Have Gun Will Travel
1957 - United StatesAiring from 14 September 1957 to 21 September 1963 (with UK broadcasts from 1959 to 1964), Have Gun – Will Travel ran for six seasons of 30-minute episodes and became one of the most distinctive and internationally popular Westerns of its time. Its success helped propel lead actor Richard Boone—charismatic, intelligent, and commanding—into global stardom.
The series followed the adventures of Paladin, a highly educated, West Point-trained, gun-for-hire dressed in black, who operated out of San Francisco’s Hotel Carlton in the mid-1800s. Bearing a business card emblazoned with a chess knight and the phrase: “Have Gun – Will Travel. Wire Paladin, San Francisco,” he offered his services as a detective, bodyguard, or problem-solver, using not only his gun but also his keen intellect and sardonic wit.
Have Gun – Will Travel set a precedent for a new kind of Western hero: urbane, refined, and principled. The Paladin archetype directly influenced later characters such as Hugh O'Brien’s Wyatt Earp and Gene Barry’s Bat Masterson—likewise educated, stylish, and morally grounded.
Though technically a mercenary, Paladin was conceived by producer Sam Rolfe (who would later create The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) and Boone as a modern-day Knight Errant—an honorable man with a strict personal code. Boone, born 18 June 1917, in Los Angeles and a seventh-generation nephew of legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone, had significant creative input on the show. A 1961 TV Guide article revealed that Boone not only directed several episodes but also held approval over scripts and casting choices.
Supporting Paladin was Hey Boy, played by Kam Tong, a bellhop and messenger at the Carlton Hotel. During the 1960–1961 season, Tong briefly left the series for a co-starring role in Mr. Garlund (later retitled The Garlund Touch), during which he was temporarily replaced by Lisa Lu as "Hey Girl." Tong returned for the show’s final season after his other series ended.
At its peak from 1958 to 1961, Have Gun – Will Travel was the third most-watched show on American television, behind only Gunsmoke and Wagon Train. Its memorable theme song, “The Ballad of Paladin,” co-written by Johnny Western, Sam Rolfe, and Richard Boone—and sung by Western—was a charting hit twice in the early 1960s.
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Published on December 20th, 2018. Written by Laurence Marcus for Television Heaven.
