I knew the lure of Fox Classics would get to me eventually and here I am watching/listening to an episode of "Gunsmoke". Things will only get "worse" because I have only recently started subscribing to the Foxtel package that allows me to watch just about every channel and while I have been trawling the Foxtel program guide my lips are starting quiver with anticipation. Although most of you would be aware I am a horseracing tragic you do not know years ago I was TV addict.The
I knew the lure of Fox Classics would get to me eventually and here I am watching/listening to an episode of "Gunsmoke". Things will only get "worse" because I have only recently started subscribing to the Foxtel package that allows me to watch just about every channel and while I have been trawling the Foxtel program guide my lips are starting quiver with anticipation. Although most of you would be aware I am a horseracing tragic you do not know years ago I was TV addict.
The first television show I ever saw was the UK series "The Adventures of Robin Hood" starring Richard Greene and by the end of the show I was hooked. Within a matter of a couple of months I started collecting magazines, like TV Week, TV Times and Listener In Weekly. To say I devoured their pages would be an understatement and within no time at all I knew all the stars and costars of all the television series of the time, especially the westerns. I don't know what causes people to become record keepers but there was no stopping me and within a couple of years I had index cards on over 1500 character actors and actresses. I might add I was about fifteen.Every time I saw a familiar face I jotted down their appearance and eventually I was able to list the names of actors not even shown in the official cast lists.
To say I loved a western would be the classic understatement and shows like "The Lone Ranger" and "Rin Tin Tin" were precursors to later adult shows like "Gunsmoke", "Cheyenne", "Bronco", "Bonanza" and the show I will be watching in about 30 minutes, "Maverick". To this day I can still rattle off the main stars of all the major western TV series of the late 1950's and 1960's as well as many of the other genres as well. It was while I was watching "Cheyenne" I came across my favourite character actor, the unbelievable Jack Elam, through his portrayal of a character no one bar myself seems to remember called Toothy Thompson. If any of you have seen the "support your local sheriff" films where Jack Elam costarred with Brett Maverick (James Garner) you will understand what sort of a scoundrel Toothy
Thompson was.
As "Gunsmoke" is about to finish I note that an actor called Ken Curtis is portaying the character Festus Hagen, the follow on side kick to Matt Dillon vacated when Dennis Weaver (Chester Goode) left the series. Ken Cutis was in a TV series called "Ripcord" with Larry Pennell ...... gosh, I need to stop. Go to the website http://www.b-westerns.com/kcurtis.htm and have a look at the photos and information.. I suddenly have the urge to watch "Rio Grande" after reading this quote, "One of my favorite western musical memories is Ken Curtis doing the lead (with the Sons of the Pioneers) on "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen" in the Ford and Wayne RIO GRANDE (1950)"
Now, moving on to
"whose the tall dark stranger there, Maverick is his name"
Blow me down: Roger Moore is on the show BUT not as Brett's UK cousin Beauregard. Sit back, Roman and enjoy.
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