The Advantages of big casts in western series

[stuart.uk]

James Garner has said the filming of Maverick was a killer, so Jack Kelly was brought in to play his brother Bart, working often in seperate episodes and occassionally together. Other single actor shows were Clint Walker in Cheyenne and Ty Hardin in Bronco. Laramie also had two stars, John Smith and Robert Fuller, working either atogether or alone, giving each other a bit of a break.

Bonanza was clever in that it had 4 stars, Lorne Greene, Parnell Roberts, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon. Often one of it's stars would dominate an epiosde with his co-stars either appearing briefly or not at all. I could almost call James Drury a part-time star of The Virginian as the show had a huge turn over of actors who appeared regulary. As well as Doug Mclure as Trampas, who was if anything the most popular character in the show, we had Lee G Cobb, Roberta Shore, Charles Bickford, John Mcintire, Jeanette Nolan, Sarah Lane, Tim Mattheson, Stewart Granger, Lee Majors and many more I haven't mentioned.

However, after Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid we had a couple of buddy/buddy westerns like Alias Smith And Jones or The Quest where Kurt Russell and Tim Mattheson played brothers looking for their sister held captive by the Cheyenne. In both shows, who had it's two stars, there didn't appear to be much of a break for the actors involved, as they appeared to appear in every episode. I know Pete Dual was an alcholic with his own demons, but I wonder if the tough filming of the show proved to much of a strain for him.

I was also thinking of the death of Ward Bond, after 4-yrs of Wagon Train. He certainly appeared in many episodes, even though Robert Horton as scout Flint did take the strain of the shows star by appearing in many episodes by himself. So I wonder if filming the series contributed to Ward's death at the young age of 60

[mrsl]

Stuart:

You could be very correct in what you say. It seems the code of the Western calls for an older person to be available to offer sage advice to the youngsters from time to time, or get them out of trouble. So having a father, or an older wagon train boss seems reasonable, and as excertive as most westerns are, they must be hard on the body, when it's a week after week process, as opposed to movie filming where you sit around for most of the day quite often. Therefore, besides the older person, having several regular members in the cast probably assisted in easing the workload.

[MikeBSG]

And of course, on "Gunsmoke," you would have at least one Kitty-centered episode per season, a Doc-centered episode, and so forth, giving James Arness some time off.