Pat Conway - His Role in Westerns

His Role in Westerns

As Sheriff Hollister in the pre-statehood boom town of Tombstone, located south of Tucson in Arizona Territory and known by the sobriquet, "The town too tough to die", Conway co-starred with Richard Eastham as Harris Claibourne, the editor of the actual newspaper, the Tombstone Epitaph.

The series ran on ABC in the 1957-1958 season opposite the sitcom Father Knows Best, then on NBC, returned to the ABC schedule for the second half of the 1959 season, and was then placed in syndication before it ceased production in June 1960. Conway, as did Eastham, appeared in all ninety-three episodes.

Quintin Sondergaard played Quint in eleven episodes of the two later seasons. Gilman Rankin starred as Deputy Charlie Riggs in seven episodes, and Dennis Moore (1908–1964) appeared as "Deputy" in five segments. Robert J. Wilke, John Doucette, and Warren Oates all appeared three times, respectively, as Burt Foster, Chief Geronimo, and Bob Pickett.

Among the episodes are "Gunslinger from Galeville" (the series premiere), "A Bullet for an Editor", "Guns of Silver", "Postmarked for Death", "The Epitaph", "Geronimo", "The Outcasts" (about a religious sect), "The Lady Gambler", "The Black Marshal from Deadwood", and "Doc Holliday in Durango".

Conway guest-starred in numerous other westerns too:

(1) Rory Calhoun's CBS series, The Texan in role of Mike Kaler in the 1958 episode "The Troubled Town"

(2) NBC's Laramie as Tom Wade in the episode "The Killer Legend" (December 12, 1961). Wade is a framed ex-convict who returns to Laramie, Wyoming, with the mistaken belief that Sheriff Mort Corey, played by Stuart Randall, had planted evidence against him. While Corey is away, series character Jess Harper (Robert Fuller) is the acting deputy. The plot reveals that Wade was framed, and the culprit was not Corey but Milt Lane, played by Dick Foran, Wade's former employer. Joan Evans plays Wade's wife, Julie, who never stopped believing in him. Kevin Hagen and Harry Lauter play the brothers Roy and Joe Bartell, Lane's henchmen.

(3) NBC's modern-day western Empire as Dan Bishop in the 1963 episode "Season of Growth"

(4) CBS's Rawhide as Reed McCuller in the 1965 episode "Moment in the Sun"

(5) NBC's Chuck Connors series Branded as Johnny Dolan in the 1965 segment "The Bounty"

(6) ABC's The Iron Horse as Brill in the 1966 episode "Big Deal"

(7) ABC's Hondo as Redell in "Hondo and the Singing Wire"; Hondo star Ralph Taeger (born 1936) had also appeared twice with Conway on Tombstone Territory.

(8) NBC's Bonanza, three episodes entitled "The Lonely Runner" as Deputy Sheriff Pete (1965), "The Gentle Ones" as Frank Cole (1967) and "Salute to Yesterday" as Captain Jim Harris (1968)

(9) CBS's Gunsmoke as Quade in "Obie Tater" (1955), as Billy Gunter in "Kitty Caught" (1958), as Toque Morlan in "How to Kill a Friend" (also 1958), and as Varnum in "Shadler" (1973).

He appeared in two western films: (1) as Captain William Maynard in Geronimo (1962), starring Chuck Connors in the title role, and (2) as the villain Jake Irons in Brighty of the Grand Canyon (1967), with co-stars Joseph Cotten and Karl Swenson, a story of a canyon mule filmed in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.