Temple Houston is an American Western 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.Jeffrey Hunter's Notable Television Appearances 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.Production memo, Temple Houston files, Warner Bros. Archives, Cinema-Television Library, University of Southern California. The producers did not consult with Houston's family about the series, other than to inquire if any direct descendants were still living. Frank X. Tolbert, "Temple Houston's Family Speaks Up," Dallas Morning News, August 25, 1963, sec. 1, p. 23
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
Robert Anderson Parley Baer Charles Bateman James Best Patricia Blair Eric Braeden Robert Bray Joe Brooks Kathie Browne Walter Burke King Calder Anthony Call James Chandler John Cliff Robert Conrad William Conrad Russ Conway Royal Dano John Dehner William Fawcett
Shug Fisher Constance Ford Douglas Fowley Anne Francis Victor French Richard Garland Virginia Gregg Ron Hayes Rodolfo Hoyos Jr. Anne Helm Tom Hennesy Robert 'Buzz' Henry Clyde Howdy Rodolfo Hoyos Jr. Richard Jaeckel Victor Jory Don Kennedy Susan Kohner Robert Lansing Norman Leavitt
Dayton Lummis Herbert Lytton Ken Mayer Gregg Palmer J. Pat O'Malley Robert Phillips Paula Raymond Penny Santon Frank J. Scannell Alex Sharp Tom Skerritt Everett Sloane Connie Stevens Frank Sutton Karl Swenson Russell Thorson Grace Lee Whitney Peter Whitney Collin Wilcox Van Williams Morgan Woodward
Episode list
Production 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.Production memo, Temple Houston files, Warner Bros. Archives, Cinema-Television Library, University of Southern California. 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.J. D. Spiro. "Happy in Hollywood". The Milwaukee Journal. 4 July 1965. 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.
Syndication Because the show produced so few episodes, it had little presence on the domestic syndication market. However, it appears to have enjoyed limited international syndication. The series was shown in Japan in 1963,"Japanese Net Buys 'Houston' in TV Package," Dallas Morning News, August 27, 1963, sec. 3, p. 5. and on Australian regional television station GTS-4 in 1974.1974 Australian television schedule
In the United Kingdom the series was shown on BBC One television between October 1964 and July 1965, inspiring one of the few pieces of memorabilia from the show—a 1965 British annual.The 1965 Temple Houston Annual at booksandcollectibles.com.au. As in the US, the pilot The Man From Galveston was never shown on UK TV but did duty as a cinema second feature in April 1964 (supporting Warner's Mary, Mary).
References
External links
Temple Houston: The Story Behind a Forgotten Western. Temple Houston page at A Tribute to Jeffrey Hunter website Temple Houston at the Classic TV Archive