Dick Rich

Actor

February 27, 1909 (58 years)

† March 29, 1967

Kansas City, Kansas, USA

Biography

No biography available.

Filmography

7.1

The Rifleman

Line Boss

The Rifleman is an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show was filmed in black-and-white, half-hour episodes. "The Rifleman" aired on ABC from September 30, 1958 to April 8, 1963 as a production of Four Star Television. It was one of the first prime time series to have a widowed parent raise a child.

7.7

Perry Mason

Sgt. Holcomb

The cases of master criminal defense attorney Perry Mason and his staff who handled the most difficult of cases in the aid of the innocent.

5.8

Lawman

Arch Devereaux

Lawman is an American western television series originally telecast on ABC from 1958 to 1962 starring John Russell as Marshal Dan Troop and featuring Peter Brown as Deputy Marshal Johnny McKay. The series was set in Laramie, Wyoming during 1879 and the 1880s. Warner Bros. already had several western series on the air at the time, having launched Cheyenne with Clint Walker as early as 1955. The studio continued the trend in 1957 with the additions of Maverick with James Garner and Jack Kelly, Colt .45 with Wayde Preston, and Sugarfoot with Will Hutchins. One year later, Warner Bros. added Lawman and Bronco with Ty Hardin. Prior to the beginning of production, Russell and Brown and producer Jules Schermer made a pact to maintain the quality of the series so that it would not be seen as "just another western." At the start of season two, Russell and Brown were joined by Peggie Castle as Lily Merrill, the owner of the Birdcage Saloon, and a love interest for Dan.

7.5

Bonanza

Shoehoffer

The High-Sierra adventures of Ben Cartwright and his sons as they run and defend their ranch while helping the surrounding community.

6.5

The Deputy

Harris the Foreman

The Deputy is an American western series that aired on NBC from September 1959, to July 1961. The series stars Henry Fonda as Chief Marshal Simon Fry of the Arizona Territory and Allen Case as Deputy Clay McCord, a storekeeper who tried to avoid using a gun.

6.6

Wagon Train

Bartender

The series initially starred veteran movie supporting actor Ward Bond as the wagon master, later replaced upon his death by John McIntire, and Robert Horton as the scout, subsequently replaced by lookalike Robert Fuller a year after Horton had decided to leave the series. The series was inspired by the 1950 film Wagon Master directed by John Ford and starring Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr. and Ward Bond, and harkens back to the early widescreen wagon train epic The Big Trail starring John Wayne and featuring Bond in his first major screen appearance playing a supporting role. Horton's buckskin outfit as the scout in the first season of the television series resembles Wayne's, who also played the wagon train's scout in the earlier film.

6.8

Four Star Playhouse

Officer Grady (uncredited)

Four Star Playhouse is an American television anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956, sponsored in its first bi-weekly season by The Singer Company; Bristol-Myers became an alternate sponsor when it became a weekly series in the fall of 1953. The original premise was that Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, David Niven, and Dick Powell would take turns starring in episodes. However, several other performers took the lead from time to time, including Ronald Colman and Joan Fontaine. Blake Edwards was among the writers and directors who contributed to the series. Edwards created the recurring character of illegal gambling house operator Willie Dante for Dick Powell to play on this series. The character was later revamped and spun off in his own series starring Howard Duff, then-husband of Lupino. The pilot for Meet McGraw, starring Frank Lovejoy, aired here, as did another episode in which Lovejoy recreated his role of Chicago newspaper reporter Randy Stone, from the radio drama Nightbeat.

6.2

Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre

Campion

Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American Western anthology series which ran on CBS from 1956 to 1961.

7.3

Have Gun, Will Travel

Sheriff Clyde

Have Gun – Will Travel is an American Western television series that aired on CBS from 1957 through 1963. It was rated number three or number four in the Nielsen ratings every year of its first four seasons. It was one of the few television shows to spawn a successful radio version. The radio series debuted November 23, 1958. The television show is presently shown on the Encore-Western channel. Have Gun – Will Travel was created by Sam Rolfe and Herb Meadow and produced by Frank Pierson, Don Ingalls, Robert Sparks, and Julian Claman. There were 225 episodes of the TV series, 24 written by Gene Roddenberry. Other contributors included Bruce Geller, Harry Julian Fink, Don Brinkley and Irving Wallace. Andrew McLaglen directed 101 episodes and 19 were directed by series star Richard Boone.

6.1

Cheyenne

Starbuck

Cheyenne Bodie was a big man, a former army scout who went west after the American Civil War and drifted from job to job, here a cowboy, there a lawman, and always a larger-than-life hero. CHEYENNE is an American western television series of 108 black-and-white episodes broadcast on ABC from 1955 to 1963. The show was the first hour-long western, and in fact the first hour-long dramatic series of any kind, with continuing characters, to last more than one season. It was also the first series to be made by a major Hollywood film studio which did not derive from its established film properties, and the first of a long chain of Warner Brothers original series produced by William T. Orr.

6.7

Gunsmoke

Sam Butler

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. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television.

5.1

The Rebel

Cal Armbruster

After the end of the Civil War, a former Confederate Army private roams the Wild West, and, as a rogue drifter, gets involved in helping out various settlers threatened by various bad guys... THE REBEL is a 76-episode American western television series starring Nick Adams that debuted on the ABC network from 1959 to 1961. The Rebel was one of the few Goodson-Todman Productions outside of their game show ventures. Beginning in December 2011, The Rebel reruns began to air Saturday mornings on Me-TV.

6.6

Adventures of Superman

Toots

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a syndicated TV adaptation of the beloved DC Comics superhero! You know the drill: When he isn't fighting for truth, justice and the American way, the man in tights dons a suit and glasses for his secret identity as Daily Planet newspaper reporter Clark Kent, who works alongside friends Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen for gruff boss Perry White.

6.8

The Lone Ranger

Bernal

The Lone Ranger is an American western television series that ran from 1949 to 1957, starring Clayton Moore with Jay Silverheels as Tonto. The live-action series initially featured Gerald Mohr as the episode narrator. Fred Foy served as both narrator and announcer of the radio series from 1948 to its finish and became announcer of the television version when story narration was dropped there. This was by far the highest-rated television program on the ABC network in the early 1950s and its first true "hit".

6.0

The Texan

Whitey Rupp

The Texan was a Western television series starring popular B movie actor Rory Calhoun, which aired on the CBS television network from 1958 to 1960.

5.2

Sugarfoot

Seven Blankets

Sugarfoot is an American western television series that aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961. The series stars Will Hutchins as Tom Brewster, an Easterner who comes to the Oklahoma Territory to become a lawyer. Jack Elam is cast in occasional episodes as sidekick Toothy Thompson. Brewster was a correspondence-school student whose apparent lack of cowboy skills earned him the nickname "Sugarfoot", a designation even below that of a tenderfoot.

4.7

The Gene Autry Show

Jack Hastings

The Gene Autry Show is an American western/cowboy television series which aired for 91 episodes on CBS from July 23, 1950 until August 7, 1956, originally sponsored by Wrigley's Doublemint chewing gum.

7.8

The Ford Television Theatre

Sgt. Hackett

This show started in New York City, with Broadway actors and actresses. It then moved to Hollywood, California, where Hollywood actors and actresses headed the cast.

6.7

Stagecoach West

Adam Dean

Stagecoach West is an American Western drama television series which ran for thirty-eight episodes on the ABC network from October 4, 1960, until June 27, 1961. Characters Luke Perry and Simon Kane operate the Timberland Stage Line from fictitious Outpost, Missouri to San Francisco, California. Simon's 15-year-old son, David "Davey" Kane, joins the two as they face stagecoach robbers, murderers, inclement weather, and human interest stories. Perry and Kane, who are both deputy U.S. marshals, had been on opposite sides of the American Civil War; Kane, a captain in the Union Army, while Perry had fought for the Confederate States of America. The one-hour black-and-white program was offered at 9 p.m. Eastern on Tuesdays opposite NBC's Thriller, hosted by Boris Karloff, and CBS's The Red Skelton Show. Rogers became well-known a dozen years later on M*A*S*H, and Bray later portrayed the forest ranger Corey Stuart on Lassie from 1964–1969, both on CBS. Child actor Richard Eyer had starred in a number of films in the 1950s, including Friendly Persuasion and Desperate Hours. Stagecoach West was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television. It is believed that the series was cancelled despite the high quality of its production because of the glut of westerns on television at the time that it aired. The same fate had fallen on CBS's Johnny Ringo, a 1959 one-season spin-off of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater.

5.3

The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok

Dillon

The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok is an American Western television series which ran for eight seasons from 1951 through 1958. The Screen Gems series began in syndication, but ran on CBS from 1955 through 1958, and, at the same time, on ABC from 1957 through 1958.