Connors started out in pro sports playing baseball and basketball. In the early 1950s he decided to switch to acting, starring in several theatrical movies. His biggest success, however, came in television where he starred in supporting roles in dozens of TV shows.
His big break came in 1958 when he was cast in "The Rifleman" as Lucas McCain, a widowed rancher raising a son in North Fork, NM, where he helped the local marshal maintain law and order using his special rapid-fire Winchester. This show was such a success that he became typecast in westerns, but continued for years after in TV and movies.
He passed away in 1992 at age 71.
2. Sugarfoot
Answer: Will Hutchins
The premise of "Sugarfoot" was about Tom Brewster, a young law student who traveled westward in search of adventure and perhaps some romance. He was so inept as a cowboy, he earned the nickname "Sugarfoot" which is even worse than being a tenderfoot. Hutchins also performed in guest spots in the other Warner Bros. TV westerns, "Cheyenne", and "Bronco". Later, he also made a few movies such as "Clambake" and "Spinout", and other TV shows ("Blondie", "Perry Mason").
3. Cheyenne
Answer: Clint Walker
The title of the program didn't refer to the city in Wyoming, but to the lead character's first name. Walker starred as the rough-and-tumble Cheyenne Bodie, a drifter who found himself involved in episode after episode in action-packed adventure. The tall, rugged Walker worked at many jobs as a youth and was even in the Merchant Marine at the end of WW2.
He decided on an acting career and his good looks brought him many job opportunities in movies and television, mainly westerns and action/adventure scenarios.
He also co-authored the novel "Yaqui Gold" with Kirby Jonas.
4. The Rebel
Answer: Nick Adams
Adams became interested in acting at age 17 when he wandered into an audition for a Broadway play. He struggled in his early career, but more important roles eventually came after he took Henry Fonda's advice to get acting lessons. He guest starred in dozens of TV shows, but "The Rebel" was his only major TV role where he played an ex-Confederate soldier drifting through the west.
He had some major movie roles in "No Time For Sergeants", "Rebel without a Cause" and "Hell is for Heroes". Leading a tempestuous personal life, he passed away from apparent substance abuse at age 36 in 1968.
5. The Deputy
Answer: Henry Fonda
Fonda, like a few other major motion picture stars, dabbled in TV a one time or another. Fonda's list of stellar performances in movies is too long to go into here, but some of his best known films are "Twelve Angry Men", "Mister Roberts" and his last and only Oscar-winning role in "On Golden Pond".
In "The Deputy", which aired from 1959 to 1961, he played Marshal Simon Fry who was against the use of firearms thinking it only led to escalated violence. This brought him into conflict with some of the townspeople he was chosen to defend.
6. The Guns of Will Sonnett
Answer: Walter Brennan
Brennan, a three-time Academy Award winner, starred in the title role as an ex-cavalry scout who is helping his grandson (Dack Rambo) search for his father who disappeared 19 years before and left the infant in Will's care. Brennan starred in many motion pictures such as "Sergeant York", "Northwest Passage" and "My Darling Clementine".
His most memorable TV performance is arguably on the long-running sit-com "The Real McCoys" which aired from 1958 to 1963 where he played the crusty patriarch of a rural West Virginia family that relocated to California, foreshadowing "The Beverly Hillbillies"" that would come along a few years later.
7. The Adventures of Jim Bowie
Answer: Scott Forbes
This series was set in pre-Civil War Louisiana where Bowie was a plantation owner and adventure seeker. His path often crossed with other historical people including James Audubon, Sam Houston, Jean Lafitte, Johnny Appleseed and Andrew Jackson, which provided a touch of realism. Forbes was a British-born actor who started as a stage performer, then starred in a few films - "Operation Pacific", "None but the Vain" and "Charade" among others. Later in his career he became a screenwriter.
8. Rango
Answer: Tim Conway
"Rango" was a short-lived western sit-com starring "McHale's Navy" alumnus, Tim Conway. In this series, he played a bumbling (what else?) Texas Ranger who was assigned to a remote post to try to keep him from getting into trouble which he couldn't seem to avoid even there.
After "McHale's Navy" none of Conway's vehicles seemed to click until he was brought in to do skit comedy on "The Carol Burnett Show" where he hit his stride, often breaking up the other cast members with his impromptu ad-libbing.
9. Fury
Answer: Peter Graves
Graves, half-brother of western star James Arness, appeared in many TV shows and movies. Perhaps is most memorable TV role was that of government agent Jim Phelps in the espionage drama "Mission: Impossible" which originally ran from 1966 to 1973. It was revived in the late 1980's but did not have the same success.
Some of Graves' memorable movie roles were in "Stalag 17", "Airplane!" and "The Winds of War". In "Fury", he portrayed Jim Newton, a rancher and also adopted father of Joey Clark Newton (Bobby Diamond) and his struggles to run the ranch and deal with the adolescent's problems. Fury was the name of the horse on the ranch which Jim gives to Joey and around which the plots revolve.
10. A Man Called Shenandoah
Answer: Robert Horton
This series ran in the mid-1960s and featured Horton as an amnesiac drifter who roamed the west in an attempt to re-claim his identity. His name was given to him by a doctor, who realized the wounded man couldn't remember his previous life because Shenandoah means "Land of Silence". Horton was mainly a TV actor, but did appear in a few movies.
Some of his TV series included "Wagon Train", "King's Row" and "Police Woman". Besides acting, Horton was an accomplished aircraft pilot and a collector of vintage cars.
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor ladymacb29 before going online.
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