Cheyenne (1960)

Cheyenne garnered a number of firsts when it debuted in 1955. It was one of the first three TV westerns geared for an adult audience, along with Gunsmoke and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. It was the first 60-minute TV drama of any kind. And it was the first television show produced by the Warner Brothers studio. Like Gunsmoke, its star was an imposing physical presence--6' 6" and heavily muscled Clint Walker. And though both leading characters were unflinching defenders of justice, there the similarities between their series ends. Cheyenne was never a weekly series during its entire 7-year run. It began as one of three rotating shows on Warner Brothers Presents, along with Casablanca and Kings Row. In 1956-57 it alternated with Conflict. The next year it split time with Sugarfoot, which would remain in the rotation for the next four years. When Walker went on strike against Warner Brothers during the 1958-59 season, the studio created a carbon copy series Bronco starring Ty Hardin to temporarily replace it. When Walker returned, the three shows rotated with each other. Yet despite not airing every week, Cheyenne was a top 30 program from 1957-61.

Like its peripatetic broadcast schedule, the show's hero, Cheyenne Bodie, was a drifter who held a variety of jobs in dozens of locations, which differentiated the show from the single-town focus of Gunsmoke and provided the blueprint for later shows like Have Gun--Will Travel, Wanted: Dead or Alive, and The Texan. Unlike the town-centered westerns such as Gunsmoke, Lawman, and The Deputy in which a moral law officer must defend his community from evil that largely comes from outside, Cheyenne Bodie is the bringer of justice to communities that are corrupt or evil at their centers. He operates from an outsider's perspective, his parents having been killed by Cheyenne Indians when he was a boy and then raised by them until he was rescued and adopted by the Pierce family, whom we meet in the episode "The Long Rope" (September 26, 1960). In this episode, Cheyenne just happens to pass by the house where he was raised until an angry and misguided lynch mob accused the Pierce patriarch of stealing a neighbor's horses and dragged him away while his wife and children watched helplessly. Cheyenne coincidentally returns to the town of High Point at exactly the same time 16 years later when the Pierce son Randy also returns in disguise to avenge the murder of his father. When Randy murders the lynch-mob leader Reed Moriarity, the town again accuses the wrong man and tries to storm the jail to haul off rancher Johnny Kent. Cheyenne has to keep the mob at bay, with the help of Indian Joe Maybe and, at the last minute, Randy Pierce, who finally realizes that his actions have endangered his one-time friend Cheyenne.

In "Riot at Arroyo Seco" (February 1, 1960), Cheyenne is working as the sheriff of the titular town, which is being ruined by the town patriarch's greedy sons, intent on driving out all the citizens due to a lack of water so that the sons can seize their property. When water-well worker Johnny Benson is murdered, the town correctly pins the rap on well operator Chet Noler but want to lynch him immediately, egged on by the greedy sons, who hope to cover up their complicity in the dry well scheme. When Cheyenne guns down one of the sons to stop the lynch mob from storming the jail, the father insists that he be charged with murder, and only when the circuit judge Lloyd Pomeroy smells a rat is Cheyenne let go. He quickly takes his gun belt and leaves town just as the judge uncovers the other brother's crimes and tells the citizens to give Cheyenne back his sheriff's badge. When he is told that Cheyenne has already left, he comments that the town doesn't deserve a man as good as Cheyenne Bodie.

Other episodes follow a similar trajectory. In "Outcast of Cripple Creek" (February 29, 1960), Cheyenne agrees to serve as marshal of Cripple Creek after his friend, the former marshal, summoned him and then died due to unexplained circumstances. Cheyenne allies himself with local sheriff Bill Lockhart against greedy cattle baron Carl Banner and sanctimonious yet corrupt town aldermen Mayor Myron Ackelroyd and Ab Murchison. By episode's end, Lockhart rejects renewing his contract and calls out Ackelroyd and Murchison for their hypocrisy, to which Cheyenne answers, "Amen, brother." In "Alibi for the Scalped Man" (March 7, 1960), Cheyenne investigates the disappearance of his friend Dan Murchison in Emmetsville, which purports to be the cleanest town west of Missouri, and discovers that mayor Angus Emmet is harboring his fugitive, murderous brother Charley, who serves as the town sheriff under an alias. And in "Home Is the Brave" (March 14, 1960) Cheyenne has been commissioned by the U.S. Army to return the body of war hero Cole Prescott to his hometown of White River for burial, only to encounter a refusal by the town council. He learns that the town had always rejected Prescott because he was a half-breed Sioux and was hated by town council president John Thompson because Prescott was at one time a rival suitor for the hand of Thompson's wife Ruth. Even when he exposes all the lies and hypocrisy behind the rejection, Cheyenne is unable to convince the citizens to allow Prescott's burial and is relieved by an army detail who come to take the body back to the Arlington National Cemetery with full honors.

The mistreatment and distrust of Indians is a recurring theme in Cheyenne, which, like many TV westerns in 1960, portrayed Native Americans in a more favorable light than white immigrants. Cheyenne Bodie is depicted as particularly sympathetic to the plight of the Indians, despite the fact that they killed his parents, because he grew up amongst them and came to understand their culture. Whites, by contrast, only see the number of their own race killed by the native inhabitants as a reason for hatred. In "Apache Blood" (February 8, 1960) Cheyenne meets and helps acclimate a version of himself, a young man who calls himself Mickey Free, who was also raised by Indians but is returned to white society when Apache chief Chotah decides to abandon the young insurgent braves of his tribe and take the remaining loyal tribe members to a reservation. Mickey struggles to fit in because of the disapproval of suspicious whites like busybody Elizabeth Quill and the greedy Karl brothers, who jumped the claim on his parents' ranch after they were killed by Indians. Cheyenne is there to rein Mickey in and intercede on his behalf with the regional land office to return the ranch to its rightful heir. But no episode is more of an indictment of the white man than "Savage Breed" (December 19, 1960), which shows how a group of whites on a hunting party each try to outfox the others to steal $70,000 from a fugitive embezzler while fending off a party of Apaches who want their horses to make the journey off the reservation back to the Black Hills. Cheyenne advocates surrendering the horses and taking the Indians at their word that they will be left alone thereafter, but the whites refuse to give up the horses and end up killing each other over the money. The savage breed indicated in the episode title is revealed to be the white men, not the Apaches.

While the producers did give Cheyenne Bodie a few details in terms of a back-story, as mentioned above in the episode "The Long Rope,"  the character is really more of an archetype than a fully realized human being. This is most blatantly illustrated in the two-part story arc "Gold, Glory and Custer" (January 4 & 11, 1960) in which a narrator informs the viewer that there were no credible white survivors of the Custer massacre at Little Big Horn, though many spurious claims were made in its aftermath, but that one observer did see what actually happened that day, an army scout that for the purposes of this story shall be called Cheyenne Bodie. As the authors of the Museum of Broadcast Communications web site have noted, "Essentially, the producers of Cheyenne changed the character's circumstances at will in order to insert him into any imaginable conflict." They go on to say that several plots for Cheyenne were reworked versions of Warner Brothers feature films. In the Custer story, they drop Cheyenne into one of the most infamous events in U.S. military history to illustrate the hubris and greed at the center of Custer's demise, as well as duplicity and revenge at the heart of the Indian attack. Though he exonerates Major Marcus Reno from charges of cowardice and betrayal, Cheyenne does so, despite his disdain for Reno, only so that the truth can be known. Amongst all the players involved in this iconic event in our country's history, only Cheyenne remains pure and righteous.

Besides the recycled plots mentioned above (a sin of many westerns of the era), the series was often sloppy in its execution. In "The Long Rope" Cheyenne clearly calls the Pierce daughter "Kay" when saying goodbye to her at the end of the episode when her actual name throughout the story has been "Fay." In "Two Trails to Santa Fe" (October 21, 1960), Max Baer, Jr. plays a prospector named Willis who is shot dead when he leaves the mission where Cheyenne and the other prospectors have set up their defenses against Indian attacks. Yet later in the same episode there is Baer clearly visible amongst the still-living prospectors after fending off an attack from a duplicitous army corporal. And like many other westerns or TV shows of any stripe, Walker's stand-in stuntmen are sometimes painfully obvious, though more stunt work would have been a blessing in any scene where Walker is asked to throw a punch. For all his physical prowess, Walker's boxing skills are less convincing than Adam West's in Batman. But then realism and verisimilitude were not what Warner Brothers was after in Cheyenne.

The theme song for Cheyenne was composed by William Lava and Stanley Davis Jones. Lava was born in Minneapolis and grew up in the Chicago area, attending Northwestern University, where he studied journalism. He studied conducting with Dr. Albert Coates in Los Angeles and moved to Hollywood in 1936, where he found work arranging music for radio programs. He also worked on dozens of feature films and shorts, most of them uncredited, beginning in 1937. In the mid-1950s he was hired by Disney, for whom he provided musical scores for The Mickey Mouse Club and later Zorro at the same time he was working on Cheyenne. In the early 1960s he also scored individual episodes for The Twilight Zone, Have Gun--Will Travel, The Dakotas, and 77 Sunset Strip. When Cheyenne ended in 1962, he was moved over to Warner Brothers' cartoon production, replacing Milton Franklyn on Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons after Franklyn died. Later in the 1960s he provided the theme song and scores for F Troop and worked on The Pink Panther Show. Lava passed away on February 20, 1971 at the age of 59 in Los Angeles. 

Stanley Davis Jones was born in Arizona and moved to Los Angeles with his mother after his father's death. He dropped out of UC Berkeley in 1934 and joined the Navy, after which he held a number of jobs, eventually becoming a forest ranger with the U.S. Forest Service. While stationed in Death Valley, he was assigned as a liaison to director John Ford while filming The Walking Hills in 1948. During this time, he would often sit around with the crew and entertain them with songs he had written. They encouraged him to get some of them published, and, following their advice, one of his songs became a huge hit--"Riders in the Sky," later renamed "Ghost Riders in the Sky." Ford began using Jones' songs in other films of his, and actor Harry Carey, Jr. got him a job with Disney working on the music for the series The Adventures of Spin and Marty, on which William Lava was also working. In 1956 he was hired to write music for the TV series The Sheriff of Cochise and played the role of Deputy Harry Olsen. He also appeared in Ford's The Horse Soldiers as well as Ten Who Dared and two episodes of the Daniel Boone series on Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. Jones died December 13, 1963 at the age of 49.

Music supervision for individual episodes was handled by the team of Paul Sawtell and Bert Shefter, who were profiled in the1960 post for Lawman. No credit is given for the scores for individual episodes.

All seven complete seasons have been released on DVD by Warner Archive.

The Actors

Clint Walker

Norman Eugene Walker was born in Hartford, Illinois, dropped out of high school at age 16, and joined the Merchant Marine at 17 during the last months of World War II. After the war, Walker bounced around the country working various jobs from Mississippi River boatman to golf caddy to the oil fields of Brownwood, Texas. While working as a security officer at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Walker met many Hollywood celebrities who encouraged him to give acting a try, so he moved to Los Angeles, where he met actor Henry Wilcoxon. Wilcoxon, in turn, introduced him to Cecil B. DeMille, who cast Walker in The Ten Commandments. But prior to that film's release he was spotted by a Warner Brothers employee playing a Tarzan-like character in Jungle Gents and was tabbed to star in Warner's new western series Cheyenne. Walker, however, did not like the restrictive nature of his contract with Warner, which gave the studio complete control of which feature films he could appear in and even stipulated that any LPs he released had to be on their label. These restrictions led Walker to insist on renegotiating his contract in May 1958. When the studio at first refused, he left the show temporarily. However, he did appear in a few feature films during the life of the series, most notably Fort Dobbs and Yellowstone Kelly.

After Cheyenne ended in 1962, he spent more time on films than television, including the Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedy Send Me No Flowers, Frank Sinatra's lone directorial effort None But the Brave, the Jay North Indian jungle adventure Maya, and The Dirty Dozen. In 1971 he suffered a freak skiing accident when the tip of a ski pole pierced his heart. But he was able to make a full recovery and was back filming in Spain a mere two months later. In 1974 he made a brief return to TV as the star of the short-lived series Kodiak, the same year in which he appeared in the cult TV movie Killdozer. His filmwork and television appearances were sparse thereafter, averaging less than one credit per year into the mid-1990s, the last playing Cheyenne Bodie in an episode of King Fu: The Legend Continues in 1995. He provided the voice of Nick Nitro in the animated feature Small Soldiers in 1998 and since then has made many appearances at events such as the Western Legends Film Festival. He lives with his third wife Susan in Grass Valley, California. His official web site can be found at clintwalker.com.

Notable Guest Stars

Season 4, Episode 7, "Gold, Glory and Custer--Prelude": Julie Adams (starred in The Creature From the Black Lagoon and played Martha Howard on The Jimmy Stewart Show, Ann Rorchek on Code Red, and Eve Simpson on Murder, She Wrote) plays mineralogist's daughter Irene Travers. Liam Sullivan (Major Mapoy on The Monroes, Dr. Joseph Lerner on The Young and the Restless, and Mr. Willis on Knots Landing) plays her fiancé Major Marcus Reno. Ed Kemmer (Commander Buzz Corry on Space Patrol, Paul Britton on The Secret Storm, and Dick Martin on As the World Turns) plays Reno's colleague Capt. Fred Benteen. Stacy Keach, Sr. (Carlson on Get Smart) plays prospector Brad Caldwell. Tyler McVey (Gen. Maj. Norgath on Men Into Space) plays railroad tycoon Henry Toland. Tim Graham (Homer Ede on National Velvet) plays trapper California Joe. Lorne Green (see the biography section of the 1960 post on Bonanza) plays army prosecutor Col. Jonathan Bell. Trevor Bardette (see the biography section for the 1960 post on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) plays a protestor calling for Reno's trial. Ralph Moody (Doc Burrage on The Rifleman) plays medicine man Slow Bull.

Season 4, Episode 8, " Gold, Glory and Custer--Requiem": Lorne Green (shown on the left, see "Gold, Glory and Custer--Prelude" above) returns as Col. Jonathan Bell. Julie Adams (see "Gold, Glory and Custer--Prelude" above) returns as Irene Travers. Liam Sullivan (see "Gold, Glory and Custer--Prelude" above) returns as Maj. Marcus Reno. Ed Kemmer (see "Gold, Glory and Custer--Prelude" above) returns as Cat. Fred Benteen. Lawrence Dobkin (Dutch Schultz on The Untouchables, the narrator on Naked City, Judge Saul Edelstein on L.A. Law, and Judge Stanely Pittman on Melrose Place) plays the presiding judge, Gen. Philip Sheridan. Carlos Romero (played Rico Rodriguez on Wichita Town, Romero Serrano on Zorro, and Carlo Agretti on Falcon Crest) plays Indian scout Moccasin Charlie. Frank De Kova (Chief Wild Eagle on F Troop and Louis Campagna on The Untouchables) plays Indian chief Dull Knife.

Season 4, Episode 9, "Riot at Arroyo Seco": Willis Bouchey (Mayor Terwilliger on The Great Gildersleeve, Springer on Pete and Gladys, and the judge 23 times on Perry Mason) plays Arroyo Seco patriarch Ralph Tobin. Harry Lauter (Ranger Clay Morgan on Tales of the Texas Rangers, Atlasande on Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, and Jim Herrick on Waterfront) plays his son Harry. Whitney Blake (shown on the right, played Dorothy Baxter on Hazel) plays Tobin's daughter-in-law Beth. Don Haggerty (Jeffrey Jones on The Files of Jeffrey Jones, Eddie Drake on The Cases of Eddie Drake, Sheriff Dan Elder on State Trooper, and Marsh Murdock on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) plays well-digger Chet Noler. Gary Vinson (Chris Higbee on The Roaring '20's, George Christopher on McHale's Navy, and Sheriff Harold Skiles on Pistols 'n' Petticoats) plays Noler's employee Johnny Benson. Robert Hyatt (Junior Morrison on The Pride of the Family) plays Cheyenne's assistant Joel Weeks. Phil Tully (Charlie the bartender on The Deputy) plays saloon keeper Paddy Moore. Frank Ferguson (Gus Broeberg on My Friend Flicka, Eli Carson on Peyton Place, and Dr. Barton Stuart on Petticoat Junction) plays circuit judge Lloyd Pomeroy.

Season 4, Episode 10, "Apache Blood": Scott Marlowe (Nick Koslo on Executive Suite, Eric Brady on Days of Our Lives, and Michael Burke on Valley of the Dolls) plays Indian-raised Mickey Free. Robert Warwick (starred in Alias Jimmy Valentine, The Supreme Sacrifice, The Heart of a Hero, and Against All Flags) plays Indian chief Chotah. Walter Coy (Zoravac on Rocky Jones, Space Ranger and the narrator on Frontier) plays Free's white guardian Reverend Collins. Adrienne Marden (Mary Breckenridge on The Waltons) plays his wife Martha. Glenn Strange (played Frankenstein's monster in House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and played Sam Noonan on Gunsmoke) plays stagecoach operator Burton. Bud Osborne (played stagecoach drivers in dozens of westerns and in episodes of The Cisco Kid, Annie Oakley, The Range Rider, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Rescue 8, Zorro, Bronco, Law of the Plainsman, Johnny Ringo, The Texan, Maverick, and Rawhide) plays stage driver Ed. Stuart Randall (Sheriff Art Sampson on Cimarron City, Al Livermore on Lassie, and Sheriff Mort Corey on Laramie) plays San Simon Sheriff James Purdy. Kenneth MacDonald (played the judge 32 times on Perry Mason, played Col. Parker on Colt .45, and appeared in several Three Stooges shorts) plays Indian agent Mr. Clum. Hank Patterson (Fred Ziffel on Green Acres and Petticoat Junction and Hank on Gunsmoke) plays gunsmith Luther.

Season 4, Episode 11, "Outcast of Cripple Creek": Robert J. Wilke (appeared in Best of the Badmen, High Noon, The Far Country, and Night Passage and played Capt. Mendoza on Zorro) cattle baron Carl Banner. Whit Bissell (shown on the left, starred in He Walked by Night, Creature From the Black Lagoon, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, and Hud and played Bert Loomis on Bachelor Father, Calvin Hanley on Peyton Place, and Lt. Gen. Heywood Kirk on The Time Tunnel) plays Cripple Creek Mayor Myron Ackelroyd. Rhodes Reason (John A. Hunter on White Hunter and Sheriff Will Mayberry on Bus Stop) plays Cripple Creek Sheriff Bill Lockhart. Lisa Gaye (Gwen Kirby on How to Marry a Millionaire) plays Lockhart's fiancé Jenny Beaumont. Clyde Howdy (Hank Whitfield on Lassie) plays deputy Hy King. Emory Parnell (Hawkins on The Life of Riley and Hank the bartender on Lawman) plays saloon keeper Luther Gannon. Donnelly Rhodes (Dutch Leitner on Soap, Charlie on Report to Murphy, Art Foster on Double Trouble, Dr. Grant Roberts on Danger Bay, Harry Abramotiz on The Heights, R.J. Williams on Street Legal, Dr. Leo Shannon on Da Vinci's Inquest, and Dr. Sherman Cottle on Battlestar Galactica) plays cattle drover Carl Whoopie.

Season 4, Episode 12, "Alibi for the Scalped Man": R.G. Armstrong (Police Capt. McAllister on T.H.E. Cat and Lewis Vendredi on Friday the 13th) plays Emmetsville Mayor Angus Emmet. Richard Coogan (Marshal Matthew Wayne on The Californians) plays his brother Charley. Mala Powers (starred in Cyrano de Bergerac, Rose of Cimarron, and Tammy and the Bachelor and played Rebecca Boone on Walt Disney's Daniel Boone and Mona on Hazel) plays their niece Celia Marley. Ross Elliott (Freddie the director on The Jack Benny Show and Sheriff Abbott on The Virginian) plays newspaper publisher Reed Kingsley. 

Season 4, Episode 13, "Home Is the Brave": Regis Toomey (shown on the right, starred in Alibi, Other Men's Women, The Finger Points, His Girl Friday, and The Big Sleep and played Joe Mulligan on The Mickey Rooney Show, Lt. Manny Waldo on Four Star Playhouse, Lt. McGough on Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Det. Les Hart on Burke's Law, and Dr. Barton Stuart on Petticoat Junction and Green Acres) plays White River physician Dr. Henry Malcomb. Carolyn Komant (Dixie on The Roaring '20's) plays his daughter Nancy. Brad Johnson (Deputy Sheriff Lofty Craig on Annie Oakley) plays White River Sheriff Dan Blaisdell. John Howard (Dr. Wayne Hudson on Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal, Commander John "Pliny" Hawk on Adventures of the Sea Hawk, and Dave Welch on My Three Sons) plays bank president John Thompson. Mickey Simpson (Boley on Captain David Grief) plays his henchman Pete Windsor. Clyde Howdy (see "Outcast of Cripple Creek" above) plays a wagon owner.

Season 5, Episode 1, "The Long Rope": Peter Whitney (Sergeant Buck Sinclair on The Rough Riders and Lafe Crick on The Beverly Hillbillies) plays High Point Sheriff Hugo Parma. Donald May (Charles C. Thompson on West Point, Pat Garrison on The Roaring '20's, Grant Wheeler on Texas, Adam Drake, Sr. on The Edge of Night, Raymond Speer on As the World Turns, and Earl Foster on All My Children) plays revenge-seeker Randy Pierce. Merry Anders (Joyce Erwin on The Stu Erwin Show, Val Marlowe on It's Always Jan, Mike McCall on How to Marry a Millionaire, and Policewoman Dorothy Miller on Dragnet 1967) plays his sister Fay. Dehl Berti (Vittorio on Buck James and John Taylor on Guns of Paradise) plays Indian Joe Maybe. Richard Bellis (Emmy-winning composer for many TV movies) plays Cheyenne as a boy. Frank Albertson (starred in Alice Adams, Man Made Monster, and It's a Wonderful Life and played Mr. Cooper on Bringing Up Buddy) plays rancher Johnny Kent. Forrest Taylor (starred in True Nobility, Big Calibre, Too Much Beef, and The Lost Planet and played Doc Brannon on Man Without a Gun) plays the town parson. 

Season 5, Episode 2, "Counterfeit Gun": Robert Lowery (starred in Criminal Investigator, Revenge of the Zombies, The Navy Way, The Mummy's Ghost, and They Made Me a Killer and played Big Tim Champion on Circus Boy and Buss Courtney on Pistols 'n' Petticoats) plays both train robber Giff Murdock and embezzler Richard Scott. Lisa Gaye (see "Outcast of Cripple Creek" above) plays Scott's daughter Francie. Ray Teal (Jim Teal on Lassie and Sheriff Roy Coffee on Bonanza) plays the Crestline sheriff. Ron Howard (shown on the left, played Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, Bob Smith on The Smith Family, Richie Cunningham on Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, and the narrator on Arrested Development) plays train passenger Timmy. William Mims (see the biography section for the 1960 post on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) plays train robber Tully. Vito Scotti (played Jose on The Deputy, Capt. Gaspar Fomento on The Flying Nun, Gino on To Rome With Love, and Mr. Velasquez on Barefoot in the Park) plays undercover Mexican army officer Julio.

Season 5, Episode 3, "Road to Three Graves": Alan Hale, Jr. (shown on the right, played Biff Baker on Biff Baker U.S.A., Casey Jones on Casey Jones, and The Skipper on Gilligan's Island) plays boys' camp builder Tuk. James Seay (see the biography section for the 1960 post on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) plays Manuel Loza henchman Parks. Carlos Romero (see "Gold Glory, and Custer--Requiem" above) plays Loza henchman Luiz Perez. Jean Byron (Minnie on Mayor of the Town, Dr. Imogene Burkhart on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and Natalie Lane on The Patty Duke Show) plays Civil War widow Mrs. Norris. Gregory Irvin (Johnny Brady on Dennis the Menace) plays her son Ted.

Season 5, Episode 4, "Two Trails to Santa Fe": Robert Colbert (Dr. Doug Phillips on The Time Tunnel) plays renegade army Cpl. Howie Burch. Randy Stuart (see the biography section of the 1960 post on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp) plays his former wife Amy Brandon. Richard Webb (starred in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, This Woman Is Dangerous, and Git! and played Captain Midnight on Captain Midnight and Deputy Chief Don Jagger on Border Patrol) plays her current husband Jed. Robert Anderson (Park Street, Jr. on The Court of Last Resort and Aeneas MacLinahan on Wichita Town) plays prospector Jones. John Harmon (Eddie Halstead on The Rifleman and the fingerprint expert on Perry Mason) plays prospector Harris. Max Baer, Jr. (shown on the left, played Jethro and Jethrine Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies) plays prospector Willis. Tony Young (Cord on Gunslinger) plays Apache leader Yellow Knife. Robert Carricart (Pepe Cordoza on T.H.E. Cat) plays an army fort doctor.

Season 5, Episode 5, "Savage Breed": Ray Danton (starred in Chief Crazy Horse, Onionhead, The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, The George Raft Story, and Portrait of a Mobster and played Nifty Cronin on The Alaskans) plays Dodge City Marshal Al Lestrade. Robert Clarke (appeared in The Man From Planet X and The Astounding She-Monster, starred in and directed The Hideous Sun Demon, and was married to Alyce King of the King Singers) plays card shark Phil Kenton. Patricia Huston (Addy Olson on Days of Our Lives and Hilda Brunschwager on L.A. Law) plays his wife Nora. Walter Coy (see "Apache Blood" above) plays embezzler George Naylor. Clyde Howdy (see "Outcast of Cripple Creek" above) plays Deputy Pete Saba.