The Westerner (TV series)

[1] The Westerner stars Brian Keith as amiable, unexceptional cowhand/drifter Dave Blassingame, and features John Dehner as rakish Burgundy Smith, who appeared in three episodes.

Guest stars included Malcolm Atterbury, Ben Cooper, Katy Jurado, and John M. Pickard, Sam Jaffe, and one episode (the first, "Jeff") memorably featured Warren Oates as a drunk quietly passing out at a table.

These included John Anderson (Ride the High Country), R. G. Armstrong (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), Dub Taylor (The Wild Bunch, The Getaway), and Mary Murphy (Junior Bonner).

[4] An attempt to update and revive the hardbitten series aired as a January 1963 episode of The Dick Powell Theater, "The Losers", directed by Peckinpah and featuring Lee Marvin as Dave Blassingame and Keenan Wynn as Burgundy Smith, but set in the modern West.

Brian Keith briefly played the same character again in 1991's The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw, which featured a number of 1950s and 1960s television Western series leads reprising their roles in quick cameo appearances (Gene Barry as Bat Masterson, Hugh O'Brian as Wyatt Earp, Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick, Clint Walker as Cheyenne Bodie, David Carradine as Kung Fu's Caine, Chuck Connors as The Rifleman, and so on).