Maverick (TV Series) - Robert Colbert As Brent Maverick

Robert Colbert As Brent Maverick

As ratings continued to slide following the addition of Moore, strapping Garner lookalike Robert Colbert was cast as yet another brother, Brent Maverick, duplicating Garner's costume exactly. Colbert had appeared on the show previously as Cherokee Dan Evans in the season four episode "Hadley's Hunters". Aware of his physical similarity to Garner and wary of the comparisons that would inevitably result, Colbert famously pleaded with Warner not to cast him, saying, "Put me in a dress and call me Brenda but don't do this to me!"

The studio had intended for Kelly, Moore, and Colbert to be on the series at the same time, and a pair of publicity photos exists of Bart, Beau, and Brent, marching together down a street with their pistols pointed, as well as a color shot of Bart and Beau admiring the thousand dollar bill pinned to the inside of Brent's jacket (a recurring Maverick plot device), but Moore had already left the show when the first of Colbert's two episodes aired in March 1961. Colbert was introduced as Brent in the season four episode "The Forbidden City". Kelly made what amounted to an extended cameo appearance in the episode. Colbert would appear again two episodes later by himself in the episode "Benefit of the Doubt".

For the fifth season in 1961-1962, the studio dropped Colbert without notifying him; they simply did not call him back. New Kelly episodes alternated with Garner reruns until the series was cancelled. The studio reversed the actors' billing at the beginning of the show for that last season, with Kelly ahead of Garner.

Colbert later appeared as a Brent-like character called "Ace-in-the-Hole Jones" in a 1965 color ensemble episode of Bonanza entitled "Meredith Smith", in which he played a gambler dressed exactly like Brent Maverick. In the 1965-66 season, he appeared on F Troop, but left to star in a new series. In 1967, he would co-star with James Darren in the science fiction time-travel television series Time Tunnel. The actor spent most of the 1970s in daytime serials.