The Texas Rangers of "Laredo" were introduced in an episode of "The Virginian" where they proved enough of a hit to earn their own series that ran for two seasons on NBC. It was a fun, frequently rowdy hour that was a favorite in my youth. The fine cast was headed by Neville Brand as the older Reese Bennett whom the other Rangers often patronized and made the butt of their jokes. Peter Brown was the calm, compassionate but still deadly Chad Cooper, and William Smith was Joe Riley, a half-Indian as quick with a knife as he was with a gun. Philip Carey rounded out the cast as Captain Parmallee, who frequently found the actions of his charges less than commendable. In the final season, European Robert Wolders was added to the cast as the flamboyant Eric Hunter, whose wardrobe might have raised eyebrows in the Hollywood of the 1960s, and would have certainly gotten him killed in the Old West if he hadn't been so handy with a gun himself. Claude Akins also began to make frequent appearances at that time as a Ranger named Cotton, a character bearing many similarities to Reese Bennett, and it appears Akins was put on the payroll only to fill in for Brand whose drinking sometimes made him unavailable. All in all, a memorable show that also had a brief flirtation with the big screen. In 1968, a year after its cancellation, several episodes from the first season were stitched together to make "Three Guns for Texas" which was released to theaters with "The Counterfeit Killer," a Jack Lord starrer that originally appeared on NBC's Bob Hope's Chrysler Theater. A year later, the series's pilot also had a brief theatrical run under the title "Backtrack."
