The rather obscure TV western series
The Oregon Trail came and went in 1977 before I'd ever even known of its existence and has scarcely been seen again but for a (low-quality) DVD release a few years back. Since it starred a couple of our favorite people such as
Rod Taylor,
Andrew Stevens and granite-jawed Charles Napier, it's long been something we wanted to check out.
This was a time when the TV western was in transition. The long-running
Bonanza (1959-1973) had ended, the legendary
Gunsmoke called it quits in 1975 after 20 seasons (!) and a new breed of semi-western had found success with
Michael Landon's
Bonanza follow-up
Little House on the Prairie (1974-1983.)
The Oregon Trail clearly intended to provide the family element of
Little House while also incorporating the anthology-like nature of the earlier, successful
Wagon Train (1957-1965.)
The two-hour 1976 pilot movie for Oregon showed promise. Widower Taylor was the father of teen-aged Stevens and younger children Tony Becker and Gina Marie Smika. He was just being wed to a second wife, red-haired Blair Brown. His own father Douglas Fowley was also along for the ride when the family departed across the nation in a covered wagon, looking for a new start.
Stevens, still missing his mother after two years, was slow to warm up to Brown, but with the firm yet gentle guidance from Taylor, things eventually worked their way out.
Brown shared a palpable chemistry with Taylor and they worked well together in both romantic scenes as well as combative ones when her eastern background clashed with some of the western ways of the wagon train they were on.
Among the other members of the wagon train could be found one Wilford Brimley in one of his earliest acting roles (he pops up in two episodes as a matter of fact), proving truth to the rumor that practically from birth, Wilford Brimley always looked like Wilford Brimley!
Of course, of chief interest to me was the appearance of young, fresh-scrubbed, occasionally semi-shirtless Stevens, though his obvious physical charms were never exploited to their fullest extent. (I mean, is it asking too much for him to have been kidnapped in one episode and stripped down to almost nothing and tormented by his captors? LOL)
Cut to the regular series, which didn't air until close to two years later (!), and some changes were made. Grandpa Fowley was gone completely, the captivating Brown was now dead, too, making Taylor a widower twice over and Taylor was sporting a thick, obnoxious mustache. Also, Stevens' previously loose, wavy locks were now cut shorter, feathered and blow-dried! (Thankfully, Taylor's mustache was shaved off before the end of the first episode.)
As a new female lead for the series, the decidedly less mes- merizing Darlene Carr appeared as the daughter of a gambler who stays with the train after her father's (William Windom) death. She began the series with a braided bun at the back of her head, but soon enough graduated to one of the most hellacious mullets imaginable for most occasions.
A more welcome addition came in the form of Charles Napier as a new trail scout for the wagon train. In a hoary scenario at least as old as
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1968) and used for the pilot of
The Big Valley (1964) as well, Taylor and Napier first meet on a bridge at which neither one is inclined to give way to the other. We later find Napier in his long underwear, his clothes having to dry out from the encounter with Taylor.
Now finally on to some guest stars who popped up on the show. Here we see Kim Hunter, Oscar-winner for
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), though arguably better known as the simian Dr. Zira in the classic
Planet of the Apes (1968.) She portrayed a zealously religious woman who suffers severe mental strain during a drought-ridden period of the wagon train, with Lonny Chapman and Jean Rasey as her husband and daughter.
We were excited to see
The Sound of Music's (1965) blue-eyed Nicholas Hammond in another episode as a wayward soldier, a deserter, who comes upon a pioneer family slaughtered by Indians and decided to assume the identity of their similar-aged son. To help the masquerade, he shoots himself in the side as if he narrowly escaped death himself.
He is befriended by Taylor and, especially, Stevens during his recovery, but is relentlessly pursued by his former commanding officer Kevin McCarthy, who's ready to execute him for desertion.
In a later installment, Taylor and Napier come upon a quintet of attractive ladies who appear to be stranded on their way to fulfill their obligations as mail-order brides. One of the ladies is none other than (a brunette)
Miss Stella Stevens, mother of the series' costar Andrew Stevens.
The gals turn out to be prostitutes (!), not mail-order brides, and their pimp Billy Green Bush is in hot pursuit. Stevens shares the bulk of her screen time developing a tentative relationship with Taylor, solidified further when she pitches in to help save his daughter from a serious illness.
In a clearly missed opportunity, the two Stevens share no scenes together, appearing in the same frame briefly in the middle of the episode and then connecting ever so swiftly in this shot as the little girl Smika has recovered. There is no dialogue between them, though Andrew does put his arm around mom for this one moment.
Next we find Taylor coming upon gunrunner Bill Bixby (who directed this episode) and his squeeze
Miss Donna Mills. After wrangling around with Bixby, Taylor takes charge of the contraband guns and winds up with duplicitous Mills in tow as part of the bargain.
Mills' luminous eyes are shown to great effect several times within the episode, such as here when she attempts to win points with Taylor by openly bathing in front of him and showing herself to him topless. At this stage, Mills was still primarily a good girl on screen, having played countless put-upon heroines, so she surely relished the chance to be a bit naughty, something she'd truly excel at in 1980 when she joined
Knots Landing as a major troublemaker.
Things get even more complicated once Taylor tries to deposit Mills at an army camp run by disreputable William Shatner! This marks the only time that these two ever acted opposite one another on-screen. This is also the final episode of the series to be broadcast before the show (up against Charlie's Angels!) was cancelled by NBC. The remaining six were not shown in the U.S., but appear on the DVD set.
The folks shown here, Mariette Hartley, Andrew Prine and John Lawlor, figured into an episode involving adultery. Prine, a recovering consumptive, cannot due very much heavy labor, especially at night, so wife Hartley takes his place and is paired with Lawlor. One thing leads to another...
Somehow Hartley is so alluring that she also captures the affections of Taylor's youngest son Becker and also draws a certain amount of interest from Taylor! I mean, it's like everyone wants in this chick's drawers. Ha ha!
Prine is crestfallen when he finds out what's been happening and heads over to the married Lawlor's campsite to "fix his wagon" but good. If you've ever seen Prine's nude Viva magazine layout, then you know that Hartley probably had a whale of a time making up with him after this marital fall-out!
Susan Howard (later of
Dallas) guest-starred as a woman loaded down with gold who manages to pay various people on the wagon train to do all the things she doesn't feel like doing, such as cooking, repairing things and even riding in back of all the other wagons. Her attitude begins to cause friction within the train.
She also, even though she may or may not be married to her wealthy husband, turns on the heat towards Taylor (he seemed always to be the object of female guests' desires!) She has Carr make dinner for them, then zeroes in for a passionate kiss. Eventually, she learns that money isn't everything and even has to toss gold out the back of her wagon in order to lighten it and escape from some escaped convicts.
Playing her cute, but callow, brother is an interesting face. This young man, making inroads in a TV career that previously included roles like "Bellboy," "Man at Beach" and "Worker," is Howard McGillin. Proceeding to further guest roles on prime-time TV and several stints on daytime soaps, he is best known for his Tony-nominated Broadway parts in The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Anything Goes, as well as Phantom of the Opera (which he has played more than any other actor, greater than 2,500 times) and Kiss of the Spider Woman (opposite Vanessa Williams.) At the time of The Oregon Trail he was married to a woman with whom he had two children, but they divorced in 1990 and he married his longtime male partner in 2013. He was back on Broadway in 2015 with Gigi.
In this next episode, Napier and Taylor find an Indian campsite with everyone there dead except this dirty, fur-covered creature coming towards them out of the trees and smoke. No, it isn't the famed Sasquatch...
Turns out this is Kim Darby! A pioneer woman having been captive, she is not only filthy, but pregnant! She tells her rescuers that she was captured six months prior. They take her back to the wagon train where Carr gives her a head-to-toe makeover. As she cannot give Darby a mullet like her own, she settles for an 1800s bouffant!
Once back at her old ranch, she is greeted by her husband Gerald McRaney with a huge whallop across the face! Taylor is startled by this anger until he finds out that Darby lied and that she's actually been gone for -- oops! -- two YEARS!
Thanks in part to some snoopy and judgemental neighbors at the trading post, McRaney cannot resolve to accept Darby and her part-Indian baby into his life. He loves her, but this is something he cannot get past. As emotions continue to heat up, Darby suddenly goes into labor and Taylor winds up having to help deliver the baby. McRaney was already a veteran TV guest star by now for close to a decade, but would soon land
Simon & Simon, which enjoyed a run for most of the 1980s. (I love the shirt he wears during this episode!)
Somehow the terrible mustache that Taylor wore in the first regular episode has found its way onto Stevens' lip for this one in which he is left for dead by a passel of robbers. Taylor, now a captive of the robbers who want him to lead them through the rough terrain, believes he is indeed dead, but Jim Davis (soon to be of
Dallas fame) has come to his rescue.
The robbers include Dirk Blocker (Dan Blocker of
Bonanza's son), Ed Lauter, William Smith, Lynne Randall and Kathie Browne.
Smith had been a regular cast member (and a good guy) on
Laredo in the mid-'60s, but by this time had found a niche as very threatening villains (accented by his nefarious role in the miniseries
Rich Man, Poor Man, 1976, and its sequel the following year.) Browne was a busy TV actress, notable as a guest on Star Trek, and married to Darrin McGavin. She retired in 1980 having grown tired of too many similar, unchallenging parts.
Our last one features the little girl shown here and her religious father on the episode. Elizabeth Cheshire played the girl and if she seems at all familiar, it may be from her role in
Airport '77 (1977) in which she was Arlene Golonka's daughter Bonnie. Robert Fuller (of
Laramie and, later,
Emergency!, which he was working on at this same time) plays her father, a widower whose wife had died of illness when he refused treatment, believing that the Lord would see her through.
When Cheshire is thrown from Carr's wagon during an accident, she lapses into illness as well and, again, Fuller isn't willing to allow her any outside care from a doctor or anyone else! Needless to say, Taylor is not inclined to settle for this and so conflict arises. Cheshire, who's bedridden for most of her screen time here, was comatose through most of
Airport '77! She had an active career as a child actor from the mid-'70s on, but left the business in 1989.
We like Fuller and even though he probably enjoyed this departure as a devout, zealous man of faith, we tend to prefer him in more macho, action-oriented parts with some grit and sex-appeal to them rather than this wimpy kind or role. He's still with us today at eighty-three, though he quit acting in 2001.
The Oregon Trail petered out, as I say, after only a half-dozen airings and the subsequent episodes never saw the light of day here until the DVD release. Despite its failure, TV networks continued to try to ignite a successful western series be it
The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1977-1978) with Dan Haggarty,
The Chisholms (1979-1980) with Robert Preston, Rosemary Harris and Ben Murphy,
How the West Was Won (1978-1979), with James Arness and Bruce Boxleitner or
The Young Pioneers (1978) with Roger Kern and Linda Purl (who was in the pilot for Oregon Trail), but none of these truly took hold. If I recall correctly, no period-set TV western lasted for any length of time until 1989 when
The Young Riders ran for three seasons.
