Maverick (TV Series) - Jack Kelly As Bart Maverick

Jack Kelly As Bart Maverick

Though Garner was originally supposed to be the only Maverick, the studio eventually hired Jack Kelly to play brother Bart, starting with the eighth episode. The producers had realized that it took over a week to shoot a single episode, so Kelly was hired to rotate with Garner as the series lead, using two separate crews (while occasionally appearing together). In Bart's first episode, "Hostage!", in order to engender audience sympathy for the new character, the script called for him to be tied up and beaten by an evil police officer.

According to series creator Roy Huggins in his Archive of American Television interview, the two brothers were purposely written to be virtual clones, with no apparent differences inherent in the scripts whatsoever. This included being traveling poker players, loving money, professing to be cowards, spouting intriguing words of advice their "Pappy" passed down to them, and carrying a $1,000 bill pinned to the inside of a coat for emergency purposes, but there was one accidental distinction. Garner's episodes tended to be more comedic due to his obvious talent in that area, while Kelly's were inclined to be more dramatic. Huggins noted in the aforementioned Archive of American Television interview that Kelly, while funnier than Garner "off camera", dropped a funny line "like a load of coal". Garner, at 6 feet 3 inches (1.9 m), was also two inches (5 cm) taller than Kelly, leading a character in one episode ("Seed of Deception") to refer to Garner as "the big one" and the 6'1" Kelly as "the little one".

To get disappointed viewers used to the idea of a second Maverick, Garner filmed a series of vignettes that aired at the beginning of the Kelly-only episodes, where he would introduce the evening's story. To foster as much parity as possible, Kelly did the same in the Garner-only episode, "Black Fire", by appearing in the opening vignette to introduce the story and narrating the remainder of the episode.

While Kelly developed a following among the show's female fans, not everyone was happy with his addition to the cast. The chairman of Kaiser Aluminum, the series' main sponsor at the time, became so perturbed when Kelly was brought in (saying, "I paid for red apples and I get green apples!") that ABC had to make a new deal that cost the network a small fortune.

The episodes featuring the two were audience favorites, with critics frequently citing the chemistry between the Maverick brothers. Bret and Bart often found themselves competing for women or money, or working together in some elaborate scheme to swindle someone who had just robbed one of them.

Though it was never said explicitly, Bret appears to be the older, stating once in response to someone mentioning lightning striking twice in the same place, "That's just what my Pappy said when he looked in my brother Bart's crib." In real life, Kelly was seven months older than Garner. Kelly wound up being the only Maverick to appear in all five seasons of the series in the wake of Garner's departure after the third season to pursue a film career.

• Garner and Kelly (1957).

• Kelly with Julie Adams (1960).

• Kelly with Kathleen Crowley and Mike Road as Pearly Gates.

• Publicity still with Warner Bros. series leads (1959).