Question: Help! Many years ago there was a TV program called Maverick, which was about two brothers, Bret and Bart. One was played by James Garner and the other by...? It's driving us nuts. Please try to help. I can see his face, but not his name. Thanks.Answer: Don't get too down about it, Irwin. The late Jack Kelly, often called "the other Maverick" while the series was on the air, seemed destined to play second banana to one star or another throughout his entertainment career. But to his credit, he had as good an attitude about it as anyone in the business.
Kelly started off his career at the age of 2 weeks, modeling for an Ivory Soap ad. But his early acting years were spent in the shadow of older sister Nancy, who won Tony for the play The Bad Seed and an Oscar nomination for the movie
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Question: In the mid-1960s, I think, Dennis Weaver starred in a show where he had an adopted Korean son, lived on a ranch and drove a convertible Mustang. What was the name of it? Thanks.
Answer: That would be the short-lived comedy-drama Kentucky Jones, which ran on NBC for a year beginning in September 1964. Weaver, coming off his nine-year stint as Chester Goode on the classic Gunsmoke, starred as veterinarian Kenneth Yarborough "Kentucky" Jones (he signed his name "K.Y."), who lived on a ranch in Southern Cal.
And the 9-year-old boy of whom you speak, Dwight Eisenhower "Ike" Wong (played by Ricky Der — apparently nifty nicknames were plentiful on this show), was Chinese, not Korean. Kentucky's wife had arranged to adopt the lad and then promptly died, leaving the widower vet to raise him alone.
Har
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Question: I've been watching Bonanza reruns and was wondering why it was eventually canceled. My dad says it was because Dan Blocker died. Is that true? Thanks for your help and keep up the good work!
Answer: Aw, heck — t'ain't nothin, but thanks for the kind words, Tim.
It's true that when Blocker died at 43 from surgical complications, many felt the heart and soul of the show went with him. But the show also dropped in the ratings after NBC moved it from its longtime Sunday-night berth to Tuesday night. The truth is that Bonanza most likely perished because its time had simply passed. Next to Gunsmoke, it was the longest-running Western on TV (from September 1959 to January 1973) and for much of that time it turned in phenomenal ratings. From 1964 to 1967, it was No. 1 and it only began to slip out
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Question: I was a fan of Lost in Space, but was an even bigger fan of Zorro, who was played by LiS's Guy Williams. One thing I always wondered, though. Since he had a mask on, was that really him with the sword?
Answer: That it was, Jeff. Matter of fact, the only reason Williams, whose acting résumé was pretty much nonexistent up to that point, got the role was that he was mighty handy with a blade. It seems Williams, born Armando Catalano in New York City, was the only one to audition who could actually fence. His father, a skilled fencer in his native Italy, taught his son to handle a sword, but neither of them dreamed how valuable a skill it would prove to be after Williams became a contract player at Universal in the early '50s.
"I used to play anonymous men leaning in doorways with cigarettes dangling fr
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