.com/rawhide-tv-series/ 

'As My Old Pappy Used To Say': 13 Crucial Life Lessons 'Maverick' Learned From His Pappy

I was a huge fan of the Western TV show Maverick with James Garner (seen in the above photo) when I was a kid and I’ve been recording rerun of the show on MeTV.  

I think the old show holds up fairly well and the late James Garner was terrific as Bret Maverick. (I was not as fond of Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick and other characters).

Maverick used to quote his “old Pappy” to make a point and the sayings were always clever and amusing. Metv.com offers 13 of the old sayings in a recent piece.   

Maverick didn't play by the same rules as other TV westerns of its time, like Gunsmoke or Bonanza. It even popularly poked fun at those shows in episodes ("Gun-Shy" and "Three Queens Full," respectively) that lovingly spoofed other western shows that ended up with much longer series' runs.

But that sort of behavior is just what you'd expect from Maverick - breaking or bending rules - and longtime fans will remember that the law of the land in Maverick wasn't laid out by any sheriff, but by old Pappy, the Maverick brothers' sage father who sent his sons Bart and Bret out with a thousand dollar bill each and about a bajillion pieces of advice the characters would turn to any time they got into trouble on the show.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://metv.com/lists/13-crucial-life-lessons-maverick-learned-from-his-pappy  

You can watch the opening of the show with the theme song via the below link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYrsDT02OcE&index=10&list=PLnj5cjUJ9f9HTdZjDxj4rR2nVsObzYxRq  

Dale Robinson, Tales Of Wells Fargo TV Western Star, Dies At 89

Mike Barnes at the Hollywood Reporter reports on the death of TV Western star Dale Robinson.

Dale Robertson, a veteran of movies and TV Westerns of the 1950s and ’60s who played “the left-handed gun” on NBC’s Tales of Wells Fargo, died Wednesday of lung cancer and pneumonia in a San Diego hospital. He was 89.

An Oklahoma native and member of the Cowboy Hall of Fame, Robertson also starred as gambler-turned-railroad tycoon Ben Calhoun in Iron Horse, which ran on ABC from 1966-68, and as the Texas billionaire title character in NBC’s 1987-88 adventure series J.J. Starbuck, from Stephen J. Cannell Productions.

 

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dale-robertson-westerns-wells-fargo-425019

 

I grew up watching Dale Robinson as Jim Hardy, a Wells Fargo detective in the Tales of Wells Fargo. I loved the show. You can now watch the old episodes on Cozi TV.

 

And thanks to youtube.com you can watch some episodes of Tales of Wells Fargo online.

Below are links to one of the shows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbE40lPpOwk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrvYIf7qnIk  

 

 

Not mentioned in the Hollywood Reporter story is Dale Robinson's fine performance with Richard Widmark in The Clarion Call, one of the five short stories dramatized in the 1952 film O.Henry's Full House.

 

Robinson portrayed a New York detective who is indebted to a crook portrayed by Richard Widmark. This was a great short story with two fine actors.

You can watch author John Steinbeck introduce the story via the below link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-68pI8Jx8pM

I purchased the DVD for my daughter this past Christmas and I also purchased a copy for myself. 

Westerns Make Gritty Comeback

Lori Rackl at the Chicago Sun-Times writes that the Western, once a staple on prime-time TV, is bucking its way back onto the small screen with the new AMC Western series Hell on Wheels.

You can read the review via the below link:

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/rackl/8590094-421/westerns-make-gritty-comeback.html

I'm a big fan of Westerns, but I watched the first episode of Hell on Wheels and I thought it was awful.

I much prefer the great, old TV Westerns from the 1ate 1950s and the 1960s that appear daily on Encore's Classic Western channel.

I grew up watching these Westerns, such as Have Gun Will Travel, Gunsmoke and Maverick, and I'm enjoying watching them again.

The old shows offer a galaxy of guest stars, many of whom went on to be major film stars. The shows also offer great character actors, writers and directors.

The TV Westerns were called "horse operas" due to the compelling characters and plots (daytime TV series were called "soap operas" due to the soap and detergent commercials aimed at housewives).

Today's TV makers could learn a thing or two about drama, action, comedy and good human stories from those old TV Westerns.

James Garner Looks Back On His Life And Acting Career in 'The Garner Files'

I've enjoyed watching James Garner on TV since I was a kid and saw him in Maverick. Years later, I would watch him again in The Rockford Files. 

I also enjoyed watching him in films such as The Americanization of Emily, Support Your Local Sheriff, The Hour of the Gun, The Great Escape and many others. I particularly liked Garner as Raymond Chandler's iconic character Philip Marlowe in the 1969 film Marlowe.

I feel as if I know James Garner and like him as a friend, so I'm looking forward to reading his memoir, The Garner Files.

Mary McNamara wrote an interesting review of the book at the Los Angeles Times.

Many actors have breathed life into a memorable or even iconic role but only a few are capable of reconstructing an archetype. In "Maverick" and then again "The Rockford Files," James Garner stepped into two of TV's most calcified genres — the western and the detective series — and set a new standard that others have been chasing down since. Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford were different in many ways — Maverick was a fast-talking con man in the Old West, Rockford a modern L.A. private investigator with motivation issues — but they shared an important trait: They were reluctant heroes. Each would much rather wisecrack his way out of a jam, but if you pushed him hard enough, you would invariably find yourself counting angels on the ceiling.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/books/la-et-book-20111101-24,0,4362112.story