Cheyenne
 Cheyenne Bodie was a tall, strapping half-breed frontier scout in
the days following the Civil War.
He drifted from job to job, encountered plenty of villains, lots
of beautiful girls, and more than his share of gunfights.
In one episode Bodie could be seen as the foreman on a ranch, in
another as a trail scout for a wagon train, in another as a recently
deputised lawman.
The show was lavishly produced, movie-style, by Warner Brothers,
but the attraction was obviously Clint Walker himself. He had a
sidekick called Smitty, for the first season, but after that he
worked alone.
Cheyenne was originally seen as one of three rotating elements of
Warner Bros. Presents, the studio's first venture into
television, and quickly emerged as the most popular of the
three.
Hour-long westerns were difficult to produce on a once-a-week
basis, however, so the program continued to alternate with other
series', first Conflict (1956-57) and then Sugarfoot
(1957-59). In fact Clint Walker's Cheyenne was seldom seen on
an every-week basis at any time during its original run.
Cheyenne was given a big-budget look by Warner Bros by
including action scenes taken directly from their Western movies.
The series was based, rather loosely, on a 1947 movie of the same
name starring Dennis Morgan.
Cheyenne was plagued with problems behind the scenes, and
in 1958 Walker walked after Warner Bros refused to release him from
some of the more stringent requirements of his contract which had
been signed before Cheyenne became a hit.
Among other things, Walker did not want to have to kick back 50%
of all personal appearance fees to the studio, he wanted higher
payment for re-runs, and he wanted permission to make records for
labels other than Warner's own.
Stripped of its star, the studio nevertheless refused to give an
inch and continued the series under the name Cheyenne, with
an unknown actor named Ty Hardin in the leading role, which was now
that of Bronco Lane. Walker, meanwhile, was legally prevented from
working anywhere.
In early 1959 Walker and the studio came to an agreement and
Walker returned to the series. For part of the 1959-1960 season Cheyenne
alternated with Shirley Temple's Storybook. Then for
1960-1961 Cheyenne became The Cheyenne Show, a
rotating anthology in which Walker was seen on a majority of weeks,
interspersed with episodes of Ty Hardin as Bronco and Will Hutchins
as Sugarfoot. In 1961-1962 Sugarfoot was dropped and only Cheyenne
and Bronco were seen.
Finally in 1962 the show went solo again, but only for one more
season - and then Walker rode off into the sunset for the last time.
Thanks to Chester Alexander
for additional information
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