Temple Houston (TV series)

''Temple Houston'' is an American television series starring Jeffrey Hunter as real-life 19th century Texas lawyer Temple Lea Houston. It ran for one season on NBC from 1963 to 1964. It is considered "the first attempt ... to produce an hour-long western series with the main character being an attorney in the formal sense."Nevins, Frances M. "Westerns". ''Prime Time Law: Fictional Television as Legal Narrative''. Robert M. Jarvis and Paul R. Joseph, Editors. Carolina Academic Press. 1998. p. 212-213 ''Temple Houston'' was the only program which Jack Webb sold to a network during his ten months as the head of production at Warner Bros. Television. It was also the lone series in which Hunter played a regular part. The series' supporting cast features Jack Elam and Chubby Johnson.

Plot

''Temple Houston'' is based loosely on the career of the real-life circuit-riding lawyer Temple Lea Houston (1860–1905), son of the more famous Sam Houston. Little, however, binds all the episodes together under a common framework. The series variously cast the characters and situations in both an overtly humorous and a deadly serious light. Author-historian (and attorney) Francis M. Nevins asserts of the first episode entitled "The Twisted Rope", "Clearly, the concept here is ''Perry Mason'' out West", going so far as to note that Temple Houston's court opponent "apes Hamilton Burger by accusing Houston of 'prolonging this trial with a lot of dramatic nonsense'". Later episodes turned Houston into more of a detective than a lawyer. Over the course of the series, the bulk of the narrative sees Houston actually gathering evidence, rather than trying cases. In the end, the series largely eschewed criminal law in favor of overtly humorous plots, such as in the episode "The Law and Big Annie", in which Houston uses his legal expertise to help a friend decide what to do after he inherits an elephant.

The producers tried to avoid any storylines that would embarrass the two surviving children of Temple Houston who were still living when the series aired.

Cast

Main cast

* Jeffrey Hunter as Temple Lea Houston
* Jack Elam as George Taggart
* Frank Ferguson as Judge Gurney
* Chubby Johnson as Concho
* Mary Wickes as Ida Goff

Guest stars

*Parley Baer
* Charles Bateman
*James Best
*Patricia Blair
*Eric Braeden
*Robert Bray
*Kathie Browne
*Walter Burke
*Robert Conrad
*William Conrad
*Russ Conway
*Royal Dano
*John Dehner
*William Fawcett

*Shug Fisher
*Constance Ford
*Douglas Fowley
*Anne Francis
*Victor French
*Virginia Gregg
*Ron Hayes
* Rodolfo Hoyos Jr.
*Anne Helm
*Richard Jaeckel
*Victor Jory
*Susan Kohner
*Robert Lansing

*Dayton Lummis
*J. Pat O'Malley
*Paula Raymond
*Tom Skerritt
*Everett Sloane
*Connie Stevens
*Frank Sutton
*Karl Swenson
*Russell Thorson
*Peter Whitney
* Collin Wilcox
*Van Williams
*Morgan Woodward

Episode list

Production

Development

''Temple Houston'' was rushed onto the 1963 schedule in only four weeks after a previously planned drama, ''The Robert Taylor Show'', based on case files of the former United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, was abandoned with four unaired episodes. In addition, the ''Temple Houston'' pilot episode was unusable for the introduction to the new series because James Coburn, who played the secondary character, a gunslinger turned U.S. marshal, would not accept a role in a series. Coburn's character was hence assumed by Jack Elam as George Taggart. A leading character actor in film and television, Elam had just left the short-lived ABC/Warner Bros. western, ''The Dakotas'', which had replaced Clint Walker's long-running ''Cheyenne'' series early in 1963.Billy Hathorn, "Roy Bean, Temple Houston, Bill Longley, Ranald Mackenzie, Buffalo Bill, Jr., and the Texas Rangers: Depictions of West Texans in Series Television, 1955 to 1967", '' West Texas Historical Review'', Vol. 89 (2013), pp. 106-109

On orders from Jack Webb, episodes were put together in two or three days each, something previously thought impossible in television production. Work began on August 7, 1963, with the initial airing set for September 19. Jimmy Lydon, a former child actor, adult actor, and producer who was at the time with WB, recalled that Webb told the staff: "Fellas, I just sold ''Temple Houston''. We gotta be on the air in four weeks, we can't use the pilot, we have no scripts, no nothing - do it!" Lydon recalled the team having worked around the clock to get ''Temple Houston'' on the air. Co-producer William Conrad directed six episodes, two scripts simultaneously on two different soundstages at WB. "We bicycled Jeff (Hunter) and (Jack) Elam between the two companies, and Bill shot 'em both in four-and-a-half days. Two complete one-hour shows!" said Lydon.

In a 1965 interview, Hunter described the situation:

Two ''Temple Houston'' directors, Robert Totten and Irving J. Moore, worked on ''Gunsmoke'' as well. Character actress Mary Wickes was cast in several episodes as Ida Goff, and Frank Ferguson, formerly Gus the ranch hand on ''My Friend Flicka'', played Judge Gurney.

Pilot

The earliest known conceptual documents for ''Temple Houston'' date back to 1957. It took about six years for a pilot to be filmed. That pilot, ''The Man from Galveston'', was filmed in March 1963, but was never broadcast on television. Instead, the 57-minute film was released theatrically late in 1963. The series used a different cast from the movie pilot. Jeffrey Hunter was the only cast member to star in both pilot and series, although his character was re- dubbed Timothy Higgins in the pilot when it was released as a theatrical film.

The series was produced by Warner Bros. Television and Apollo Productions, a company co-owned by star Jeffrey Hunter, who had demanded to produce it in exchange for a film and television commitment to Warner Bros.Jeffreyhuntermovies.com
Glenn A. Mosley, "Temple Houston: The Story Behind a Forgotten Western". ''Wildest Westerns Magazine'', Issue No. 2, 2000. Under this contract, Hunter appeared in the Warner Bros. 1965 theatrical releases ''Murieta'' (1965) and '' Brainstorm''.

By December 1963, the series was rated 31st of the 32 new shows that season. NBC then ordered a switch back to more humorous stories. but the change merely allowed the series to continue to the end of the season.

Cancellation

''Temple Houston'' was pulled after one season of twenty-six episodes. Hunter later indicated that he thought the series failed because of an inability to establish a consistent tone.

The Hunter and Houston parallel

The unused pilot with Hunter cast as lawyer Timothy Higgins, was released in theaters in December 1963 as ''The Man from Galveston''. Hopeful of success in the series and being paid $5,000 per episode, Jeffrey Hunter, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, described the historic figure that he played as "one of the finest lawyers in the last part of the 19th century." Indeed, Temple Houston at the age of 20 was the youngest practicing lawyer in Texas. He was the county attorney in Brazoria County south of Houston, until he accepted appointment as the district attorney of the 35th Judicial District, which then encompassed 26 counties in the Texas Panhandle, based in the frontier community of Mobeetie in Wheeler County.

As a member of the Texas State Senate from 1885 to 1889, Temple Houston became involved with a dispute with the legendary cattleman and rancher Charles Goodnight, sometimes called "the father of the Texas Panhandle". At issue was fencing of grasslands to accommodate large ranchers. Houston sided unsuccessfully with the smaller ranchers who wanted free grassland. One historian described the real Temple Houston as "a flamboyant figure in his black frock coat and shoulder-length auburn hair topped off with a white Stetson. He liked to lace his arguments with literary allusions and could enthrall a courtroom or legislative chamber." Houston gave the dedication in 1888 for the new state capitol building in Austin, Texas. He subsequently worked for Oklahoma statehood, which came to fruition two years after his death. Houston lost races for Texas attorney general

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