From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

The Tall Man (TV series)

Field	Value
image	Clu Gulager Marianna Hill The Tall Man.JPG
image_size	220
caption	Clu Gulager as Billy the Kid and Marianna Hill as Rita
genre	Western
writer	{{Plainlist
director	{{Plainlist
starring	{{Plainlist
country	United States
language	English
num_seasons	2
num_episodes	75
executive_producer	Nat Holt
producer	{{Plainlist
runtime	30 minutes
company	{{Plainlist
channel	NBC
first_aired
last_aired

Arthur Browne, Jr.
D. C. Fontana
David Lang
Paul King
Samuel A. Peeples
Frank Price
Barry Shipman
Tay Garnett
Sidney Lanfield
Sydney Pollack
Lesley Selander
William Witney
Barry Sullivan
Clu Gulager
Edward Montagne
Samuel A. Peeples
Frank Price
Lincoln Country Production Company
Revue Studios The Tall Man is a half-hour American Western television series about Sheriff Pat Garrett and gunfighter Billy the Kid that aired on NBC from September 10, 1960, to September 1, 1962, filmed by Revue Productions.

Created and produced by Samuel Peeples, the series is set in New Mexico in the late 1870s and also depicts other figures of the period, such as John Tunstall and Lew Wallace.

Sponsors included Beech-Nut Life Savers.

Synopsis

The Tall Man stars 6'3" Barry Sullivan as Sheriff Pat Garrett, and Clu Gulager as Billy the Kid.

In the premiere episode, "Garrett and the Kid" (September 10, 1960), Garrett arrives in Lincoln, depicted in the series as a gold-mining boomtown, as the new deputy sheriff, only to learn that a crooked saloon owner, Paul Mason (Robert Middleton), dominates the community, including the marshal, Dave Leggert (Denver Pyle). When he sees his power threatened, Mason tries to hire Billy to kill Garrett, unaware that the two were then on friendly terms. Vaughn Taylor is cast in this episode as Judge Riley, and King Donovan appears as a Mason henchman.

Marianna Hill was cast in several episodes as one of Billy's girlfriends, Rita. In one episode, Robert Lansing played the frontier dentist, gambler, and gunfighter John H. "Doc" Holliday in the episode "Rovin' Gambler."

Cast

Barry Sullivan as Sheriff Pat Garrett
Clu Gulager as Billy the Kid.

Andy Clyde was cast in five episodes as Pa McBeam; Judy Nugent plays McBean's daughter, June. Different actresses were cast as the other daughter, May. Olive Sturgess played the part of May in "McBean Rides Again" (Nº 13), "The Reluctant Bridegroom" (Nº 23), and "Millionaire McBean" (Nº 31). Andy Clyde also appeared at the time in the role of the neighboring farmer George MacMichael on ABC's The Real McCoys, starring Walter Brennan.

Other guest stars

In addition to the aforementioned, other actors appearing on The Tall Man in individual episodes include:

Claude Akins
Chris Alcaide
John Anderson
R.G. Armstrong
Malcolm Atterbury
Patricia Barry
Don Beddoe
Russ Bender
Lyle Bettger
Lane Bradford
Jocelyn Brando
Hank Brandt
X Brands
Wally Brown
Edgar Buchanan
Michael Burns
Robert Burton
Harry Carey, Jr.
Alan Carney
Paul Carr
John Cliff
James Coburn
Iron Eyes Cody
Jim Davis
Cyril Delevanti
Richard Devon
Pamela Duncan
Faith Domergue
Jena Engstrom
William Fawcett
Mona Freeman
Robert Griffin
Herman Hack
Chick Hannan
Ron Harper
Don C. Harvey
Raymond Hatton
Rex Holman
Rodolfo Hoyos Jr.
Clegg Hoyt
Kathleen Hughes
Tommy Ivo
Richard Jaeckel
I. Stanford Jolley
Ray Kellogg
Sandy Kenyon
Michael Landon
Nan Leslie
Herbert Lytton
Adele Mara
Howard McNear
Don Megowan
Jan Merlin
Mark Miller
Vic Morrow
Gregory Morton
Leonard Nimoy
Gregg Palmer
James Parnell
Dennis Patrick
William Phipps
Ford Rainey
Richard Reeves
Stafford Repp
Addison Richards
Julie Sommars
Harold J. Stone
Kelly Thordsen
Regis Toomey
Harry von Zell
Ralph Votrian
Gregory Walcott
Patrick Waltz
Robert J. Wilke
Elen Willard

Critical response

Jack Gould, in a review in The New York Times, called the program "a characteristic item of uninventive tripe". He described Sullivan's portrayal of Garrett as "an official who exudes sternness, physique, and no-think" and, comparing Gulager's Billy the Kid to Edd Byrnes's character on 77 Sunset Strip, as "made to resemble a Kookie of the sagebrush".

Episode list

Season 1: 1960–61

Season 2: 1961–62

Release

On October 30, 2007, Timeless Media Group released fifteen episodes of the series on a Region 1 three-DVD set in the United States. On December 6, 2011, Timeless Media Group released * The Tall Man: The Complete TV Series* on DVD in Region 1.

References

(January 6, 1962). "Criterion to Handle Revue TV Themes".
(1996). "Total Television: the Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present". Penguin Books USA, Inc..
(2007). "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present". [[Ballantine Books]].
(September 19, 1960). "Assorted flavors". Broadcasting.
[https://www.newspapers.com/image/793167381/?clipping_id=180239684&terms=%227%3A30%20p.m.%20%28ch.%2013%29%22%20%22robert%20lansing%22 "TODAY — Six Water Sport Champs Perform"]. ''Birmingham Post-Herald''. March 18, 1961. p. 7. Retrieved September 2, 2025. "An alcoholic, Kate Elder (played by Faith Domergue) witnesses a murder and falsely accuses her former suitor, Doc Holliday (Robert Lansing), who is arrested by Pat Garrett (Barry Sullivan), in "Rovin' Gambler" on NBC-TV's THE TALL MAN series."
(September 12, 1960). "TV: Contrast in Westerns: 'Tall Man' Bows Uninventively; 'Have Gun, Will Travel' in Charming Return". The New York Times.
My Drama (September 15, 2023). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSwHglUss8o&t=1470s The Tall Man 2023 - S2E2 - The Liberty Belle - Best Western Cowboy Full Episode Movie HD]. YouTube. Retrieved April 5, 2025.
(August 18, 1961). "Brown, Carney Reunited". The Hollywood Reporter.
0-7864-0377-2. "The Liberty Belle. Sept. 16, 1961. GS: Patricia Donahue, Chris Alcaide, Wally Brown, Hal K. Dawson, Alan Carney. Elena, Garrett's old heartthrob, returns to town, and Pat is almost oblivious to the fact that she is accompanied by gun-toting Joe Durango, the man she left Pat to join three years earlier."
(November 15, 1961). "OBITUARIES: WALLY BROWN". The Hollywood Reporter.
"The Tall Man DVD news: Announcement for the Tall Man - the Complete TV Series | TVShowsOnDVD.com".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1960-american-television-series-debuts 1962-american-television-series-endings 1960s-american-drama-television-series television-series-set-in-the-1870s television-series-set-in-the-1880s american-english-language-television-shows cultural-depictions-of-billy-the-kid cultural-depictions-of-pat-garrett cultural-depictions-of-doc-holliday television-series-by-universal-television 1960s-western-(genre)-television-series black-and-white-american-television-shows television-shows-set-in-new-mexico nbc-western-dramas

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about The Tall Man (TV series) — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report