![]() ![]() The premiere episode was filmed on the 20th Century Fox back lot in West Los Angeles and on location in Arizona, while the rest of the series was filmed at the Selznick Studios. The show helped launch the careers of several directors. : 89 Another factor was McQueen's strained relationship with Viceroy cigarettes, the show's sponsor. ![]() : 259 : 52 The timeslot change for the third season which ultimately ruined the show's ratings may have been CBS's way of killing the show due to ever increasing production costs. McQueen's initial salary for the show was $750 per episode, but due to the show's popularity, that climbed to $100,000 per year, which was extremely high for the time. While the show and episodes are fiction, bounty hunters were common in the American West, and there is some historical basis for the stories. Ultimately, that job went to Loren Janes, who also doubled for McQueen in a number of movies. McQueen had a reputation for being difficult to work with, and he fired three stunt men within the first day of filming, including Richard Farnsworth. Prior to initial filming, Steve McQueen did not know how to ride horses and was forced to learn for the show's production. : 50 It was Powell's idea to give the character of Josh Randall a gimmick weapon. : 83įour Star founder, Dick Powell, was initially hesitant about McQueen in the lead role, due to McQueen's short stature as well as his inability to ride horses, but he changed his mind after seeing early clips of the first episode. : 258–259 The pilot was filmed before McQueen did The Blob in 1958. Initially not interested in doing Westerns, McQueen agreed to the role based on his ability to connect with Fennelly and his vision for the role of Randall. : 83 McQueen's style was exactly what Fennelly was looking for to fill the role. Elkins knew of the spinoff plan and suggested McQueen for the role. At the time, McQueen's manager, Hillard Elkins, was also representing Trackdown star Robert Culp. Vincent Fennelly and Four Star Television were considering a spinoff of their current series, Trackdown, which was itself a spinoff of Zane Grey Theater. Steve McQueen played Josh Randall, the series's primary character, appearing in all 94 episodes. McQueen, commenting about his experience on the series. Three hard mother-grabbin' years, but I learned my trade and it gave me discipline. The episode called "The Partners", where Nichols killed three men that Randall felt could have been taken alive, is often considered the episode that broke up the partnership, although that was actually only the second episode with Wright King and long before the last episode he appeared in. By the start of the third season, Nichols had been dropped. : 88īeginning with 1959 episode "Amos Carter", actor Wright King would appear in a supporting role as Jason Nichols, an eager young deputy sheriff turned bounty hunter. : 52Įxcept for a few episodes at the beginning of the series, Randall rode an energetic horse named Ringo. This variety, as well as his pursuit of justice and not just money, contributed to the show's attraction and popularity. He also settles a family feud, frees unjustly jailed or sentenced men, helps an amnesia victim recover his memory, and finds missing husbands, sons, fathers, a fiancée, a suitor, a daughter who had been captured many years earlier by Indians, an Army deserter, a pet sheep, and even Santa Claus. He often donates his earnings to the needy and helps his prisoners if they have been wrongly accused.Īlthough Randall is a bounty hunter, he doesn't chase and capture only men on wanted posters. Josh Randall (McQueen) is a Confederate veteran and bounty hunter with a soft heart. Synopsis Randall pleads with a mother ( Virginia Gregg) to obtain medical treatment for her son. : 105 He would later cross over into comparable status on the big screen, making him the first TV star to do so. The series made McQueen, known for the concept of "cool" in entertainment, a television star. Both series were produced by Vincent Fennelly for Four Star Television in association with CBS. The black-and-white program was a spin-off of a March 1958 episode of Trackdown, a 1957–1959 western series starring Robert Culp. It aired on CBS for three seasons from 1958–1961. Wanted Dead or Alive is an American Western television series starring Steve McQueen as bounty hunter Josh Randall. ![]()
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