The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
| The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Genre | Western |
| Written by | Paul Landres Frank McDonald |
| Directed by |
Frederick Hazlitt Brennan John Dunkel Daniel B. Ullman |
| Starring |
Hugh O'Brian Mason Alan Dinehart Douglas Fowley |
| Composer(s) |
Herman Stein Ken Darby |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 6 |
| No. of episodes | 229 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Louis F. Edelman Robert Sisk |
| Running time | 30 mins. |
| Production company(s) | Wyatt Earp Enterprises |
| Distributor | SFM Entertainment |
| Release | |
| Original network | ABC |
| Original release | September 6, 1955 – June 27, 1961 |
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp is the first western television series written for adults, premiering four days before Gunsmoke on September 6, 1955. It is loosely based on the life of frontier marshal Wyatt Earp. The half-hour black-and-white program aired for 229 episodes on ABC from 1955 to 1961 and featured Hugh O'Brian in the title role.
O'Brian was chosen for the role in part because of his physical resemblance to early photographs of Wyatt Earp. The series was produced by Desilu Productions and filmed at the Desilu-Cahuenga Studio. Sponsors included General Mills, Procter & Gamble, and Parker Pen Company. An off-camera barbershop quartet sang the theme song and hummed the background music in early episodes. The theme song "The Legend of Wyatt Earp" was composed by Harry Warren. Incidental music was composed by Herman Stein.
The first season of the series purports to tell the story of Wyatt's experiences as deputy town marshal of Ellsworth, Kansas (first four episodes) and then as town marshal in Wichita, Kansas. In the second episode of the second season, first aired September 4, 1956, he is hired as assistant city marshal of Dodge City, Kansas, where the setting remained for three seasons. The final episode set in Dodge City aired on September 1, 1959. Beginning the next week the locale for the series shifted for the remainder of the series to the southwest near Tombstone, Arizona Territory.
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Wikipedia