Older MC readers may also remember them fondly.
There was a period in the late 50's when Warner Brothers produced a series of one hour westerns which just captured the then need by youth to watch westerns, Cheyenne, Maverick, Bronco Lane, Tenderfoot.
During the lock down of 2020 here in the US I found a cable TV channel rebroadcasting these shows and saw a few episodes of Cheyenne, Maverick, Have Gun Will Travel and Wagon Train all of which surprised me as to the level of scripts and acting which far outpaced the obvious low production costs. Money was spent in the right place, actors and scriptwriters.
So in b/w we have Clint Walker of Cheyenne, James Gardner of Maverick and Richard Boone of Have Gun Will Travel. The first two were with the compliments of A.B.C. TELEVISION, LTD the later from ASSOCIATED REDIFFUSION The broadcasters of the shows in London.
In 1959 my mother and I visited NYC to see relatives and the first thing I did on arrival was mail a letter with I think a dollar bill with a coupon from a comic sending off for '100's of Pictures of TV Stars' or some similar offer title. Six weeks later just before we left for the UK the envelope arrived. Unlike the 3.5"x 4.5" b/w glossy photos for London TV stations they were mostly litho printed on glossy paper, not photographic prints.
I didn't keep many, just Ward Bond and Robert Horton from Wagon Train, Jack Kelly from Maverick where he played brother Bart Maverick. The show was so popular they needed a second lead to produce episodes when James Garner was no longer available they replaced him with Roger Moore as British cousin Beau (Beauregarde).
The only colour pictures were Clint Walker and Richard Boone.
Other than these western stars I also saved a publicity photo of Donald Campbell with a printed signature from before his untimely demise.
Have you anything like these?
Brian B
NYC
USA
This is a great collection! I had several of these larger photo cards of some of my TV and Movie stars at the time - Paul Burke and Tuesday Weld come to mind - but I forgot all about them! Very cool memory! And I do recall that Westerns were everywhere on TV for awhile. SFZ
ReplyDeleteCool photo collection Brian! It's amazing that, with only four (then later three) major networks that there were soooo many Westerns produced. The air waves were saturated with Westerns. I recently learned of a couple I had never heard of or watched when I was young 'un: '26 Men' and 'Takedown' (with Robert Culp of 'I Spy' fame). As for me, I've recently completed my 'Sky King' cereal premium collection. There weren't many toys offered but one of them - the plane - had been eluding me for years!
ReplyDeleteBubblegum cards of TAKEDOWN are with Woodsy
DeleteQuentin Tarantino was riffing heavily off this period of TV Westerns with his fictional TV show Bounty Law as featured in his movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
ReplyDeleteThere was some talk of making a series of additional episodes for Streaming, but like QT's plans for Star Trek, they'll probably never happen.
Super prints Brian. A great stack. There's something so alluring about TV and film ephemera like this. Alas, I only recognize a few of the stars as I'm only in my early Sixties. My late Mum used to draw and paint female film stars from the thirties and forties when she was about 11. I have them somewhere in the loft. I wonder what travelling to New York in 1959 was like for you?
ReplyDelete