Overland Trail (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Overland Trail is a short-lived American
Western
series which aired on NBC
from February 7 to June 6, 1960. The series starred William Bendix
and Doug McClure
,
. McClure appeared as Frank "Flip" Flippen, Bendix's young associate. Harry Guardino
, appeared three times in the role of Johnny Caldwell.
Overland Trail aired opposite Lassie and Dennis the Menace on CBS and Walt Disney Presents and Maverick
on ABC
. Overland Trail left the air on September 11, 1960, after summer rebroadcasts. It was replaced by the last season of NBC's Shirley Temple's Storybook
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Western
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...
series which aired on 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...
from February 7 to June 6, 1960. The series starred William Bendix
William Bendix
William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley...
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...
,
Synopsis
Bendix portrayed Frederick Thomas "Fred" Kelly, fictitious superintendent of the Overland Stage CompanyStagecoach
A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...
. McClure appeared as Frank "Flip" Flippen, Bendix's young associate. Harry Guardino
Harry Guardino
Harry Guardino was an American actor whose career spanned from the early 1950s to the early 1990s. In 1964, he was cast in a short-lived CBS series entitled The Reporter, a drama about a hard-hitting investigative journalist named Danny Taylor. His principal co-star was Gary Merrill as city...
, appeared three times in the role of Johnny Caldwell.
Overland Trail aired opposite Lassie and Dennis the Menace on CBS and Walt Disney Presents and Maverick
Maverick (TV series)
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...
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...
. Overland Trail left the air on September 11, 1960, after summer rebroadcasts. It was replaced by the last season of NBC's Shirley Temple's Storybook
Shirley Temple's Storybook
Shirley Temple's Storybook is an American children's anthology series hosted and narrated by Shirley Temple. The series features adaptations of fairy tales and other family-oriented stories performed by well-known actors, although one episode, an adaptation of The House of the Seven Gables, was...
.
Notable guest stars
Notable guest stars included:- John AndersonJohn Anderson (actor)-Biography:Born in Clayton, John Anderson grew up in Quincy and Adams County, Illinois.Prior to a prolific acting career, Anderson served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II where he met artist Orazio Fumagalli who became one of his best lifelong friends.He was known for several...
- Claude AkinsClaude AkinsClaude Marion Akins was an American actor with a long career on stage, screen and television.Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is best remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s TV series...
- Lynn BariLynn BariLynn Bari , born Margaret Schuyler Fisher, was a movie actress who specialized in playing sultry, statuesque man-killers in over one hundred 20th Century Fox films from the early 1930s through the 1940s.-Career:Bari was born in Roanoke, Virginia...
- Whitney BlakeWhitney BlakeWhitney Blake was an American film and television actress, director and producer.Blake was born as Nancy Ann Whitney in 1926 in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California, the first child of Martha Mae Wilkerson and Harry Whitney...
- James BestJames BestJames Best is an American actor best known for his role as bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the CBS television series The Dukes of Hazzard. He has also worked as an acting coach, artist, and musician.-Early years:...
- Robert BrayRobert BrayRobert E. Bray was an American film and television actor probably best remembered for his role as the forest ranger Corey Stuart in the long-running CBS series Lassie.-Life and career:...
- John CarradineJohn CarradineJohn 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...
- Walter CoyWalter CoyWalter Darwin Coy was an American stage, radio, film, and, principally, television actor, originally from Great Falls, Montana. He was best known for narrating the NBC western anthology series, Frontier, which aired early Sunday evenings in the 1955-1956 season.-Career:Coy performed on Broadway...
- Frank DekovaFrank DekovaFrank Dekova was an Italian-American character actor.-Biography:Dekova was born in New York City and taught at a school in New York before joining a Shakespeare repertory group...
- Frank FergusonFrank FergusonFrank Ferguson was an American character actor with hundreds of appearances in both film and television. Perhaps his best known role was as the ranch handyman, Gus Broeberg, on the CBS television series, My Friend Flicka, based on a novel of the same name...
- Dianne FosterDianne FosterDianne Foster is a Canadian actress of Ukrainian descent who began her career at the age of 13 in a stage adaptation of James Barrie's What Every Woman Knows. At fourteen she began a radio career, subsequently moved to Toronto, and became one of Canada's top radio stars...
- Sue George
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- Lang JeffriesLang JeffriesLang Jeffries was a Canadian-American actor of television and film who was married to actress Rhonda Fleming from 1960-1962....
- Brad Johnson
- Werner KlempererWerner KlempererWerner Klemperer was a comedic and dramatic actor, best known for his role as Colonel Klink on the CBS television sitcom, Hogan's Heroes.-Early life:...
- Robert LoggiaRobert LoggiaRobert Loggia is an American film and television actor and director.- Early life :Loggia, an Italian American, was born on Staten Island, the son of Elena Blandino, a homemaker, and Benjamin Loggia, a shoemaker, both of whom were born in Sicily, Italy...
- Barbara LunaBarbara LunaBarBara Ann Luna is an American actress with an extensive list of roles in film, television, and shows. Notable roles included Five Weeks in a Balloon and Lt. Marlena Moreau in the classic Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror"...
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- Mercedes McCambridgeMercedes McCambridgeCarlotta Mercedes McCambridge was an American actress. Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress."-Early life:...
- Sean McClorySean McClorySean McClory was an Irish actor whose career spanned six decades and included well over 100 films and television series.-Early years:...
- John McIntireJohn McIntireJohn McIntire was an American character actor.-Career:The craggy-faced film actor was born in Spokane in eastern Washington State but reared in Montana, growing up around ranchers and cowboys, an experience that would later inspire his performances in dozens of westerns.A graduate of USC, McIntire...
- Denny Scott MillerDenny MillerDenny Scott Miller is an American actor, perhaps best known for his guest-starring roles on Gilligan's Island and as Tarzan in the late 1950s....
- 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....
- Mary Tyler MooreMary Tyler MooreMary Tyler Moore is an American actress, primarily known for her roles in television sitcoms. Moore is best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show , in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman who worked as a local news producer in Minneapolis, and for her earlier role as...
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- Andrew PrineAndrew PrineAndrew Lewis Prine is an American film, stage, and television actor.-Early life and career:Prine was born in Jennings, Florida. After graduation from Andrew Jackson High School in Miami, Prine made his acting debut three years later in an episode of CBS U.S. Steel Hour...
- Judson PrattJudson PrattJudson Pratt was an American actor whose longest continuing work was in thirteen episodes of ABC's Walt Disney Presents and NBC's Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. A native of Hingham in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Pratt appeared in numerous television westerns and drama series from...
- Denver PyleDenver PyleDenver Dell Pyle was an American film and television actor. He is best remembered for playing Uncle Jesse in The Dukes of Hazzard .-Early life:...
- Gilman RankinGilman RankinGilman W. Rankin was a Massachusetts-born actor who appeared primarily in television westerns between 1956 and 1975. Between 1957 and 1959, he had a supporting role as Deputy Charlie Riggs in seven episodes of the series Tombstone Territory...
- Karen Sharpe
- Quintin SondergaardQuintin SondergaardQuentin Charles Sondergaard, known primarily as Quintin Sondergaard , was an American actor principally active on television westerns from 1957-1970...
- Harold J. StoneHarold J. StoneHarold J. Stone was an American film and television character actor.Born Harold Hochstein to a Jewish acting family, he began his career on Broadway in 1939 and appeared in five plays in the next six years, including One Touch of Venus and Stalag 17, following which he made his motion picture...
- Kenneth TobeyKenneth TobeyKenneth Tobey was an American stage, television, and film actor.-Early years:Born in Oakland, California, Tobey was headed for a law career when he first dabbled in acting at the University of California Little Theater...
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- Peter WhitneyPeter WhitneyPeter Whitney, was an American actor in film and television. Born as Peter King Engle in Long Branch, New Jersey, Whitney's corpulent, heavy build qualified him to play villains in many Hollywood movies in the 1940s and 1950s.From the late 1950s, he was more prolific playing character roles in...
- Robert J. WilkeRobert J. WilkeRobert J. Wilke was a prolific American film actor noted primarily for his villainous roles, mainly in westerns.Wilke started as a stuntman in the 1930s and his first appearance on screen was in San Francisco...
Episodes
| Episode # | Episode title | Original airdate |
|---|---|---|
| 1-1 | "Perilous Passage" | February 7, 1960 |
| 1-2 | "The O'Mara Ladies" | February 14, 1960 |
| 1-3 | "West of Boston" | February 21, 1960 |
| 1-4 | "The High Bridge" | February 28, 1960 |
| 1-5 | "Westbound Stage" | March 6, 1960 |
| 1-6 | "All The O'Mara Horses" | March 13, 1960 |
| 1-7 | "Daughter of the Sioux" | March 20, 1960 |
| 1-8 | "Lawyer In Petticoats" | March 27, 1960 |
| 1-9 | "The Vigilantes of Montana" | April 3, 1960 |
| 1-10 | "Fire In the Hole" | April 17, 1960 |
| 1-11 | "Mission Into Mexico" | April 24, 1960 |
| 1-12 | "First Stage to Denver" | May 1, 1960 |
| 1-13 | "Sour Annie" | May 8, 1960 |
| 1-14 | "The Baron Comes Back" | May 15, 1960 |
| 1-15 | "Escort Detail" | May 22, 1960 |
| 1-16 | "The Reckoning" | May 29, 1960 |
| 1-17 | "Most Dangerous Gentleman" | June 5, 1960 |