What's Up, Doc Holliday? :)

Howdy!

A number of TV westerns wove historical personages into fictional plots. For instance, Paladin of Have Gun--Will Travel swapped epigrams with Oscar Wilde; the Cartwrights of Bonanza encountered Mark Twain and Charles Dickens; Secret Service agents Jim West and Artemus Gordon reported to President Ulysses S. Grant on The Wild Wild West.

Even Maverick got into the act. Real-life westerners John Wesley Hardin and Wyatt Earp appeared fleetingly, but John Henry "Doc" Holliday made several appearances, first played by Gerald Mohr and then most memorably by Peter Breck, who guest-starred opposite Jack Kelly's Bart Maverick in six episodes as the consumptive dentist turned gambling gunfighter. 

Breck's Holliday is a darkly comic figure who gets his "friend" Bart into some hair-raising situations. In the excellent "Triple Indemnity" episode, Bart comes this close to being done in by Doc, who's mixed up in an unsavory insurance scheme. Bart is spared at the last second, but Doc wasn't really trying to kill him--right? (Bart, and the viewer, are left to wonder.)

Below are some photos of this odd couple from the Kellection. I found the two behind-the-scenes stills in, of all places, a Goodwill store not far from my home, which just goes to show you never know where JK will pop up. Enjoy! :)

I love this still, taken during the filming of "Triple Indemnity".

Dig the extras and crew members in sunglasses!

 

A screen cap from the scene shown being filmed in the still above.
 

A great candid still from "A Technical Error". I thought this was a regular scene shot until I noticed the cigarette in JK's right hand. (Actor Stephen Coit is on the left side of the sign.)

 

Screen cap from this hilarious episode

 

BONUS PHOTO! No Doc Holliday here, but this marvelous pic is from "The Maverick Report", an episode in which he appeared. That's lovely Jo Morrow with JK. I'd searched for this pic for some time and was recently able to add it to the Kellection. I first saw this image in a 1962 Cleveland Press TV log purchased several years ago (note the painted out background):

 

 

It's a pity JK and PB didn't get to do more episodes as Bart and Doc before Maverick ended in 1962. But, a few years later, a very different version of Doc Holliday appeared in an episode of The High Chapparal--played by Jack Kelly! :)