Guess Who Ocasionally Topped Ed Sullivan & Steve Allen On Sundays?
Guess Who Often Topped Ed Sullivan & Steve Allen On Sundays?
When ‘Maverick’ debuted in September of 1957 on ABC against these two ratings giants, the show often beat out ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ and ‘The Steve Allen Show’. James Garner was Brett Maverick, the shows one and only star, BUT…a few episodes into the first season, the producers realized that it took more than a week to shoot and edit the show. Their solution was to add Bart Maverick (Jack Kelly) as Garner’s younger brother and use two crews to shoot two episodes at the same time. The show’s sponsors were furious so to help the transition, both Garner and Kelly would film opening vignettes to each others episodes and would occasionally appear together. In 1960, James Garner sued the producer, Warner Brothers, for breach of contract, arising from his suspension during the writers’ strike of that year. Warner claimed that there were no scripts available during the strike, and were, therefore justified in suspending Garner without pay. However, it was learned during court testimony that the studio had secretly obtained approximately 100 television scripts during the strike. Eventually, the Los Angeles Superior Court ruled in favor of Garner, and he was released from his contract with the series. The part of Beau Maverick, an English cousin was offered to Sean Connery, but when he turned it down, the part went to another 007…Roger Moore. This was a one of a kind show, built by a one of a kind actor, James Garner and after he left, the show slowly died in the ratings and was gone by early 1962.
I read Garner’s biography, and the studios used to use every tactic possible to screw, not just Garner, but everyone else, too. What a bunch of jerks!
Gunsmoke did use the Melody Ranch outdoor set (now Veluzat) c.1955- approx. 1962, then when CBS bought Republic Studios and re-named it CBS Studio Center, they used that outdoor set quite often interspersing in the same episode scenes shot on the indoor Dodge City set with those filmed on the outdoor set. Bonanza of course used that often seen Paramount outside western set. The worst looking sounstage western towns have to be The Rifleman and Wanted Dead or Alive.
I seem to recall Garner telling Johnny Carson that quitting also had to do with his being held to his pay as a contract player…$250 a week…even though he had become a star via Maverick, topping Ed Sullivan, who was collecting about 25 grand a week. This sounds true to form for Warner Bros., in particular the creep Jack Warner.
So it would appear that Warner Bros. was quite dishonest. Gee……………….
Most Westerns used inside sound stage sets for the street scenes, Gunsmoke and Bonanza were good examples. That way they could shoot all year and not worry about weather. Most viewers never knew the difference.
Interesting that the entire town was built on a soundstage.
September of 1957 was also a spectacular time to be born, if I do say so myself.