100 Fun Facts About The Rifleman

In The Rifleman, how did Lucas McCain make his living when he wasn't reaching for his rifle?

As a rancher: he buys a spread outside North Fork in the pilot, and the producers armed him with a customised rifle, not a six-gun, to set the show apart from other Westerns.

What was the name of Lucas McCain's son in The Rifleman?

Mark is why his father loses on purpose in the pilot: the town boss, who has bet on another shooter, threatens the boy unless Lucas throws the contest.

Which child actor played Lucas McCain's son and earned an Emmy nomination at age 13?

Johnny Crawford shared the 1959 Emmy ballot with his own family: his brother Robert was nominated for a Playhouse 90 role and their father for film editing.

The Rifleman was set in North Fork, a fictional town in which territory?

New Mexico did not become a state until 1912, so the North Fork of the 1880s lies in a territory; the town itself was invented for the series.

On which network did The Rifleman air from 1958 to 1963?

ABC bought the series after its pilot had been shown on a rival network's anthology, then ran the same film again as the first episode in September 1958.

The Rifleman was one of the first primetime US series to depict what?

A single parent raising a child gave the series its heart: the producers judged the father-son bond, not the gunplay, to be its real strength.

Which rifle, customised with a large loop lever, did Lucas McCain famously use?

The Winchester Model 1892 is an anachronism in a story set in the 1880s: the real carbine did not go on sale until the year in its name.

What was the name of the one-handed technique Lucas McCain used to cycle his rifle's large loop lever?

Spin-cocking meant twirling the whole carbine around the enlarged lever loop; at 6 ft 5 in, its star had the reach to clear the 20-inch barrel.

Which Apache leader did Rifleman star Chuck Connors play in the title role of a 1962 film?

Geronimo gave him a big-screen title role while he was still under contract for the series, and a wife: he married his co-star Kamala Devi the following year.

In which 1973 science-fiction film did Chuck Connors play the heavy, Tab Fielding, opposite Charlton Heston?

Soylent Green turned television's upright frontier father into a murderous bodyguard, one of several screen villains he played in the 1970s.

What was the name of North Fork's marshal, a recovering alcoholic to whom Lucas McCain first gives a job?

Micah Torrance turns up in the fourth episode as a lawman ruined by drink; a job with McCain steadies him, and he takes the badge after the town's first sheriff is killed.

Which future director of a Superman film directed several Rifleman episodes in 1962?

Richard Donner's episodes included 'Deadly Image', in which an eyewitness swears he saw Lucas McCain commit a cold-blooded murder; Superman was still sixteen years away.

Which future film director wrote The Rifleman's pilot and helped develop the series?

Sam Peckinpah sold the pilot script to an anthology series, directed four early episodes and left after the first year; The Wild Bunch followed a decade later.

Who created The Rifleman?

Arnold Laven also directed the pilot and 21 more episodes, and it was his idea to give the hero a customised rifle, not a six-gun, as his signature weapon.

The Rifleman's pilot, 'The Sharpshooter', first aired in 1958 as an episode of which anthology series?

Zane Grey Theatre showed 'The Sharpshooter' as a one-off in March 1958; the same film opened the series proper six months later, on a different network.

Which future Easy Rider star guest-starred in The Rifleman's pilot episode?

Dennis Hopper played the title role of 'The Sharpshooter', the young gunman Lucas McCain deliberately loses to in a shooting contest, and came back for a second episode.

Which entertainer played circus trick-shot artist turned gunman Tip Corey in The Rifleman's 'Two Ounces of Tin'?

Sammy Davis Jr. played the gunman who rides in threatening to kill the town marshal, and returned a season later as a different character in 'The Most Amazing Man'.

Which comedian from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World guest-starred twice on The Rifleman?

Buddy Hackett played the title role of 'The Clarence Bibs Story': a slow-witted handyman who kills a famous gunfighter by accident and starts to believe he really is the faster draw.

In The Rifleman, Lucas McCain is a veteran of which war?

The Civil War: he fought for the Union, and in one episode a former prisoner of war locks him up to make him pay for his part in it.

Which two future baseball Hall of Famers made cameo appearances on The Rifleman?

Duke Snider and Don Drysdale each took a small part at the invitation of the show's star, a former ballplayer who had been Snider's team-mate.

Which star of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly guest-starred four times on The Rifleman?

Lee Van Cleef played four different characters between the first season and the last, years before Italian Westerns made him a star; Clint Eastwood never appeared in North Fork.

Which future Bonanza star guest-starred twice on The Rifleman before his own series began?

Michael Landon played two different young men in the first season, in 'End of a Young Gun' and 'The Mind Reader'; Dan Blocker appeared once, and within months both were Cartwright brothers.

Which film-noir director helmed 51 episodes of The Rifleman?

Joseph H. Lewis, the maker of the noir classic Gun Crazy, directed nearly a third of the series and is credited with its moody lighting and odd camera angles.

Which Hollywood star-turned-director took charge of The Rifleman episode 'Assault'?

Ida Lupino was the only woman to direct the series; her episode, about a travelling salesman accused of forcing himself on a local woman, aired in March 1961.

Which future I Spy star wrote a two-part episode of The Rifleman?

Robert Culp wrote 'Waste', the two-part opener of the final season, in which bandits trap the McCains in a ghost town and Lucas ends up helping to deliver a baby.

In which 1958 Western epic did Chuck Connors play the trouble-making Buck Hannassey opposite Gregory Peck?

The Big Country came out in the year he was cast as Lucas McCain, so audiences met Connors the trouble-making bully and Connors the upright father within months of each other.

Which studio produced The Rifleman?

Four Star, co-founded by Dick Powell, also made Trackdown, Wanted Dead or Alive and Burke's Law.

Which star of the 1941 horror film The Wolf Man guest-starred on The Rifleman in 1962?

Lon Chaney Jr. appeared in 'Gunfire', in which a gang rides into North Fork to spring a jailed member; the producers liked to cast such veteran film faces against the regulars.

In 1958–59 The Rifleman ranked fourth behind Wagon Train, Have Gun – Will Travel and which top-rated Western?

Gunsmoke led an all-Western top four in 1958–59; The Rifleman never ranked so high again and had left the top 30 by its fifth and last season.

A 1959 Rifleman episode, 'The Indian', served as the pilot for which NBC series starring Michael Ansara?

Law of the Plainsman kept Ansara's character, an Apache educated at Harvard who serves as a US marshal, and ran on NBC for a season from 1959.

Connors played Lucas McCain one last time in a 1991 TV Western led by which country singer?

Kenny Rogers's The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw rounded up old TV Western heroes for cameos, with Hugh O'Brian as Wyatt Earp and Gene Barry as Bat Masterson beside the Rifleman.

Which director was slated to lead CBS's 2011 attempt to remake The Rifleman?

The Home Alone and Harry Potter director's project was cancelled within months, before a pilot was shot.

Which best-selling novelist directed two episodes of The Rifleman before his books made him famous?

James Clavell directed 'The Queue', in which Lucas McCain steps in when a Chinese newcomer is bullied for his race; his first novel, King Rat, came out the following year.

Which comics publisher put out a Rifleman comic book drawn by Dan Spiegle?

Dell was the home of comics based on television shows, and Spiegle drew many of its Westerns, Maverick and Rawhide among them; his Rifleman issue came out in 1959.

Which two Major League teams did Chuck Connors play for before he took up acting?

Dodgers and Cubs: his whole Brooklyn career was a single at-bat, and when Chicago sent him down to its Los Angeles farm club he called it the best luck he ever had, since it put him beside Hollywood.

With the 1946 Boston Celtics, Connors became the first pro basketball player to do what?

Break a backboard he did, but not with a dunk: it shattered under an ordinary shot during the warm-up before the Celtics' first home game.

Which 1957 Disney film, in which Connors played a strong father figure, helped him land The Rifleman?

Old Yeller cast him as Burn Sanderson, the dog's rightful owner, and that performance won him the part of Lucas McCain ahead of some forty other actors.

Which world leader, a fan of The Rifleman, greeted Connors with a bear hug in 1973?

Leonid Brezhnev met him as President Nixon's guest in California, and Connors sent the Soviet leader home with two Colt six-shooters and a cowboy hat.

After The Rifleman, Connors starred as a cashiered cavalry officer in which 1965–66 NBC Western?

Branded followed Jason McCord, drummed out of the Army on a false charge of cowardice, as he roamed the West for two seasons trying to win back his name.

Connors earned an Emmy nomination for playing against type in which 1977 miniseries?

Roots cast television's model father as Tom Moore, a slave owner, and the performance brought him an Emmy nomination.

Which future cast member of TV's Batman played a snowed-in stagecoach passenger in The Rifleman's 'Stopover'?

Adam West played Christopher Rolf, one of three storm-stranded passengers whose stay turns troublesome for their host; the 1961 episode came five years before he put on the cowl.

Before The Rifleman, the boy who played Lucas McCain's son was in the original 1955 cast of which children's show?

The Mickey Mouse Club began with 24 Mouseketeers and kept only 12 after its first season; he was among those dropped, and later joked that he had been a has-been at nine.

Which actor, a longtime friend of John Wayne, played the marshal of North Fork?

Paul Fix coached the young John Wayne in acting and appeared in about 27 of his films; after The Rifleman he was the Enterprise's doctor in Star Trek's second pilot.

Which recurring Rifleman character tended bar at the North Fork saloon?

Frank Sweeney was played by Bill Quinn, who later sat on the other side of the bar as Mr. Van Ranseleer, Archie Bunker's blind friend.

Which actress played Lou Mallory, Lucas McCain's love interest in the final season of The Rifleman?

Patricia Blair arrived in the fifth season, taking over from storekeeper Milly Scott as the woman in the hero's life, and went on to six seasons as Rebecca Boone in Daniel Boone.

Which future Bewitched star played the title role in the Rifleman episode 'Miss Bertie'?

Agnes Moorehead played a sprightly old lady who arrives in North Fork announcing that she means to capture a bandit, four years before she became Endora.

The writer of The Rifleman's pilot left after a year to create which short-lived series?

The Westerner starred Brian Keith and ran only briefly in 1960, but Keith then recommended its creator to direct his next film, which opened the way to a career in features.

Why does The Rifleman's opening contain one more shot than its star fires on screen?

To fit the theme music, the sound editors dubbed in one extra shot; the real ones were blanks, short enough that the magazine may have held more than its usual load.

The 'El Tigre' carbine that doubled for Lucas McCain's rifle in rough stunts was a copy made in which country?

Spain: the El Tigre was a near-copy of the star's carbine, kept for scenes where the gun was thrown down, swung as a club or left in a saddle scabbard.

At which New Jersey university did Chuck Connors play both baseball and basketball?

Seton Hall: he won a speaking contest there by reciting a Vachel Lindsay poem, and the win first made him think of a career in performing.

The Rifleman's ratings dropped in its final season once it aired opposite which star's television comeback?

Lucille Ball returned to weekly television in October 1962 with The Lucy Show, on Monday nights. The Rifleman, a top-five hit in its first year, was cancelled the following spring.

Hope Summers, storekeeper Hattie Denton on The Rifleman, later voiced which brand character in TV commercials?

Mrs. Butterworth, the talking syrup bottle, spoke with Summers's voice in TV commercials. On screen she turned sinister, joining the witches' coven in Roman Polanski's 1968 horror classic.

The actor who played North Fork's marshal on The Rifleman was the ship's doctor in which sci-fi series' second pilot?

Star Trek cast him as Dr. Piper in 'Where No Man Has Gone Before'. When the series went ahead, the part gave way to DeForest Kelley's Dr. McCoy.

Bill Quinn, the bartender at North Fork's saloon on The Rifleman, was the real-life father-in-law of which comedian?

Bob Newhart married Quinn's daughter Ginnie in 1963, and the veteran character actor went on to pop up in small parts on both of his son-in-law's hit sitcoms.

The three producers behind The Rifleman met in a wartime Army film unit, serving under which future US president?

Ronald Reagan was a captain in the First Motion Picture Unit, where the trio met and decided to start a company of their own. They founded it in 1951 and it later made the series.

Which courtroom film cast the actor behind The Rifleman's North Fork marshal as its presiding Judge Taylor?

To Kill a Mockingbird put him on the bench for the Tom Robinson case in 1962, while he was still wearing a badge every week in North Fork.

Which famous American author, played by the star of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, visits North Fork on The Rifleman?

Mark Twain comes to North Fork in the 1961 episode 'The Shattered Idol'. The actor playing him is best remembered for running from the pod people in the 1956 film.

After playing Lou Mallory on The Rifleman, the same actress spent six seasons as the TV wife of which frontiersman?

Daniel Boone, with Fess Parker in the title role, cast her as Rebecca Boone from 1964 to 1970. She joined it a year after The Rifleman left the air.

Rifleman star Chuck Connors spent most of World War II as a US Army instructor in which skill?

Tank warfare was what he taught at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and later at West Point, after putting a minor-league baseball career on hold to enlist.

Which towering actor, later the steel-toothed Bond villain Jaws, guest-starred in the Rifleman episode 'The Decision'?

Richard Kiel was picked for Jaws after the Bond producers spotted him in the TV series Barbary Coast, long after his 1961 visit to North Fork.

Rifleman star Chuck Connors disliked which real first name, trying 'Lefty' and 'Stretch' before settling on Chuck?

Kevin was the name he was born with. The nickname came from his college baseball days, when he kept yelling at the pitcher to chuck it to him at first base.

In which New York City borough was Rifleman star Chuck Connors born to parents who had emigrated from Newfoundland?

Brooklyn shaped him: he was an altar boy at a local basilica and won an athletic scholarship to the borough's Adelphi Academy before sport took him out of town.

Chuck Connors followed The Rifleman by playing Florida fisherman Porter Ricks in which family film about an animal?

Flipper cast him as a father who wants the dolphin gone because it competes for his catch. The film was a surprise hit and inspired the TV series that followed.

In a 1961 episode of The Rifleman, Royal Dano plays a kindly neighbor who believes he is which US president?

Abraham Lincoln was a part Dano kept returning to. Walt Disney personally chose him as the voice of the talking Lincoln figure built for the 1964 New York World's Fair.

In 'Old Tony', the last episode of The Rifleman, a recluse helps save Lucas McCain's son from what danger?

Quicksand swallows the boy and his friend Lorrie until the hermit of the title helps pull them out, closing a run of 168 episodes.

Which American gun designer created the lever-action rifle that Lucas McCain fires in The Rifleman's opening credits?

John Browning had not yet designed it when the story takes place: the series is set in the 1880s, years before the rifle existed.

What trade did North Fork's Nels Swenson, played most often by Joe Higgins, follow on The Rifleman?

Blacksmith Nels was a small part with many faces: at least five actors played him. Higgins later won a Clio Award as the sheriff in a run of Dodge commercials.

Joan Taylor, storekeeper Milly Scott on The Rifleman, was married to the creator of which long-running police drama?

Hawaii Five-O was created by her husband, Leonard Freeman. After his death in 1974 she took over the business side of the show, working under the name Rose Freeman.

Which future Mission: Impossible star, later an Oscar winner for Ed Wood, appeared in The Rifleman's 'The Vaqueros'?

Martin Landau played Miguel, the patron, in the 1961 episode. Five years later he was master of disguise Rollin Hand, a part that brought three straight Emmy nominations.

Which future Grandma Walton played an elderly neighbor hiding a killer son in the Rifleman episode 'The Spoiler'?

Ellen Corby and her screen husband live under a false name so that nobody learns their son is a wanted man. She later won three Emmys on The Waltons.

From which Oklahoma town had Lucas McCain and his son come before settling near North Fork in The Rifleman?

Enid was home until his wife Margaret died, when the boy was six. Father and son then set out to start again somewhere new.

Several different actors took turns on The Rifleman as which North Fork character, the town's physician?

Doc Burrage kept changing faces. One of them, Jack Kruschen, earned an Oscar nomination for playing another doctor, the neighbor in The Apartment.

The boy who played Lucas McCain's son on The Rifleman reached the US Top 10 in 1962 with which single?

Cindy's Birthday climbed to number eight while he was still filming the series, one of a string of Top 40 hits that made the young actor a teen idol.

From the 1990s, the former child star who played Lucas McCain's son on The Rifleman led what kind of group?

A dance orchestra playing vintage music became his second career from 1992. It was hired for fifteen consecutive Art Directors Guild Awards shows in Beverly Hills.

Which John Wayne Western features The Rifleman's grown-up child star as a young sentry Wayne's gunfighter shoots?

El Dorado turns on that mistake: a dozing sentry fires at Wayne's gunfighter, who shoots back by reflex and then feels he owes the boy's family a debt.

Which future Man from U.N.C.L.E. star played a military-academy reject filling in as marshal on The Rifleman?

Robert Vaughn was Dan, the stand-in lawman of 'The Apprentice Sheriff', in 1958. Two years later he was one of the hired guns in The Magnificent Seven.

Which future star of the war series Combat! played an outlaw who steals Lucas McCain's rifle on The Rifleman?

Vic Morrow's villain leaves the hero to fight back with a pistol, which he steadies on a crude stock made from a board.

Which head of a famous acting family played photographer Abel Goss, accused of murder, on The Rifleman?

John Carradine came back later the same season as a mind reader. Four of his sons, David and Keith among them, followed him into acting.

In The Rifleman's 'The Gaucho', Lucas McCain defends a family mocked in North Fork for coming from which country?

Argentina's cowboys, the gauchos, give the 1958 episode its title. Its writer, Bruce Geller, went on to create Mission: Impossible.

In The Rifleman's 'The Vision', Lucas McCain's son sees his late mother while dangerously ill with which disease?

Typhoid fever brings on the vision of his mother. She was played by Marian Seldes, who went on to a long Broadway career and a Tony Award.

In The Rifleman's 'The Sixteenth Cousin', North Fork's first train brings a royal relative of which country's emperor?

Japan's visitors step off the first train to reach North Fork. When local bullies set upon them, the newcomers hand out a lesson in good manners themselves.

In The Rifleman's 'Dark Day at North Fork', Lucas McCain must face a gunfight while temporarily suffering from what?

Blindness strikes after an accident at home, temporary but total. A gunman picks that moment to force him into a fight against an enemy he cannot see.

In The Rifleman's two-part 'Waste', Lucas McCain, captured by bandits in a ghost town, ends up doing what?

Delivering a baby falls to him because no doctor can be fetched. The mother is the wife of one of the bandits who took him prisoner.

In The Rifleman's second episode, in which their house is burned, Lucas McCain tells his son which Bible story?

Job, the man who loses everything and keeps his faith, suits an episode about losing a home. The producers drew many of the show's plots from Bible parables.

Chuck Connors made his acting debut as a police captain in which Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn comedy?

Pat and Mike is a sports comedy full of real athletes. An MGM casting director had spotted Connors while he was playing minor-league baseball in Los Angeles.

After The Rifleman, Chuck Connors played a defense attorney in which 90-minute series, a forerunner of Law & Order?

Arrest and Trial split each episode in two. Detectives caught a suspect in the first half, and Connors's lawyer defended him in court in the second.

Chuck Connors's post-Rifleman series Cowboy in Africa sent his rodeo champion to a wildlife reserve in which country?

Kenya is where champion cowboy Jim Sinclair is hired to bring modern methods to a game reserve. By the end of the first episode he has adopted a ten-year-old local boy.

Rifleman star Chuck Connors sent up his tough-guy image as the gruff 'Sarge' in which 1980s big-screen comedy?

Airplane II: The Sequel made him head of the ground crew for a lunar shuttle, a Sarge who dislikes the rushed launch but defers to the airline's management.

Which 1979 horror film cast Rifleman star Chuck Connors as the lonely owner of a roadside museum full of mannequins?

Tourist Trap came to him only after Jack Palance and Gig Young had each said no. He took the part hoping to break into horror.

Which British film star co-founded, with Dick Powell and Charles Boyer, the studio that produced The Rifleman?

David Niven was a working partner as well as an owner, acting in the company's own shows. In 1963 he and Boyer accepted a posthumous Emmy honor on Powell's behalf.

On The Rifleman, a train carrying Lucas McCain, his son and a dangerous prisoner is stranded by a plague of what?

Grasshoppers swarm the line in the 1960 episode, and the prisoner uses the emergency to slip his escort. An old buffalo hunter helps McCain outwit him.

In The Rifleman's 'Duel of Honor', a nobleman from which country is stranded in North Fork and mocked into a duel?

Italy's Count di Montova knows only the formal European duel, so he looks doomed against a six-gun, until he arranges a surprise for the town bully.

By Chuck Connors's own account, auditions for The Rifleman opened with which surprise test that many actors failed?

Catching a thrown rifle came easily to a man who had spent years swinging a baseball bat. Many of the other hopefuls dropped it.

On The Rifleman, the ex-lawman who becomes North Fork's marshal carries which lasting injury from an old gunfight?

A crippled arm and a drinking problem had ended his career. Lucas McCain takes him on as a hired hand to give him a second chance, and he is soon wearing a badge again.

Which composer wrote the theme music and score for The Rifleman?

Herschel Burke Gilbert wrote the show's theme and its score. He once estimated that his music had been used in at least three thousand television episodes.

Which playwright, later a Pulitzer Prize winner for The Subject Was Roses, wrote The Rifleman's 'End of a Young Gun'?

Frank D. Gilroy wrote it in 1958, during his years as a television writer. Seven years later his Broadway play won both the Pulitzer and the Tony.

Which future boss of The Six Million Dollar Man played gambler Lariat Jones in a Rifleman episode meant as a pilot?

Richard Anderson's honest gambler was tried out for a series of his own, but that show was never made. He appeared on the show several more times in other roles.

Which future Uncle Joe of Petticoat Junction played North Fork's doctor in five early episodes of The Rifleman?

Edgar Buchanan knew his way around a surgery: he had qualified and practised as a dentist before he gave it up for acting at the age of 36.

In The Rifleman's 'The Pet', a stray horse taken in by Lucas McCain's son exposes the family to which disease?

Anthrax turns a kindness into a death threat. The horse bites both the boy and the gunman who is hunting his father, and each fears an awful end.

Which Mexican star of High Noon played a reformed gambler running a North Fork boarding house on The Rifleman?

Katy Jurado had been the first Latin American actress nominated for an Oscar, for Broken Lance. On the show her character stands up to the gambling boss she once worked for.