Maverick (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Maverick is a western
television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins
. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC
and stars James Garner
as Bret Maverick, a cagey, articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly
as his brother Bart. The Mavericks were poker
players from Texas
who traveled all over the American Old West
and on Mississippi
riverboat
s, constantly getting into and out of life-threatening trouble of one sort or another, usually involving money, women, or both. They would typically find themselves weighing a financial windfall against a moral dilemma. More often than not, their consciences trumped their wallets.
When Garner left the series after the third season due to a legal dispute, Roger Moore
was added to the cast as their cousin Beau. Robert Colbert
appeared later in the fourth season as a third Maverick brother, Brent. No more than two of the series leads ever appeared together in the same episode, and usually only one.
The show was part of the Warner Bros.
array of Westerns, which included Cheyenne, Colt .45
, Lawman
, Bronco
, The Alaskans
, and Sugarfoot
. Maverick can currently be seen weekday mornings at 8am ET on the Encore Westerns Channel.
with Randolph Scott
, and had filmed Sayonara
with Marlon Brando
, which wasn't released until December 1957 but had been viewed by Huggins and the Warner Bros.
staff casting their new television series. Maverick often bested The Ed Sullivan Show
and The Steve Allen Show
in the television ratings.
Huggins inverted the usual cowboy hero characteristics familiar to television and movie viewers of the time. Bret Maverick was vocally reluctant to risk his life, though he typically ended up being courageous in spite of himself. He frequently flimflammed adversaries, but only those who deserved it. Otherwise he was honest almost to a fault, in at least one case insisting on repaying a questionable large debt (in "According to Hoyle"). None of the Mavericks were particularly fast draws with a pistol. Bart once commented to a lady friend, "My brother Bret can outdraw me any day of the week, and he's known as the Second Slowest Gun in the West." However, it was almost impossible for anyone to beat them in any sort of a fistfight, perhaps the one cowboy cliché that Huggins left intact (reportedly at the insistence of the studio).
Critics have repeatedly referred to Bret Maverick as "arguably the first TV anti-hero," and have praised the show for its photography and Garner's charisma and subtly comedic facial expressions.. Nonetheless, most TV anti-heroes, such as Eddie Haskell
, Dr. Zachery Smith
, and J. R. Ewing are at heart self-serving and egocentric, a description that does not fit any Maverick.
According to series creator Roy Huggins
in his Archive of American Television
interview, the two brothers were purposely written to be virtual clones, with no apparent differences inherent in the scripts whatsoever. This included being traveling poker players, loving money, professing to be cowards, spouting intriguing words of advice their "Pappy" passed down to them, and carrying a $1,000 bill pinned to the inside of a coat for emergency purposes, but there was one accidental distinction. Garner's episodes tended to be more comedic due to his obvious talent in that area, while Kelly's were inclined to be more dramatic. Huggins noted in the aforementioned Archive of American Television
interview that Kelly, while funnier than Garner "off camera," dropped a funny line "like a load of coal." Garner, at 6 feet 3 inches (1.9 m), was also two inches (5 cm) taller than Kelly, leading a character in one episode ("Seed of Deception") to refer to Garner as "the big one" and the 6'1" Kelly as "the little one."
To get disappointed viewers used to the idea of a second Maverick, Garner filmed a series of vignettes that aired at the beginning of the Kelly-only episodes, where he would introduce the evening's story. Kelly did the same in the Garner-only episode, "Black Fire", by appearing in the opening vignette to introduce the story, and narrating the remainder of the episode.
While Kelly developed a following among the show's female fans, not everyone was happy with his addition to the cast. The chairman of Kaiser Aluminum
, the series' main sponsor at the time, became so perturbed when Kelly was brought in (saying, "I paid for red apples and I get green apples!") that ABC had to make a new deal that cost the network a small fortune.
The episodes featuring the two were audience favorites, with critics frequently citing the chemistry between the Maverick brothers. Bret and Bart often found themselves competing for women or money, or working together in some elaborate scheme to swindle someone who had just robbed one of them.
Though it was never said explicitly, Bret appears to be the older, stating once in response to someone mentioning lightning striking twice in the same place, "That's just what my Pappy said when he looked in my brother Bart's crib." In real life, Kelly was seven months older than Garner. Kelly wound up being the only Maverick to appear in all five seasons of the series in the wake of Garner's departure after the third season to pursue a film career.
as cousin Beau, nephew of Beau "Pappy" Maverick. Sean Connery
turned down the role, but accepted a free trip to America; the following decade, Moore would replace Connery as James Bond
in the film series.
Beau's first appearance was in the season four opener, "Bundle From Britain," in which he returns from an extended stay in England
to meet cousin Bart. Moore had earlier played a completely different role in the episode "The Rivals
," a drawing room comedy episode with Garner in which Moore's character switched identities with Bret.
Beau's amusingly self-described "slight English accent" was explained by his having spent the last few years in England. Moore was exactly the same age as Kelly and brought a flair for light comedy and a physical similarity to Garner fitting the show—-Moore even looked like the profile drawing (apparently based on Garner) of the card player at the beginning of each episode. Moore noted in his autobiography
that the producers told him he was not being brought in to replace Garner. However, when he got to wardrobe, all of his costumes had the name "Jim Garner" scratched out on the tags. Moore also mentioned in the book that he, Garner, Kelly, and their wives would regularly gather at the Kelly home for what they called "poker school."
There was also a dispute between the cast and producers during this time over the long hours they were putting in each day. The producers placed a time clock in the makeup department and required the actors to punch in. Moore brought his own makeup, and refused to do so. Moore wrote in his book that Kelly was "similarly minded, and one day took the time clock and used it as a football."
Moore had already played Maverick dialogue written for Garner in his earlier series, The Alaskans
. The studio had a policy of recycling scripts through their various television series to save money on writers, changing as little dialogue as possible, usually only names and locations. Recycled scripts were often credited to "W. Hermanos" (Spanish for W. Brothers).
Moore quit due to what he felt was a declining script quality (without having to resort to legal measures as Garner had); Moore insisted if he had gotten the level of writing Garner had enjoyed during the first two years of the show's run, he would have stayed.
was cast as yet another brother, Brent Maverick, duplicating Garner's costume exactly. Colbert had appeared on the show previously as Cherokee Dan Evans in the season four episode "Hadley's Hunters." Aware of his physical similarity to Garner and wary of the comparisons that would inevitably result, Colbert famously pleaded with Warner not to cast him, saying, "Put me in a dress and call me Brenda but don't do this to me!"
The studio had intended for Kelly, Moore, and Colbert to be on the series at the same time, and a pair of publicity photos exists of Bart, Beau, and Brent, marching together down a street with their pistols pointed, as well as a color shot of Bart and Beau admiring the thousand dollar bill pinned to the inside of Brent's jacket (a recurring Maverick plot device
), but Moore had already left the show when the first of Colbert's two episodes aired in March 1961. Colbert was introduced as Brent in the season four episode "The Forbidden City." Kelly made what amounted to an extended cameo appearance in the episode. Colbert would appear again two episodes later by himself in the episode "Benefit of the Doubt."
For the fifth season in 1961-1962, the studio dropped Colbert without notifying him; they simply did not call him back. New Kelly episodes alternated with Garner reruns until the series was cancelled. The studio reversed the actors' billing at the beginning of the show for that last season, with Kelly ahead of Garner.
Colbert later appeared as a Brent-like character called "Ace" in a 1965 episode of Bonanza
entitled "Meredith Smith". In the 1965-66 season, he appeared on F Troop
, but left to star in a new series. In 1967, he would co-star with James Darren in the science fiction
television series Time Tunnel. The actor spent most of the 1970s in daytime serials.
Some performers, such as Kathleen Crowley
, Tol Avery
, and Chubby Johnson
, appeared seven or eight times over the course of the series in various roles. A very young Joel Grey
played Billy the Kid
in an unusual episode that featured a bravura pistol-twirling exhibition by Garner. A chubby, acne-scarred Robert Redford
joined Kelly on a desperate cattle drive in "The Iron Hand." Stacy Keach, Sr.
played a sheriff in "Ghost Rider". Slim Pickens
, Lee Van Cleef
, John Carradine
, Buddy Ebsen
, Hans Conried
, Alan Hale, Jr.
, Jim Backus
, John Gavin
, Mike Connors
, Chad Everett
, Patric Knowles
, and Adam West
appeared at least once during the run of the series. Actresses included subsequent Oscar-winners Ellen Burstyn
and Louise Fletcher
, as well as Mala Powers
, Coleen Gray
, Ruta Lee
, Marie Windsor
, Abby Dalton
, Karen Steele
, Dawn Wells
, Connie Stevens
, Merry Anders
, Sherry Jackson
, and Adele Mara
.
The program's stentorian-voiced announcer ("Maverick! Starring Jack Kelly and Robert Colbert!") was character actor Ed Reimers
.
, a copper king who ultimately went to Wall Street. Huggins recalls in his Archive of American Television
interview that this Warners-owned property was selected by the studio as the first episode in order to cheat him out of creator residuals.
Notable episodes of the series include "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres
" (in which Bret spends most of the acclaimed episode apparently relaxing in a rocking chair, calmly whittling and offhandedly assuring the inquisitive and derisively amused townspeople that he's "working on it" while Bart runs a complex sting operation to swindle a crooked banker who'd blithely pocketed Bret's deposit of $15,000); "According to Hoyle" (the first appearance of Diane Brewster
as roguish Samantha Crawford, a role she'd played earlier in an episode of another western TV series called Cheyenne); "The Saga of Waco Williams" (which also drew the largest viewership of the series); "Gun-Shy" (a spoof of Gunsmoke
); and "Duel at Sundown" (with Clint Eastwood
as a fist-fighting and gun-slinging villain). In his Archive of American Television
interview, Roy Huggins
contends that the first half of The Sting
was an uncredited restaging of "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres
."
Jack Kelly
's favorite episode was "Two Beggars On Horseback," a sweeping adventure that depicted a frenzied race between Bret and Bart to cash a check, the only time in the series that Kelly also wore a black hat, albeit briefly.
"Pappy" stands out as a unique episode, with James Garner
playing Bret and Bart's father Beau, an important but previously unseen character always referred to throughout the run of the series as "Pappy." Bret and Bart were both constantly saying, "As my Pappy used to say" then reeling off some intriguing aphorism like "Work is fine for killing time but it's a shaky way to make a living." In this particular episode, Pappy was brought to life for the only time in the series by Garner, and Bret also winds up disguising himself as his own grey-haired, mustachioed father as part of the plotline. The split screen sequences with two Garners in the same shot were singled out by critics as especially interesting. Kelly also plays a dual role, briefly portraying old Beau's brother Bentley, or "Uncle Bent," as Bret calls him. Garner's Beau Maverick is not the same character as the Beau Maverick played by Roger Moore
later in the series; Moore's Beau is the nephew of Garner's Beau as well as Bret and Bart's cousin; and Beau Maverick always referred to "Uncle Beau" (instead of calling him "Pappy"). In the studio tradition of casting their contract players, Troy Donahue
plays the son of a long-time lover of Pappy.
The second episode of season four, "Hadley's Hunters," features brief crossovers from the Warner Bros.
array of Western shows. Bart encounters Dan Troop (John Russell
) and Johnny McKay (Peter Brown
) from Lawman
, Cheyenne Bodie (Clint Walker
) from Cheyenne, Tom Brewster (Will Hutchins
) from Sugarfoot
, Bronco Layne (Ty Hardin
) from Bronco
, and Edd Byrnes from 77 Sunset Strip
. Bart also walked into the office of Christopher Colt and found it empty. He noticed Colt's gun hung up on the wall, and his satchel covered in dust. This was an inside joke referring to Colt .45
, another of the Warner Bros. westerns, that had been cancelled.
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
's charming character Dandy Jim Buckley (Maverick minus the meticulous scruples) appears to especially superb effect in the epic "Stampede" and comedy of treachery "The Jail at Junction Flats." The latter episode features a memorable conclusion that offended many 1958 viewers. Zimbalist went on to play the lead in his own series, 77 Sunset Strip
, after five appearances as Buckley. Huggins recruited Richard Long
to fill the void as a similar character named "Gentleman Jack Darby," and both Buckley and Darby appear in "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres," although not in the same scenes.
Many episodes are humorous while others are deadly serious, and in addition to purely original scripts, producer Roy Huggins
drew upon works by writers as disparate as Louis Lamour and Robert Louis Stevenson
to give the series breadth and scope. The Maverick brothers never stopped traveling, and the show was as likely to be set on a riverboat
or in New Orleans as in a western desert or frontier saloon. Huggins quit the series at the end of the second season due to a life-threatening bout with pneumonia
, and was succeeded by writer/producer Coles Trapnell
, ushering in a gradual but sharp permanent decline in ratings.
(music) and Paul Francis Webster
(lyrics). Buttolph's music first appeared in the Warner Bros.
film of The Lone Ranger
. The theme song lyrics (performed by an all-male chorus) introduce the lead character and also describe the setting.
had 50-year-old James Garner and Jack Kelly reprising their roles, while Charles Frank
playing young Ben Maverick, the son of their cousin Beau. Garner shot the film while on hiatus from The Rockford Files
. Kelly only appeared in a few scenes near the end.
The New Maverick was the pilot for a new series, Young Maverick
, which ran for a short time in 1979. Frank's character, Ben Maverick, was the focal point of the show, while Garner only appeared as Bret for a few moments at the very beginning of the first episode. It is apparent that Bret does not much care for Ben, and the two part at the nearest crossroads; some critics later noted that the audience couldn't help but think that the camera was following the wrong Maverick. The series ended so quickly that several episodes that had already been filmed were never broadcast.
Two years later, another attempt to revive the show occurred after Garner left The Rockford Files and needed to perform in another series to fulfill his contractual obligations. Bret Maverick
(1981–82) starred the 53-year-old as an older-but-no-wiser Bret. Jack Kelly appeared as Bret's brother Bart in only one episode but was slated to return as a series regular for the following season. NBC
unexpectedly canceled the show despite respectable ratings, and Kelly would never officially join the cast. The new series involved Bret Maverick settling down in a small town in Arizona after winning a saloon in a poker game: the two-hour first episode was eventually trimmed and repackaged as a TV-movie under the title Bret Maverick: The Lazy Ace
. Bret Maverick ended on a sentimental note, with Bret and Bart embracing during an unexpected encounter, with the theme from the original series playing in the background.
The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1991) featured Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick for the last time. The film united Kelly with various other Western characters and actors, including Bat Masterson
(Gene Barry
), Wyatt Earp
(Hugh O'Brian
), the Rifleman
(Chuck Connors
) and his son Mark (Johnny Crawford
), Caine from Kung Fu
(David Carradine
), The Westerner
(Brian Keith
), a thinly disguised Virginian
and Trampas (James Drury
and Doug McClure
, who had appeared briefly as a hotel clerk in a first season Maverick episode), and Cheyenne Bodie (Clint Walker
). Kenny Rogers
played the lead as part of his TV movie series based on his hit song "The Gambler
", with the others (including Maverick) more or less relegated to brief appearances. As each veteran hero appears onscreen, a few bars of the theme song from their original series plays in the background. Garner had made a similar appearance as Bret Maverick years before, in a 1959 Bob Hope
movie called Alias Jesse James
that also featured Hugh O'Brien
as Wyatt Earp
, along with Fess Parker
(dressed as Davy Crockett
), Gary Cooper
, Roy Rogers
and Trigger
, Jay Silverheels
(Tonto
from The Lone Ranger
), Gail Davis
(Annie Oakley
), James Arness
(Marshal Matt Dillon
of Gunsmoke
), and Ward Bond
(Seth Adams of Wagon Train
), not to mention Hope's frequent screen partner Bing Crosby
. Garner's appearance in the film is frequently absent from television presentations due to legal problems with the rights to the character.
starred Mel Gibson
as Bret Maverick, Jodie Foster
, and James Garner
in a supporting role as Bret's father. It was directed by Richard Donner
(who had previously directed dozens of TV series prior to working in feature films), from a screenplay by Oscar-winning writer William Goldman
. Garner maintained in later interviews that he was playing exactly the same character as in the television series, with Gibson as his son, but the script itself leaves this open to conjecture; some assume that he was actually portraying Bret's father Beau "Pappy" Maverick. A "Making of" mini-documentary was broadcast on cable stations prior to the film's release that included no footage of Garner from the original series despite both the movie and television series having been produced by the same studio.
. Spiegle met Garner at the studio before the first Maverick comic was drawn because no publicity photographs were available yet. Spiegle talked in an interview about comic books he had drawn:
"), Russell S. Hughes ("According to Hoyle"), Gerald Drayson Adams
("Stampede"), Montgomery Pittman
("The Saga of Waco Williams"), Douglas Heyes
("The Quick and the Dead"), Marion Hargrove
("The Jail at Junction Flats"), Howard Browne
("Duel at Sundown"), Leo Townsend ("The Misfortune Teller"), Gene Levitt
("The Comstock Conspiracy"), Leo Gordon
(who also acted on the series), and George Waggner
, among many others.
, with Garner present.
and the other by Ed Robertson, and serve as the main sources for the background information in this article, together with various magazine pieces from TV Guide
, Life Magazine, and numerous others, along with viewings of the original series episodes, many of which remain available to the public at the Paley Center for Media in New York City
and Los Angeles
.
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins
Roy Huggins
Roy Huggins was an American novelist and an influential writer/creator and producer of character-driven television series, including Maverick, The Fugitive, and The Rockford Files....
. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
and stars James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...
as Bret Maverick, a cagey, articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly
Jack Kelly (actor)
Jack Kelly was an American film and television actor most noted for the role of "Bart Maverick" in the TV series Maverick, which ran on ABC from 1957 to 1962...
as his brother Bart. The Mavericks were poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
players from Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
who traveled all over the American Old West
American Old West
The American Old West, or the Wild West, comprises the history, geography, people, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century...
and on Mississippi
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
riverboat
Riverboat
A riverboat is a ship built boat designed for inland navigation on lakes, rivers, and artificial waterways. They are generally equipped and outfitted as work boats in one of the carrying trades, for freight or people transport, including luxury units constructed for entertainment enterprises, such...
s, constantly getting into and out of life-threatening trouble of one sort or another, usually involving money, women, or both. They would typically find themselves weighing a financial windfall against a moral dilemma. More often than not, their consciences trumped their wallets.
When Garner left the series after the third season due to a legal dispute, Roger Moore
Roger Moore
Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
was added to the cast as their cousin Beau. Robert Colbert
Robert Colbert
Robert Colbert is an American actor most noted for his leading role portraying Dr. Doug Phillips on the TV series The Time Tunnel and his two appearances as a third Maverick brother in Maverick....
appeared later in the fourth season as a third Maverick brother, Brent. No more than two of the series leads ever appeared together in the same episode, and usually only one.
The show was part of the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
array of Westerns, which included Cheyenne, Colt .45
Colt .45 (TV series)
Colt .45 is an American Western television series shown on ABC between 1957 and 1960. The half-hour show derives from the 1950 Warner Brothers film of the same name starring Randolph Scott and formed part of the William T...
, Lawman
Lawman (tv series)
Lawman is an American Western television series originally telecast from 1958 to 1962 starring John Russell as Marshal Dan Troop and featuring Peter Brown as Deputy Marshal Johnny McKay on the ABC Television Network. The series was set in Laramie, Wyoming during the mid to late 1870s. Warner Bros....
, Bronco
Bronco (TV series)
Bronco is a Western series on ABC from 1958 through 1962. It was shown by the BBC in the United Kingdom. The program starred Ty Hardin as Bronco Layne, a former Confederate officer who wandered the Old West, meeting such well-known individuals as Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid, Jesse James,...
, The Alaskans
The Alaskans
The Alaskans is a 1959 television series set in the port of Skagway, Alaska during the 1890s. The show features Roger Moore as "Silky Harris" and Jeff York as "Reno McKee", a pair of adventurers intent on swindling travelers bound for the Yukon Territories during the height of the Klondike Gold...
, and Sugarfoot
Sugarfoot
Sugarfoot is the title of a TV western that aired from 1957 to 1961. The series featured Will Hutchins as fledgling frontier lawyer Tom Brewster and Jack Elam as sidekick Toothy Thompson...
. Maverick can currently be seen weekday mornings at 8am ET on the Encore Westerns Channel.
James Garner as Bret Maverick
Bret Maverick is the epitome of a rounder, always seeking out high-stakes games, and rarely remaining in one place for long. The show is generally credited with launching Garner's career, although he had already appeared in several movies, including Shoot-Out at Medicine BendShoot-Out at Medicine Bend
Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend is a 1957 Western film directed by Richard L. Bare and starring Randolph Scott, James Garner and Angie Dickinson. This was the final film that Scott made with Warner Bros.-Plot synopsis:...
with Randolph Scott
Randolph Scott
Randolph Scott was an American film actor whose career spanned from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in a variety of genres, including social dramas, crime dramas, comedies, musicals , adventure tales, war films, and even a few...
, and had filmed Sayonara
Sayonara
Sayonara is a 1957 color American film starring Marlon Brando. It tells the story of an American Air Force flier who was an "ace" fighter pilot during the Korean War....
with Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
, which wasn't released until December 1957 but had been viewed by Huggins and the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
staff casting their new television series. Maverick often bested The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan....
and The Steve Allen Show
Steve Allen (comedian)
Stephen Valentine Patrick William "Steve" Allen was an American television personality, musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer. Though he got his start in radio, Allen is best known for his television career. He first gained national attention as a guest host on Arthur Godfrey's Talent...
in the television ratings.
Huggins inverted the usual cowboy hero characteristics familiar to television and movie viewers of the time. Bret Maverick was vocally reluctant to risk his life, though he typically ended up being courageous in spite of himself. He frequently flimflammed adversaries, but only those who deserved it. Otherwise he was honest almost to a fault, in at least one case insisting on repaying a questionable large debt (in "According to Hoyle"). None of the Mavericks were particularly fast draws with a pistol. Bart once commented to a lady friend, "My brother Bret can outdraw me any day of the week, and he's known as the Second Slowest Gun in the West." However, it was almost impossible for anyone to beat them in any sort of a fistfight, perhaps the one cowboy cliché that Huggins left intact (reportedly at the insistence of the studio).
Critics have repeatedly referred to Bret Maverick as "arguably the first TV anti-hero," and have praised the show for its photography and Garner's charisma and subtly comedic facial expressions.. Nonetheless, most TV anti-heroes, such as Eddie Haskell
Eddie Haskell
Edward Clark "Eddie" Haskell is a fictional character on the Leave It to Beaver television situation comedy, which ran on CBS from October 4, 1957 to 1958 and then on ABC from 1958 to June 20, 1963...
, Dr. Zachery Smith
Lost in Space
Lost in Space is a science fiction TV series created and produced by Irwin Allen, filmed by 20th Century Fox Television, and broadcast on CBS. The show ran for three seasons, with 83 episodes airing between September 15, 1965, and March 6, 1968...
, and J. R. Ewing are at heart self-serving and egocentric, a description that does not fit any Maverick.
Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick
Though Garner was originally supposed to be the only Maverick, the studio eventually hired Jack Kelly to play brother Bart, starting with the eighth episode. The producers had realized that it took over a week to shoot a single episode, so Kelly was hired to rotate with Garner as the series lead, using two separate crews (while occasionally appearing together). In Bart's first episode, "Hostage!", in order to engender audience sympathy for the new character, the script called for him to be tied up and beaten by an evil police officer.According to series creator Roy Huggins
Roy Huggins
Roy Huggins was an American novelist and an influential writer/creator and producer of character-driven television series, including Maverick, The Fugitive, and The Rockford Files....
in his Archive of American Television
Archive of American Television
The Archive of American Television is a division of the non-profit Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation that films interviews with notable people from all aspects of the television industry....
interview, the two brothers were purposely written to be virtual clones, with no apparent differences inherent in the scripts whatsoever. This included being traveling poker players, loving money, professing to be cowards, spouting intriguing words of advice their "Pappy" passed down to them, and carrying a $1,000 bill pinned to the inside of a coat for emergency purposes, but there was one accidental distinction. Garner's episodes tended to be more comedic due to his obvious talent in that area, while Kelly's were inclined to be more dramatic. Huggins noted in the aforementioned Archive of American Television
Archive of American Television
The Archive of American Television is a division of the non-profit Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation that films interviews with notable people from all aspects of the television industry....
interview that Kelly, while funnier than Garner "off camera," dropped a funny line "like a load of coal." Garner, at 6 feet 3 inches (1.9 m), was also two inches (5 cm) taller than Kelly, leading a character in one episode ("Seed of Deception") to refer to Garner as "the big one" and the 6'1" Kelly as "the little one."
To get disappointed viewers used to the idea of a second Maverick, Garner filmed a series of vignettes that aired at the beginning of the Kelly-only episodes, where he would introduce the evening's story. Kelly did the same in the Garner-only episode, "Black Fire", by appearing in the opening vignette to introduce the story, and narrating the remainder of the episode.
While Kelly developed a following among the show's female fans, not everyone was happy with his addition to the cast. The chairman of Kaiser Aluminum
Kaiser Aluminum
Kaiser Aluminum is an American aluminum producer. The company was founded in 1946 by American industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. Kaiser entered the aluminum business by leasing, then purchasing three government-owned aluminum facilities in Washington state. These were the primary reduction plants at...
, the series' main sponsor at the time, became so perturbed when Kelly was brought in (saying, "I paid for red apples and I get green apples!") that ABC had to make a new deal that cost the network a small fortune.
The episodes featuring the two were audience favorites, with critics frequently citing the chemistry between the Maverick brothers. Bret and Bart often found themselves competing for women or money, or working together in some elaborate scheme to swindle someone who had just robbed one of them.
Though it was never said explicitly, Bret appears to be the older, stating once in response to someone mentioning lightning striking twice in the same place, "That's just what my Pappy said when he looked in my brother Bart's crib." In real life, Kelly was seven months older than Garner. Kelly wound up being the only Maverick to appear in all five seasons of the series in the wake of Garner's departure after the third season to pursue a film career.
Roger Moore as Beau Maverick
Though very popular, Garner quit over a contract dispute with the studio after the series' third year and was replaced by Roger MooreRoger Moore
Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
as cousin Beau, nephew of Beau "Pappy" Maverick. Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
turned down the role, but accepted a free trip to America; the following decade, Moore would replace Connery as James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
in the film series.
Beau's first appearance was in the season four opener, "Bundle From Britain," in which he returns from an extended stay in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to meet cousin Bart. Moore had earlier played a completely different role in the episode "The Rivals
The Rivals
The Rivals, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, is a comedy of manners in five acts. It was first performed on 17 January 1775.- Production :...
," a drawing room comedy episode with Garner in which Moore's character switched identities with Bret.
Beau's amusingly self-described "slight English accent" was explained by his having spent the last few years in England. Moore was exactly the same age as Kelly and brought a flair for light comedy and a physical similarity to Garner fitting the show—-Moore even looked like the profile drawing (apparently based on Garner) of the card player at the beginning of each episode. Moore noted in his autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
that the producers told him he was not being brought in to replace Garner. However, when he got to wardrobe, all of his costumes had the name "Jim Garner" scratched out on the tags. Moore also mentioned in the book that he, Garner, Kelly, and their wives would regularly gather at the Kelly home for what they called "poker school."
There was also a dispute between the cast and producers during this time over the long hours they were putting in each day. The producers placed a time clock in the makeup department and required the actors to punch in. Moore brought his own makeup, and refused to do so. Moore wrote in his book that Kelly was "similarly minded, and one day took the time clock and used it as a football."
Moore had already played Maverick dialogue written for Garner in his earlier series, The Alaskans
The Alaskans
The Alaskans is a 1959 television series set in the port of Skagway, Alaska during the 1890s. The show features Roger Moore as "Silky Harris" and Jeff York as "Reno McKee", a pair of adventurers intent on swindling travelers bound for the Yukon Territories during the height of the Klondike Gold...
. The studio had a policy of recycling scripts through their various television series to save money on writers, changing as little dialogue as possible, usually only names and locations. Recycled scripts were often credited to "W. Hermanos" (Spanish for W. Brothers).
Moore quit due to what he felt was a declining script quality (without having to resort to legal measures as Garner had); Moore insisted if he had gotten the level of writing Garner had enjoyed during the first two years of the show's run, he would have stayed.
Robert Colbert as Brent Maverick
As ratings continued to slide following the addition of Moore, strapping Garner lookalike Robert ColbertRobert Colbert
Robert Colbert is an American actor most noted for his leading role portraying Dr. Doug Phillips on the TV series The Time Tunnel and his two appearances as a third Maverick brother in Maverick....
was cast as yet another brother, Brent Maverick, duplicating Garner's costume exactly. Colbert had appeared on the show previously as Cherokee Dan Evans in the season four episode "Hadley's Hunters." Aware of his physical similarity to Garner and wary of the comparisons that would inevitably result, Colbert famously pleaded with Warner not to cast him, saying, "Put me in a dress and call me Brenda but don't do this to me!"
The studio had intended for Kelly, Moore, and Colbert to be on the series at the same time, and a pair of publicity photos exists of Bart, Beau, and Brent, marching together down a street with their pistols pointed, as well as a color shot of Bart and Beau admiring the thousand dollar bill pinned to the inside of Brent's jacket (a recurring Maverick plot device
Plot device
A plot device is an object or character in a story whose sole purpose is to advance the plot of the story, or alternatively to overcome some difficulty in the plot....
), but Moore had already left the show when the first of Colbert's two episodes aired in March 1961. Colbert was introduced as Brent in the season four episode "The Forbidden City." Kelly made what amounted to an extended cameo appearance in the episode. Colbert would appear again two episodes later by himself in the episode "Benefit of the Doubt."
For the fifth season in 1961-1962, the studio dropped Colbert without notifying him; they simply did not call him back. New Kelly episodes alternated with Garner reruns until the series was cancelled. The studio reversed the actors' billing at the beginning of the show for that last season, with Kelly ahead of Garner.
Colbert later appeared as a Brent-like character called "Ace" in a 1965 episode of Bonanza
Bonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...
entitled "Meredith Smith". In the 1965-66 season, he appeared on F Troop
F Troop
F Troop is a satirical American television sitcom that originally aired for two seasons on ABC-TV. It debuted in the United States on September 14, 1965 and concluded its run on April 6, 1967 with a total of 65 episodes. The first season of 34 episodes was filmed in black-and-white, but the show...
, but left to star in a new series. In 1967, he would co-star with James Darren in the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series Time Tunnel. The actor spent most of the 1970s in daytime serials.
Supporting players and recurring roles
- Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is an American actor known for his starring roles in the television series 77 Sunset Strip and The F.B.I. He is also known as recurring character "Dandy Jim Buckley" in the series Maverick and as the voice behind the character Alfred Pennyworth in Batman: The Animated Series...
as Dandy Jim Buckley, a sophisticated con artist, who at times was both friend and foe to Bret but maintained a markedly warmer friendship with Bart.
- Diane BrewsterDiane BrewsterDiane Brewster was an American television actress most noted for playing three distinctively different roles in US TV series of the 1950s and 60s: confidence trickster Samantha Crawford in Maverick; pretty young second-grade teacher Miss Canfield in Leave It to Beaver; and doomed wife Helen...
as Samantha Crawford, a con woman who managed to dupe Bret and Bart out of large sums, but not without having a little romance with each brother first. Brewster originated the role of Crawford on Cheyenne before Maverick went on the air. "Samantha Crawford" was the maiden name of series creator Roy HugginsRoy HugginsRoy Huggins was an American novelist and an influential writer/creator and producer of character-driven television series, including Maverick, The Fugitive, and The Rockford Files....
' mother.
- Richard LongRichard Long (actor)Richard Long was an American actor better known for his leading roles in several ABC television series, including The Big Valley, Nanny and the Professor and Bourbon Street Beat.-Early life:...
as Gentleman Jack Darby. Gentleman Jack was intended to be the friendly rival opposing Bart that Dandy Jim's character was for Bret, and was created after Zimbalist had been cast in 77 Sunset Strip77 Sunset Strip77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....
and was no longer available for lengthy appearances; Long later joined the cast of 77 Sunset Strip himself. Gentleman Jack never appeared with Bret, always with Bart, although Dandy Jim was in episodes with both, together and separately.
- Arlene HowellArlene HowellArlene Howell , a.k.a. Eurlyne Howell, was an American television actress who held the Miss USA 1958 title.Howell became the first of three Miss Louisiana USA titleholders to win the Miss USA crown when she won the Miss USA 1958 pageant held in Long Beach, California in July 1958...
as Cindy Lou Brown, another beautiful con woman whom Bart and Gentleman Jack fought over.
- Leo GordonLeo GordonLeo Vincent Gordon was an American movie and television character actor as well as a screenplay writer and novelist. He specialized in playing brutish bad guys during more than forty years in film and television....
as Big Mike McComb, Bret and Bart's Irish friend who aided them on several adventures. Gordon would later write a few episodes of the series.
- Gerald MohrGerald MohrGerald Mohr was an American radio, film and television character actor who appeared in over 4,000 radio plays, 73 films and over 100 television shows....
and Peter BreckPeter BreckJoseph Peter Breck is an American prolific character actor of stage, who has played roles on television and in film...
as Doc HollidayDoc HollidayJohn Henry "Doc" Holliday was an American gambler, gunfighter and dentist of the American Old West, who is usually remembered for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his involvement in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral...
. Mohr originally played the role in season one as a ruthless killer. However, in seasons 4-5, Breck portrayed Holliday as more of a lovable rogue who was always getting Bart in trouble with his scams.
- Kathleen CrowleyKathleen CrowleyBetty Jane Kathleen Crowley is an American actress and was Miss New Jersey in 1949 and a contestant for Miss America in the same year . After the pageants, she became an actress who specialized in being phenomenally seductive in TV series and movies...
as Modesty Blaine, Melanie Blake, and Marie, leading ladies with repeated appearances in various seasons. Mona FreemanMona FreemanMona Freeman is an American film actress. The 5' 1" blonde was a model while in high school, and after becoming the first "Miss Subways" of the New York City transit system, eventually signed a movie contract with Howard Hughes. Her contract was later sold to Paramount Pictures. After 1944, she...
played Modesty Blaine twice while Crowley played the role once.
- John DehnerJohn DehnerJohn Dehner was an American actor in radio, television, and films, playing countless roles, often as a droll villain. Between 1941 and 1988, he appeared in over 260 films and television programs. Prior to acting, Dehner had worked as an animator at Walt Disney Studios, and later became a radio...
and Andrew DugganAndrew Duggan-Career:During World War II, Duggan was in the 40th Special Services Company, led by actor Melvyn Douglas in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. His contact with Douglas later led to his performing with Lucille Ball in the play Dreamgirl. He developed a friendship with Broadway...
each played gangster Big Ed Murphy once, among other roles in the series.
- Mike RoadMike RoadMike Road is a voice actor and a Warner Bros. television series contract player whose career dates back to the 1950s....
played gambler Pearly Gates twice during the final season.
Some performers, such as Kathleen Crowley
Kathleen Crowley
Betty Jane Kathleen Crowley is an American actress and was Miss New Jersey in 1949 and a contestant for Miss America in the same year . After the pageants, she became an actress who specialized in being phenomenally seductive in TV series and movies...
, Tol Avery
Tol Avery
Tol Avery was an American film and television character actor with more than a hundred screen appearances between 1950 and 1974...
, and Chubby Johnson
Chubby Johnson
Chubby Johnson was an American movie and television supporting character actor with a genial demeanor and warm country-accented voice perfect for westerns...
, appeared seven or eight times over the course of the series in various roles. A very young Joel Grey
Joel Grey
Joel Grey is an American stage and screen actor, singer, and dancer, best known for his role as the Master of Ceremonies in both the stage and film adaptation of the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret. He has won the Academy Award, Tony Award and Golden Globe Award...
played Billy the Kid
Billy the Kid
William H. Bonney William H. Bonney William H. Bonney (born William Henry McCarty, Jr. est. November 23, 1859 – c. July 14, 1881, better known as Billy the Kid but also known as Henry Antrim, was a 19th-century American gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War and became a frontier...
in an unusual episode that featured a bravura pistol-twirling exhibition by Garner. A chubby, acne-scarred Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
joined Kelly on a desperate cattle drive in "The Iron Hand." Stacy Keach, Sr.
Stacy Keach, Sr.
Stacy Keach, Sr. was the stage name of Walter Stacy Keach , an American actor whose screen career spanned six decades. He and his wife, Mary Cain , were members of the Peninsula Players summer theater program during the 1930s. He may be best known for his role as Carlson in the television show Get...
played a sheriff in "Ghost Rider". Slim Pickens
Slim Pickens
Louis Burton Lindley, Jr. , better known by the stage name Slim Pickens, was an American rodeo performer and film and television actor who epitomized the profane, tough, sardonic cowboy, but who is best remembered for his comic roles, notably in Dr...
, Lee Van Cleef
Lee Van Cleef
Lee Van Cleef was an American film actor who appeared mostly in Western and action pictures. His sharp features and piercing eyes led to his being cast as a villain in scores of films such as High Noon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Good The Bad and the Ugly.-Early life:Van Cleef was...
, John Carradine
John Carradine
John Carradine was an American actor, best known for his roles in horror films and Westerns as well as Shakespearean theater. A member of Cecil B DeMille's stock company and later John Ford's company, he was one of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood history...
, Buddy Ebsen
Buddy Ebsen
Buddy Ebsen was an American character actor and dancer. A performer for seven decades, he had starring roles as Jed Clampett in the long-running television series The Beverly Hillbillies and as the title character in the 1970s detective series Barnaby Jones, and played Barnaby Jones in the movie...
, Hans Conried
Hans Conried
Hans Georg Conried, Jr. was an American comedian, character actor and voice actor.-Early years:He was born on April 15, 1917 in Baltimore, Maryland to Hans Georg Conried, Sr. and Edith Beyr Gildersleeve. His mother was a descendant of Pilgrims, and his father was a Jewish immigrant from Vienna,...
, Alan Hale, Jr.
Alan Hale, Jr.
Alan Hale, Jr. was an American film and television actor, best known for his role as Skipper on the popular sitcom Gilligan's Island. Hale was the lookalike son of popular supporting film actor Alan Hale, Sr....
, Jim Backus
Jim Backus
James Gilmore "Jim" Backus was a radio, television, film, and voice actor. Among his most famous roles are the voice of Mr...
, John Gavin
John Gavin
John Gavin is an American film actor and a former United States Ambassador to Mexico. Gavin is half Mexican and fluent in Spanish....
, Mike Connors
Mike Connors
Mike Connors is an American actor best known for playing detective Joe Mannix in the CBS television series, Mannix. Before that, he had played a crime-fighting investigator, wielding a .38 handgun hidden in his back, in another CBS series, Tightrope.-Early life:Connors was born Krekor Ohanian in...
, Chad Everett
Chad Everett
Chad Everett is an American actor who has appeared in over 40 films and television series but is probably best known for his role as Dr. Joe Gannon in the 1970s television drama Medical Center.-Early life:...
, Patric Knowles
Patric Knowles
Reginald Lawrence Knowles was an English film actor who renamed himself Patric Knowles, a name which reflects his Irish descent. He appeared in films of the 1930s through the 1970s...
, and Adam West
Adam West
William West Anderson , better known by the stage name Adam West, is an American actor best known for his lead role in the Batman TV series and the film of the same name...
appeared at least once during the run of the series. Actresses included subsequent Oscar-winners Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...
and Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher is an American actress best known for her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and as Kai Winn Adami in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She also guest starred on the science fiction television series Heroes...
, as well as Mala Powers
Mala Powers
Mary Ellen "Mala" Powers was an American film actress.She was born in San Francisco, California. In 1940, her family moved to Los Angeles. Her father was an executive with United Press. In the summer of her relocation, Powers attended the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop where she enjoyed her first...
, Coleen Gray
Coleen Gray
Coleen Gray is an American movie and television actress born in Staplehurst, Nebraska. She is known for her roles in the films Nightmare Alley , Red River , in which she played John Wayne's fiancée, and Stanley Kubrick's The Killing .-Early career:Born Doris Jensen, Gray was a farmer's daughter...
, Ruta Lee
Ruta Lee
Ruta Lee is a Canadian actress and dancer who appeared as one of the brides in the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers...
, Marie Windsor
Marie Windsor
Marie Windsor . Born as Emily Marie Bertelson in Marysvale, Piute County, Utah, Windsor was an actress known as "The Queen of the Bs" because she appeared in so many film noirs and B-movies like Cat-Women of the Moon...
, Abby Dalton
Abby Dalton
Abby Dalton is an American actress.Born as Marlene Wasden in Las Vegas, Nevada, she has made numerous appearances on television, including the recurring role of "Julia Cumson" on Falcon Crest...
, Karen Steele
Karen Steele
Karen Steele was an American actress and model with over 60 roles in film and television. Her most famous roles include starring as Virginia in Marty, as Mrs Lane in Ride Lonesome and as Eve McHuron in the Star Trek episode "Mudd's Women".-Early life:Karen Steele was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to...
, Dawn Wells
Dawn Wells
Dawn Elberta Wells is an American actress known for playing Mary Ann Summers on the sitcom Gilligan's Island during its run from 1964 until 1967.- Early life :...
, Connie Stevens
Connie Stevens
Connie Stevens is an American actress and singer, best known for her roles in the television series Hawaiian Eye and other TV and film work.-Early life:...
, Merry Anders
Merry Anders
Merry Anders is an American actress who has appeared in a number of television programs and films since the 1950s. In 1954, she succeeded Ann Todd as Stuart Erwin's daughter in the final season of his TV series, The Stu Erwin Show.In the 1955-1956 season, she joined Janis Paige in the 26-week CBS...
, Sherry Jackson
Sherry Jackson
Sherry Jackson is an American actress and former child star. She made her film debut at seven years old in the musical You're My Everything, starring Anne Baxter and Dan Dailey. During the course of appearing in several of the Ma and Pa Kettle movies during the 1950s as Susie Kettle, one of the...
, and Adele Mara
Adele Mara
Adele Mara , born Adelaide Delgado, was an American actress, singer and dancer who appeared in films during the 1940s and 1950s. During the 1940s, the blond actress was also a popular pinup girl....
.
The program's stentorian-voiced announcer ("Maverick! Starring Jack Kelly and Robert Colbert!") was character actor Ed Reimers
Ed Reimers
Edwin W. Reimers , known as Ed Reimers, was an American actor active during the 1950s and 1960s, who also served as the stentorian-voiced announcer for such early Warner Brothers television series as Cheyenne and Maverick: "From the entertainment capital of the world, this is a Warner Brothers...
.
Notable episodes
The first broadcast episode of Maverick, "War of the Silver Kings," was based on C.B Glasscock's "The War of the Copper Kings," which relates the real-life adventures of copper mine speculator F. Augustus HeinzeF. Augustus Heinze
Fritz Augustus Heinze was one of the three "Copper Kings" of Butte, Montana, along with William Andrews Clark and Marcus Daly...
, a copper king who ultimately went to Wall Street. Huggins recalls in his Archive of American Television
Archive of American Television
The Archive of American Television is a division of the non-profit Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation that films interviews with notable people from all aspects of the television industry....
interview that this Warners-owned property was selected by the studio as the first episode in order to cheat him out of creator residuals.
Notable episodes of the series include "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres
Shady Deal at Sunny Acres
Shady Deal at Sunny Acres, starring James Garner and Jack Kelly, remains the most famous and widely discussed episode of the Western comedy television series Maverick. Written by series creator Roy Huggins and Douglas Heyes and directed by Leslie H...
" (in which Bret spends most of the acclaimed episode apparently relaxing in a rocking chair, calmly whittling and offhandedly assuring the inquisitive and derisively amused townspeople that he's "working on it" while Bart runs a complex sting operation to swindle a crooked banker who'd blithely pocketed Bret's deposit of $15,000); "According to Hoyle" (the first appearance of Diane Brewster
Diane Brewster
Diane Brewster was an American television actress most noted for playing three distinctively different roles in US TV series of the 1950s and 60s: confidence trickster Samantha Crawford in Maverick; pretty young second-grade teacher Miss Canfield in Leave It to Beaver; and doomed wife Helen...
as roguish Samantha Crawford, a role she'd played earlier in an episode of another western TV series called Cheyenne); "The Saga of Waco Williams" (which also drew the largest viewership of the series); "Gun-Shy" (a spoof of Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
); and "Duel at Sundown" (with Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
as a fist-fighting and gun-slinging villain). In his Archive of American Television
Archive of American Television
The Archive of American Television is a division of the non-profit Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation that films interviews with notable people from all aspects of the television industry....
interview, Roy Huggins
Roy Huggins
Roy Huggins was an American novelist and an influential writer/creator and producer of character-driven television series, including Maverick, The Fugitive, and The Rockford Files....
contends that the first half of The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
was an uncredited restaging of "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres
Shady Deal at Sunny Acres
Shady Deal at Sunny Acres, starring James Garner and Jack Kelly, remains the most famous and widely discussed episode of the Western comedy television series Maverick. Written by series creator Roy Huggins and Douglas Heyes and directed by Leslie H...
."
Jack Kelly
Jack Kelly (actor)
Jack Kelly was an American film and television actor most noted for the role of "Bart Maverick" in the TV series Maverick, which ran on ABC from 1957 to 1962...
's favorite episode was "Two Beggars On Horseback," a sweeping adventure that depicted a frenzied race between Bret and Bart to cash a check, the only time in the series that Kelly also wore a black hat, albeit briefly.
"Pappy" stands out as a unique episode, with James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...
playing Bret and Bart's father Beau, an important but previously unseen character always referred to throughout the run of the series as "Pappy." Bret and Bart were both constantly saying, "As my Pappy used to say" then reeling off some intriguing aphorism like "Work is fine for killing time but it's a shaky way to make a living." In this particular episode, Pappy was brought to life for the only time in the series by Garner, and Bret also winds up disguising himself as his own grey-haired, mustachioed father as part of the plotline. The split screen sequences with two Garners in the same shot were singled out by critics as especially interesting. Kelly also plays a dual role, briefly portraying old Beau's brother Bentley, or "Uncle Bent," as Bret calls him. Garner's Beau Maverick is not the same character as the Beau Maverick played by Roger Moore
Roger Moore
Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
later in the series; Moore's Beau is the nephew of Garner's Beau as well as Bret and Bart's cousin; and Beau Maverick always referred to "Uncle Beau" (instead of calling him "Pappy"). In the studio tradition of casting their contract players, Troy Donahue
Troy Donahue
Troy Donahue was an American actor, who was active between the late 1950s and late 1990s.-Life and career:...
plays the son of a long-time lover of Pappy.
The second episode of season four, "Hadley's Hunters," features brief crossovers from the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
array of Western shows. Bart encounters Dan Troop (John Russell
John Russell (actor)
John Lawrence Russell was an American actor, and World War II veteran, most noted for playing Marshal Dan Troop in the successful ABC western television series Lawman from 1958 to 1962....
) and Johnny McKay (Peter Brown
Peter Brown
-Historical figures:*Peter Browne , also spelled Brown, , Pilgrim and English colonist, signer of the Mayflower Compact*Peter Brown -Historical figures:*Peter Browne (Mayflower Pilgrim), also spelled Brown, (1594–1633), Pilgrim and English colonist, signer of the Mayflower Compact*Peter Brown...
) from Lawman
Lawman (tv series)
Lawman is an American Western television series originally telecast from 1958 to 1962 starring John Russell as Marshal Dan Troop and featuring Peter Brown as Deputy Marshal Johnny McKay on the ABC Television Network. The series was set in Laramie, Wyoming during the mid to late 1870s. Warner Bros....
, Cheyenne Bodie (Clint Walker
Clint Walker
Norman Eugene Walker, known as Clint Walker , is an American actor best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the TV Western series, Cheyenne.-Life and career:...
) from Cheyenne, Tom Brewster (Will Hutchins
Will Hutchins
Will Hutchins is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer Tom Brewster in the Warner Brothers Western television series Sugarfoot on ABC from 1957-1961.-Biography:...
) from Sugarfoot
Sugarfoot
Sugarfoot is the title of a TV western that aired from 1957 to 1961. The series featured Will Hutchins as fledgling frontier lawyer Tom Brewster and Jack Elam as sidekick Toothy Thompson...
, Bronco Layne (Ty Hardin
Ty Hardin
Ty Hardin, born Orison Whipple Hungerford, Jr., is a former American actor best known as the star of the 1950s ABC western television series Bronco.-Early life:...
) from Bronco
Bronco (TV series)
Bronco is a Western series on ABC from 1958 through 1962. It was shown by the BBC in the United Kingdom. The program starred Ty Hardin as Bronco Layne, a former Confederate officer who wandered the Old West, meeting such well-known individuals as Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid, Jesse James,...
, and Edd Byrnes from 77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....
. Bart also walked into the office of Christopher Colt and found it empty. He noticed Colt's gun hung up on the wall, and his satchel covered in dust. This was an inside joke referring to Colt .45
Colt .45 (TV series)
Colt .45 is an American Western television series shown on ABC between 1957 and 1960. The half-hour show derives from the 1950 Warner Brothers film of the same name starring Randolph Scott and formed part of the William T...
, another of the Warner Bros. westerns, that had been cancelled.
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is an American actor known for his starring roles in the television series 77 Sunset Strip and The F.B.I. He is also known as recurring character "Dandy Jim Buckley" in the series Maverick and as the voice behind the character Alfred Pennyworth in Batman: The Animated Series...
's charming character Dandy Jim Buckley (Maverick minus the meticulous scruples) appears to especially superb effect in the epic "Stampede" and comedy of treachery "The Jail at Junction Flats." The latter episode features a memorable conclusion that offended many 1958 viewers. Zimbalist went on to play the lead in his own series, 77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....
, after five appearances as Buckley. Huggins recruited Richard Long
Richard Long (actor)
Richard Long was an American actor better known for his leading roles in several ABC television series, including The Big Valley, Nanny and the Professor and Bourbon Street Beat.-Early life:...
to fill the void as a similar character named "Gentleman Jack Darby," and both Buckley and Darby appear in "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres," although not in the same scenes.
Many episodes are humorous while others are deadly serious, and in addition to purely original scripts, producer Roy Huggins
Roy Huggins
Roy Huggins was an American novelist and an influential writer/creator and producer of character-driven television series, including Maverick, The Fugitive, and The Rockford Files....
drew upon works by writers as disparate as Louis Lamour and Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
to give the series breadth and scope. The Maverick brothers never stopped traveling, and the show was as likely to be set on a riverboat
Riverboat
A riverboat is a ship built boat designed for inland navigation on lakes, rivers, and artificial waterways. They are generally equipped and outfitted as work boats in one of the carrying trades, for freight or people transport, including luxury units constructed for entertainment enterprises, such...
or in New Orleans as in a western desert or frontier saloon. Huggins quit the series at the end of the second season due to a life-threatening bout with pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
, and was succeeded by writer/producer Coles Trapnell
Coles Trapnell
Coles Trapnell was an American television producer, writer, and director most famous for a stint following Roy Huggins as the producer of the Warner Bros. Western series Maverick starring James Garner and Jack Kelly, beginning with the show's third season. Trapnell also wrote scripts for Yancy...
, ushering in a gradual but sharp permanent decline in ratings.
Theme song
The memorable theme song was penned by prolific composers David ButtolphDavid Buttolph
David Buttolph was a film composer who scored over 300 movies in his career. Born in New York City, Buttolph showed musical talent at an early age, and eventually studied music formally...
(music) and Paul Francis Webster
Paul Francis Webster
Paul Francis Webster was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Song and was nominated sixteen times for the award.-Biography:...
(lyrics). Buttolph's music first appeared in the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
film of The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked Texas Ranger who, with his Native American companion Tonto, fights injustice in the American Old West. The character has become an enduring icon of American culture....
. The theme song lyrics (performed by an all-male chorus) introduce the lead character and also describe the setting.
Spin-offs
In the decades following the cancellation of Maverick, the characters and situations have been revived several times. In 1978, a TV movie called The New MaverickThe New Maverick
The New Maverick is a 1978 made-for-TV movie based on the 1957 television series Maverick, with James Garner as Bret Maverick, Charles Frank as newcomer cousin Ben Maverick , Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick, and Susan Sullivan as "Poker Alice" Ivers. The TV-movie was a pilot for the series Young...
had 50-year-old James Garner and Jack Kelly reprising their roles, while Charles Frank
Charles Frank
Charles R. Frank is an American actor noted for playing Bret Maverick's cousin Ben Maverick in the 1978 TV-movie The New Maverick with James Garner and Jack Kelly, and in the short-lived 1979 television series Young Maverick. Graduated with the class of 1969 from MIddlebury College.-Career:From...
playing young Ben Maverick, the son of their cousin Beau. Garner shot the film while on hiatus from The Rockford Files
The Rockford Files
The Rockford Files is an American television drama series which aired on the NBC network between September 13, 1974 and January 10, 1980. It has remained in regular syndication to the present day. The show stars James Garner as Los Angeles-based private investigator Jim Rockford and features Noah...
. Kelly only appeared in a few scenes near the end.
The New Maverick was the pilot for a new series, Young Maverick
Young Maverick
Young Maverick is a 1979 television series that unsuccessfully attempted to recapture some of the magic of the highly successful 1957 series Maverick, which had starred James Garner as roving gambler Bret Maverick. Charles Frank played Ben Maverick, the son of Beau Maverick, making him Bret's...
, which ran for a short time in 1979. Frank's character, Ben Maverick, was the focal point of the show, while Garner only appeared as Bret for a few moments at the very beginning of the first episode. It is apparent that Bret does not much care for Ben, and the two part at the nearest crossroads; some critics later noted that the audience couldn't help but think that the camera was following the wrong Maverick. The series ended so quickly that several episodes that had already been filmed were never broadcast.
Two years later, another attempt to revive the show occurred after Garner left The Rockford Files and needed to perform in another series to fulfill his contractual obligations. Bret Maverick
Bret Maverick
Bret Maverick is an American Western series starring James Garner in the role that made him famous in the 1957 series Maverick: a professional poker player traveling alone year after year through the Old West from riverboat to saloon...
(1981–82) starred the 53-year-old as an older-but-no-wiser Bret. Jack Kelly appeared as Bret's brother Bart in only one episode but was slated to return as a series regular for the following season. NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
unexpectedly canceled the show despite respectable ratings, and Kelly would never officially join the cast. The new series involved Bret Maverick settling down in a small town in Arizona after winning a saloon in a poker game: the two-hour first episode was eventually trimmed and repackaged as a TV-movie under the title Bret Maverick: The Lazy Ace
Bret Maverick: The Lazy Ace
Bret Maverick: The Lazy Ace is the 1981 2-hour pilot episode of the television series Bret Maverick, trimmed to a quicker pace and repackaged as a TV-movie for rerunning on local television stations. The 1981 show was based on the 1957 series Maverick, catching up with professional poker-player...
. Bret Maverick ended on a sentimental note, with Bret and Bart embracing during an unexpected encounter, with the theme from the original series playing in the background.
The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1991) featured Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick for the last time. The film united Kelly with various other Western characters and actors, including Bat Masterson
Bat Masterson (TV series)
Bat Masterson is an American Western television series which showed a fictionalized account of the life of real-life marshal/gambler/dandy Bat Masterson. The title character was played by Gene Barry and the half-hour black and white shows ran on NBC from 1958 to 1961...
(Gene Barry
Gene Barry
Gene Barry was an American stage, screen, and television actor. Barry is best remembered for his leading roles in the films The Atomic City and The War of The Worlds and for his portrayal of the title character in the TV series Bat Masterson, among many roles.-Personal life:Barry was born...
), Wyatt Earp
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp is a Western television series loosely based on the adventures of frontier marshal Wyatt Earp. The half-hour black and white series ran on ABC-TV from 1955 to 1961 and featured Hugh O'Brian as Earp. An off-camera barbershop quartet sang the theme song and hummed...
(Hugh O'Brian
Hugh O'Brian
Hugh O'Brian is an American actor, known for his starring role in the ABC television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp .-Early years and career:...
), the Rifleman
Rifleman
Although ultimately originating with the 16th century handgunners and the 17th century musketeers and streltsy, the term rifleman originated from the 18th century. It would later become the term for the archetypal common soldier.-History:...
(Chuck Connors
Chuck Connors
Chuck Connors was an American actor, writer, and professional basketball and baseball player. His best known role from his forty-year film career was Lucas McCain in the 1960s ABC hit Western series The Rifleman....
) and his son Mark (Johnny Crawford
Johnny Crawford
John Ernest "Johnny" Crawford is a prolific American character actor, singer and musician. At 12, Crawford rose to fame for playing Mark McCain, the son of the Lucas McCain character , in the popular 1960s ABC western series, The Rifleman, which aired from 1958 to 1963...
), Caine from Kung Fu
Kung Fu (TV series)
Kung Fu is an American television series that starred David Carradine. It was created by Ed Spielman, directed and produced by Jerry Thorpe, and developed by Herman Miller, who was also a writer for, and co-producer of, the series...
(David Carradine
David Carradine
David Carradine was an American actor and martial artist, best known for his role as a warrior monk, Kwai Chang Caine, in the 1970s television series, Kung Fu, which later had a 1990s sequel series, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues...
), The Westerner
The Westerner (TV series)
The Westerner is a 1960 Four Star Television Western series on NBC created by Sam Peckinpah. The series stars Brian Keith as Dave Blassingame and features John Dehner as semi-regular Burgundy Smith...
(Brian Keith
Brian Keith
Brian Keith was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his four decade-long career gained recognition for his work in movies such as the 1961 Disney family film The Parent Trap, the 1966 comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, and the 1975 adventure saga The Wind and...
), a thinly disguised Virginian
The Virginian (TV series)
The Virginian is an American Western television series starring James Drury and Doug McClure, which aired on NBC from 1962 to 1971 for a total of 249 episodes. Filmed in color, The Virginian became television's first 90-minute western series...
and Trampas (James Drury
James Drury
James Child Drury, Jr. is an American actor probably best known for his success in playing the title role in the 90-minute weekly Western television series The Virginian, broadcast on NBC from 1962-1971...
and Doug McClure
Doug McClure
Douglas Osborne "Doug" McClure was an American actor whose career in film and television extended from the 1950s to the 1990s...
, who had appeared briefly as a hotel clerk in a first season Maverick episode), and Cheyenne Bodie (Clint Walker
Clint Walker
Norman Eugene Walker, known as Clint Walker , is an American actor best known for his cowboy role as "Cheyenne Bodie" in the TV Western series, Cheyenne.-Life and career:...
). Kenny Rogers
Kenny Rogers
Kenneth Donald "Kenny" Rogers is an American singer-songwriter, photographer, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur...
played the lead as part of his TV movie series based on his hit song "The Gambler
The Gambler (song)
"The Gambler" is the title of a song written by Don Schlitz and recorded by American country music artist Kenny Rogers. It was released in November 1978 as the title track from his album The Gambler which won him the Grammy award for best male country vocal performance in 1980. Bobby Bare had...
", with the others (including Maverick) more or less relegated to brief appearances. As each veteran hero appears onscreen, a few bars of the theme song from their original series plays in the background. Garner had made a similar appearance as Bret Maverick years before, in a 1959 Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
movie called Alias Jesse James
Alias Jesse James
Alias Jesse James is a Bob Hope western comedy movie. A highlight for fans of Westerns of that era happens during the gun fight climax at the end of the movie that features a number of cameos by movie and television personalities Alias Jesse James (1959) is a Bob Hope western comedy movie. A...
that also featured Hugh O'Brien
Hugh O'Brien
Hugh O'Brien was the 31st mayor of Boston, from 1884–1888. O'Brien is notable as Boston's first Irish mayor, having emigrated from Ireland to America in the early 1830s...
as Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was an American gambler, investor, and law enforcement officer who served in several Western frontier towns. He was also at different times a farmer, teamster, bouncer, saloon-keeper, miner and boxing referee. However, he was never a drover or cowboy. He is most well known...
, along with Fess Parker
Fess Parker
Fess Elisha Parker, Jr. was an American film and television actor best known for his portrayals of Davy Crockett in the Walt Disney 1955-56 TV mini-series and as TV's Daniel Boone from 1964-70...
(dressed as Davy Crockett
Davy Crockett
David "Davy" Crockett was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S...
), Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
, Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye , was an American singer and cowboy actor, one of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants franchised chain...
and Trigger
Trigger (horse)
Trigger was a palomino horse, made famous in American Western films with his owner/rider, cowboy star Roy Rogers.-Pedigree:...
, Jay Silverheels
Jay Silverheels
Jay Silverheels was a Canadian Mohawk First Nations actor. He was well known for his role as Tonto, the faithful American Indian companion of the Lone Ranger in a long-running American television series. -Early life:...
(Tonto
Tonto
Tonto may mean:* Tonto, a band of Apache native Americans.* Tonto, the fictional sidekick to the Lone Ranger.* "Tonto", a song by the American math rock band Battles, from their album Mirrored.** "Tonto+", the EP centered around said song....
from The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked Texas Ranger who, with his Native American companion Tonto, fights injustice in the American Old West. The character has become an enduring icon of American culture....
), Gail Davis
Gail Davis
Gail Davis was an American actress, best known for her starring role as Annie Oakley in the 1950s television Western series Annie Oakley.-Life and career:...
(Annie Oakley
Annie Oakley (TV series)
Annie Oakley is an American Western television series which fictionalized the life of famous sharpshooter Annie Oakley. It ran from January 1954 to February 1957 in syndication. ABC showed reruns on Saturday and Sunday daytime from 1959–1960 and from 1964-1965...
), James Arness
James Arness
James King Arness was an American actor, best known for portraying Marshal Matt Dillon in the television series Gunsmoke for 20 years...
(Marshal Matt Dillon
Marshal Matt Dillon
Marshal Matt Dillon is a fictional character featured on both the radio and television versions of Gunsmoke. He serves as the U.S. Marshal of Dodge City, Kansas who works to preserve law and order in the western frontier of the 1870s. The character was created by writer John Meston, who...
of Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
), and Ward Bond
Ward Bond
Wardell Edwin "Ward" Bond was an American film actor whose rugged appearance and easygoing charm were featured in over 200 movies and the television series Wagon Train.-Early life:...
(Seth Adams of Wagon Train
Wagon Train
Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65...
), not to mention Hope's frequent screen partner Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
. Garner's appearance in the film is frequently absent from television presentations due to legal problems with the rights to the character.
Mel Gibson as Bret Maverick
In 1994, a lavish film version titled MaverickMaverick (film)
Maverick is a 1994 Western comedy film based on the 1950s television series of the same name, created by Roy Huggins. The film was directed by Richard Donner from a screenplay by William Goldman and features Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster and James Garner, as well as several cameo appearances...
starred Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
as Bret Maverick, Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
, and James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...
in a supporting role as Bret's father. It was directed by Richard Donner
Richard Donner
Richard Donner is an American film director, film producer, and comic book writer.The production company The Donners' Company is owned by Donner and his wife, producer Lauren Shuler Donner. After directing the horror film The Omen, Donner became famous for the hailed creation of the first modern...
(who had previously directed dozens of TV series prior to working in feature films), from a screenplay by Oscar-winning writer William Goldman
William Goldman
William Goldman is an American novelist, playwright, and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.-Early life and education:...
. Garner maintained in later interviews that he was playing exactly the same character as in the television series, with Gibson as his son, but the script itself leaves this open to conjecture; some assume that he was actually portraying Bret's father Beau "Pappy" Maverick. A "Making of" mini-documentary was broadcast on cable stations prior to the film's release that included no footage of Garner from the original series despite both the movie and television series having been produced by the same studio.
Comic books
During the height of the TV show's popularity, the Maverick brothers starred in a comic book drawn by Dan SpiegleDan Spiegle
Dan Spiegle is an American comic book and cartoon artist and illustrator . He has had a long career in drawing comics based on movie and television characters, and has worked for companies including Dell Comics, DC Comics and Marvel Comics.-Life and career:In his second year of high school,...
. Spiegle met Garner at the studio before the first Maverick comic was drawn because no publicity photographs were available yet. Spiegle talked in an interview about comic books he had drawn:
I would say my favorite was Maverick, which ran about three years----fairly successful, considering the run of other western strips published then. I was assigned this strip even before they had stills available for the show, so I was sent down to Warner Bros. to see it in production----where I met James Garner, which is perhaps the reason I enjoyed it so much. Having met the star, I was extra careful to make the drawings I did look as parallel to the real person as possible. I put my all into that strip, having fun all the way.
Writers
Writers for Maverick included Roy Huggins ("Shady Deal at Sunny AcresShady Deal at Sunny Acres
Shady Deal at Sunny Acres, starring James Garner and Jack Kelly, remains the most famous and widely discussed episode of the Western comedy television series Maverick. Written by series creator Roy Huggins and Douglas Heyes and directed by Leslie H...
"), Russell S. Hughes ("According to Hoyle"), Gerald Drayson Adams
Gerald Drayson Adams
Gerald Drayson Adams was a former business executive and literary agent when he began writing for films in the 1940s. The Oxford University-educated Adams specialized in action/adventure and western films...
("Stampede"), Montgomery Pittman
Montgomery Pittman
Montgomery Pittman was a television writer, director, and actor. Pittman was born in Louisiana and raised in Oklahoma. He broke into acting in New York. He moved to California in 1949 and turned from acting to screenwriting. He wrote for such television series as 77 Sunset Strip and The Twilight...
("The Saga of Waco Williams"), Douglas Heyes
Douglas Heyes
Douglas Heyes was an American film and television writer, director, producer, actor, and composer with a long list of accomplishments.He was the father of actor Douglas Heyes, Jr..He died in Beverly Hills, California....
("The Quick and the Dead"), Marion Hargrove
Marion Hargrove
Marion Hargrove was an American writer noted for the World War II bestselling book See Here, Private Hargrove, a collection of humorous newspaper columns written mostly before the United States entered the war...
("The Jail at Junction Flats"), Howard Browne
Howard Browne
Howard Browne was a science fiction editor and mystery writer. He also wrote for several television series and films...
("Duel at Sundown"), Leo Townsend ("The Misfortune Teller"), Gene Levitt
Gene Levitt
Eugene Levitt was an American television writer, producer and director....
("The Comstock Conspiracy"), Leo Gordon
Leo Gordon
Leo Vincent Gordon was an American movie and television character actor as well as a screenplay writer and novelist. He specialized in playing brutish bad guys during more than forty years in film and television....
(who also acted on the series), and George Waggner
George Waggner
George Waggner was an American film director, producer and actor.Born in New York City, he made his film debut as Yousayef in The Sheik . He later went on to appearances in Western films. The first film he directed was Western Trails and his most well-known directorial effort arguably remains The...
, among many others.
Bret Maverick statue
On April 21, 2006, a 10 feet (3 m) bronze statue of James Garner as Bret Maverick was unveiled in Garner's hometown of Norman, OklahomaNorman, Oklahoma
Norman is a city in Cleveland County, Oklahoma, United States, and is located south of downtown Oklahoma City. It is part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, Norman was to have 110,925 full-time residents, making it the third-largest city in Oklahoma and the...
, with Garner present.
Episodes
For a complete list of every episode in the series with comments, see the list of Maverick episodes.Sources
Two different books on the Maverick TV series were published in 1994, one by Burl BarerBurl Barer
Burl Barer is an American author and literary historian. He is best known for his fiction and non-fiction writings about the character Simon Templar, also known as "The Saint".-The Saint:...
and the other by Ed Robertson, and serve as the main sources for the background information in this article, together with various magazine pieces from TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
, Life Magazine, and numerous others, along with viewings of the original series episodes, many of which remain available to the public at the Paley Center for Media in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
External links
- Museum of Broadcast Communications: Maverick
- TV Guide Maverick Episode List
- Maverick Episode Guide at epguides.com
- Roy Huggins' Archive of American Television Interview
- Stephen J. Cannell's Archive of American Television explanation of Huggins' approach
- James Garner's Archive of American Television Interview
- The Paley Center for Media