Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater,
sometimes simply called
Zane Grey
Theater, is a
Western
anthology series which ran on
CBS from 1956-1961.
Six spinoff series
Zane Grey Theater was ground-breaking in that six episodes
were developed into subsequent series: (1)
Trackdown (from "Badge of Honor") starring
Robert Culp as
Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman, (2)
Johnny Ringo (from "Man
Alone"), starring
Don Durant, both on
CBS, (3)
The Rifleman (from
"The Sharpshooter") with
Chuck Connors
as
Lucas McCain, and (4)
Stagecoach West starring
Wayne Rogers and
Robert Bray , both on
ABC, and (5)
The Westerner (from "Trouble
at Tres Cruces"), starring
Brian Keith
as Dave Blassingame, and (6)
Black
Saddle (from "Threat of Violence" with
Chris Alcaide instead of series star
Peter Breck as Clay Culhane), both on
NBC. In addition,
Wanted: Dead or
Alive, with
Steve McQueen
playing the
bounty hunter Josh
Randall, was a CBS spinoff of
Trackdown, and
Law of the Plainsman, starring
Michael Ansara as a Harvard-educated,
Native American U.S. Marshal was an NBC spin-off of
The
Rifleman.
Production notes
Zane Grey Theater was created by Luke Short and Charles A.
Wallace. The series was originally based on the
short stories and
novels of
Western
author Zane
Grey, but as the episodes continued, new material was included.
Aaron Spelling, who later became a legend in
Hollywood
, wrote twenty Zane Grey episodes.
The program opened with a prelude of the episode followed by the
introduction, the firing of a gun, with the proclamation: "From out
of the West, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater." Much of the musical
score was handled by Four Star's
Herschel Burke Gilbert.
Powell appeared as various characters in 15 of the 149 episodes of
the program and hosted the entire run.
Zane Grey, a
half-hour program, debuted at 8:30 Eastern on Friday,
October 5,
1956, and ran until
the end of the 1960-1961 season, when Powell switched to NBC for a
new hour-long anthology of
drama and
comedy called
The
Dick Powell Show, which continued until shortly after
Powell's death from
cancer.
Guest stars
Actor
Denver Pyle became well-known for
his appearances as a
sheriff on
Zane
Grey as well as in numerous other Western and
comedy series. Stars who were frequently featured on
Zane Grey included
Chris
Alcaide (five times)
David Niven,
Ben Cooper (five times),
Russ Conway,
Joan Crawford,
Edward G. Robinson,
Claudette Colbert,
Sammy Davis Jr.,
Robert Harland,
Hedy
Lamarr,
Patrick McVey,
Tyler McVey,
John M. Pickard (four times),
Danny Thomas,
Esther
Williams,
Jack Lemmon,
Barbara Stanwyck,
Ginger Rogers,
Scott
Marlowe,
Robert F. Simon, and in one episode,
Ronald and
Nancy
Reagan. Lesser-known actors also appeared, including
Richard Eastham,
Adam Kennedy, and
Quintin Sondergaard, co-stars of the
western
Tombstone
Territory,
Conlan Carter,
later nominated for an
Emmy Award for his
role of "Doc" in
ABC's
Combat!,
Dennis Cross (in episodes "Sundown at Bitter
Creek" and "Trail Incident"),
Ron
Hagerthy, as Jack Wilson in the 1960 episode "The Sunday Man",
Robert Karnes, a co-star of NBC's
short-lived
The Lawless
Years crime drama, and
Judson Pratt, later a cast member of the
syndicated western,
Union
Pacific.
The Rifleman pilot appeared in 1958. Just a few months
later,
The Rifleman was on the ABC fall schedule for the
beginning of its popular five-year run. That episode is part of the
other series' rerun package, instead of
Grey's. This one
was retitled
The Westerners, utilizing the
Black
Saddle theme music, with Powell's hosting segments replaced
with new ones featuring
Keenan Wynn.
That format was also used for a separate but connected rerun
repackaging of four short-lived Western series from Four Star,
Black Saddle,
Johnny Ringo,
The
Westerner and
Law of the Plainsman. An earlier rerun
package was
Frontier
Justice, which CBS used as a summer replacement in 1958,
1959 and 1961, hosted by
Lew Ayres,
Melvyn Douglas and
Ralph Bellamy, one each summer.
In 1958-1959,
Zane Grey Theater ranked 13th of the top 25
programs. It dropped to 23rd place in 1959-1960 and disappeared
from the ranking in its final season.
References
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