who sang somewhere between jesus and john wayne

It fell to Terry to inform John Wayne of Bond’s sudden death in 1960. It was the original wagon master Ward Bond who insisted on Warner Bros signing on both Terry and Frank for the show. In fact he was a life-long friend of Frank McGrath and the two men performed together on the rodeo circuit and at prison rodeos before finding their way into the movies. He was a former US Marine who served in the Second World War, a football star and a stunt man/rodeo rider. Terry Wilson (1923-99) 267 episodes (1957-65)Ĭalifornian Terry Wilson played trail hand Bill Hawks in 267 episodes. Two years after the Wagon Train series ended, Frank succumbed to a heart attack at 64. He is right there alongside or just nearby the Duke in almost every scene. The next time you watch either Fort Apache (1948) or She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), you might notice Frank as the bugler in both of these John Ford/ John Wayne westerns. A former stunt man and rodeo performer, he was notoriously fond of a drink, a weakness that often gave him the Dutch courage to pick fights which he invariably lost.

Missouri-born Frank played the series’ comic relief character Charlie Wooster, the wagon train’s irascible cook, and would grace all but 13 of the 284 episodes shot over eight seasons. The other survivor is Robert Fuller, but more of them both later.įrank McGrath (1903-67) 271 episodes (1957-65) I actually watched that episode yesterday, unaware until today’s research that he must have struck a chord with the producers, for he would continue in the series for another 50 episodes. One of these survivors is Michael Burns who ‘evolved’ into a regular after appearing in an early episode as a boy stricken speechless by the murder of his father. I shall look at them in ‘episode total’ order, highest to lowest.

There were eight actors who were more or less ‘regulars’ in Wagon Train. In short, she was one of those hundreds of bit players who made a living on both big and small screen, but whose careers never amounted to much.

Kay was an uncredited telephone operator in the Bob Hope Hit The Ghost Breakers (1940) and a slave girl (also uncredited) in Spartacus in 1960. Her career would span 40 years and 99 screen credits, mostly TV spots. A minor actress named Kay Stewart popped up in eleven episodes from 1958 to 1964, playing eleven different women. Throughout those eight seasons only eight actors (no actresses) appeared in fifty or more episodes. From 1957 until 1965 the prairie schooners of TV’s Wagon Train series rolled over 284 episodes.

Who sang somewhere between jesus and john wayne