Today Rawhide may be best known as the television show that launched Clint Eastwood on his path towards stardom, although it deserves to be remembered for much more than that. Rawhide was highly successful in its early years and ultimately ran for eight seasons, making it the fifth longest running Western television show on broadcast network television after Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Virginian, and Wagon Train. It proved popular as a rerun in syndication. It has run on such cable channels as the Family Channel, the Hallmark Channel, Encore Western, and AMC, as well as such broadcast outlets as MeTV. Even its theme song, "Rawhide," has held up over time, having been covered by various artists multiple times.
Rawhide centred on a cattle drive from San Antonio, Texas to Sedalia, Missouri in the late 1860s. The trail boss was Gil Favor (Eric Fleming), a tough, but fair man who had worked with cattle for most of his life. Rowdy Yates (Clint Eastwood) was the ramrod on the cattle drive, essentially Mr. Favor's right-hand man who acted as the foreman on the drive. Pete Nolan (Sheb Wooley) was the original scout on the cattle drive, who looked for water for the cattle and places where they could camp for the night. Wishbone (Paul Brinegar) was the drive's cook, and Mushy (James Murdock) was his assistant. Hey Soos Patines (Robert Cabal) was the drive's wrangler, who was responsible for taking care of the horses on the drive.
Rawhide followed Gil Favor's cattle drive as it made its way from San Antonio to Sedalia. Plots on the show ranged from natural disasters (such as drought, wolves, or anthrax outbreaks) to bandits to dishonest townsfolk. Rawhide was known for its realism, with a good deal of cowboy jargon making its way on the show. The man who drove the cattle were "drovers." The cattle were "beeves (the plural of "beef"). The remuda was the herd of horses used by the drovers. Particularly in its early seasons, Rawhide was grounded in reality in a way the majority of television Westerns were not.
Rawhide was created by Charles Marquis Warren. who was well-established as a writer, director, and producer of Westerns. Indeed, it was Charles Marquis Warren who developed the radio show Gunsmoke for television and served as its producer in its first seasons and part of its second. Charles Marquis Warren directed the 1958 movie Cattle Empire, starring Joel McCrea as the trail boss of a cattle drive. For Cattle Empire Charles Marquis Warren relied heavily on the 1946 novel The Chisholm Trail by Borden Chase, which served as the basis for the 1948 Western movie Red River and the 1866 diary of cattle drive trail boss George C. Duffield. It occurred to Charles Marquis Warren that a cattle drive in the 1860s could provide the basis for a television series.
Ultimately, Rawhide owed a good deal to the movie Cattle Empire. Endre Bohem, who co-wrote the screenplay for Cattle Empire, was hired as the story editor on Rawhide and wrote episodes of the show. Paul Brinegar, who played one of the cattle drive's cooks in Cattle Drive, played the cook Wishbone on Rawhide. Both Steve Raines and Rocky Shahan, who played drovers Jim Quince and Joe Scarlet on Rawhide, had roles in Cattle Empire. Another veteran of Cattle Empire, Charles H. Gray, would guest star in two episodes of Rawhide in its first and second seasons would play the regular role of drover Clay Forrester on Rawhide in its fourth and fifth seasons.
The first season of Rawhide was budgeted at $4 million, with much of that money going towards guest stars on the show. The outdoors scenes with cattle were filmed near Tucumcari, New Mexico, which also happened to be the hometown of Paul Brinegar. Other filming locations for the show ranged from Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley to Conejo Valley. Scenes were also filmed at Universal Studios in Universal City and CBS Studio Centre in Los Angeles. Making Rawhide could be gruelling for both the cast and crew. Roughly one episode was produced each week with breaks of three to four months between seasons.
One of the best remembered aspects of Rawhide is its theme song. "Rawhide" was written by lyricist Ned Washington and composer Dmitri Tiomkin. It was sung by popular vocalist Frankie Laine. The song proved popular, reaching no. 6 on the UK singles chart and no. 34 on the Australian singles chart. While it did not reach the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, it proved successful nonetheless. It would be covered by such diverse artists as Johnny Western, The Dead Kennedys, and The Blues Brothers.
Rawhide would see a good deal of turnover in its producers over the years. Charles Marquis Warren did not remain with television shows very long, but he remained with Rawhide for three seasons, which was longer than his stints on Gunsmoke or The Virginian. Story editor Endre Bohem became the show's producer in its fourth season. Vincent M. Fennelly, who had produced movies at Monogram and Allied Artists as well s the TV show Trackdown, served as the producer on Rawhide for its fifth and sixth seasons. Bruce Geller, now best known as the creator of Mission: Impossible, and Bernard L. Kowalski, would produce 21 episodes of the show's seventh season. Messrs. Geller and Kowalski's stint on Rawhide was unlike anything on the show before, or any other Western television series for that matter. Indeed, in many of their episodes no cattle were in sight. One person who did not approve of the direction Rawhide was taking was William S. Paley, the head of CBS. Mr. Paley fired Bruce Geller, Bernard L. Kowalski, and story editor Del Reisman in December 1964 and gave an order "...to put the cows back in." Endre Bohem returned as producer following Bruce Geller and Bernard L. Kowalski. For the eighth and final season Ben Brady, who had worked on Perry Mason, was brought in as an executive producer and Robert E. Thompson as its line producer.
While Rawhide saw a good deal of turnover in producers, its cast was fairly stable. Sheb Wooley left after the show's fourth season, only to return for a few episodes in its seventh season. Don C. Harvey, as drover Collins, also left after the show's fourth season. Others would only stay for a few seasons. John Erwin as Teddy appeared from the second to fourth seasons, and then again from the sixth to seventh seasons. As mentioned above, Charles H. Gray played Clay Forrester in the show's fourth and fifth seasons, and had a single appearance in the show's sixth season. The biggest cast change would come when Eric Fleming departed the show at the end of the seventh season. Today it is unclear why he left. At the time Eric Fleming joked to TV Guide, "They fired me because they were paying me a million dollars a year (here it must be pointed out he was actually paid $220,000 a year)."
Of course, Eric Fleming was not the only cast member to leave Rawhide after its seventh season, as several cast members were let go. Robert Cabal, James Murdock, Rocky Shahan, and others were no longer part of the cast. The eighth season of Rawhide appears to be set a few years later than the sixth season, with Rowdy Yates promoted to trail boss and Jim Quince promoted to ramrod. Paul Brinegar remained on the show as Wishbone. The departing cast were replaced by new drovers, including Raymond St. Jacques as Simon Blake (the show's first regular Black drover), John Ireland as Jed Colby, and David Watson as Ian Cabot.
For the first three seasons of Rawhide, while Charles Marquis Warren was producer, the titles of episodes followed a format of "Incident at....," "Incident of...," and so on. This was dropped at the start of the fourth season. Episodes of Rawhide sometimes addressed serious issues, such as drug addiction, alcoholism, racism, and superstition. In "Incident at the Top of the World" Robert Culp played a Civil War veteran who had become addicted to morphine. Hey Soos faced racism in multiple episodes. Episodes such as "Incident of the Golden Calf" and 'Incident of the Prophecy" touched upon religion. Rawhide also featured a wide range of big name guest stars. The seventh season episode "Canliss" featured a rare television guest appearance by Dean Martin as the titledcharacter. In the fourth season episode "The Captain's Wife,"screen legend Barbara Stanwyck played the wife of a cavalry captain left in charge of an abandoned fort facing Comanchero raids. Troy Donahue played a man about to be married in "Incident at Alabaster Plain." A short list of big name guest stars on Rawhide includes Claude Akins, Eddie Albert, Mary Astor, Ed Begley, Lon Chaney Jr., Ann Doran, Barbara Eden, Nina Foch, Martin Landau, June Lockhart, Burgess Meredith, Woody Strode, and Audrey Totter.
During its run Rawhide would see some merchandising. In 1961 a novel based on the TV show, Rawhide, by Frank C. Robertson, was published by Signet Books.Two issues of Dell Comics' anthology comic book Four Color adapted the TV series. There was also a board game, puzzle, and various other goods.
Rawhide proved to be a hit in its very first season, coming in at no. 28 for the year in the Nielsen ratings. It rose in the ratings in its second season to no. 18 for the year and peaked no. 6 in its third season. Rawhide dropped to no. 13 for the season in its fourth season and then to no. 22 in its fifth. Unfortunately, its fifth season would be the last time Rawhide ranked in the top thirty shows for the year. For the show's sixth season CBS moved Rawhide from Friday night to Thursday night, and its ratings dropped. Rawhide was moved back to Friday night for its seventh season, but its ratings continued to decline. With its eighth season Rawhide moved from Friday night to Tuesday night. Between the new time slot and the massive changes in the show's cast, ratings for Rawhide plummeted. The show was cancelled only thirteen episodes into its eighth season.
While Rawhide ended its original broadcast network run in 1965, it was hardly gone. It entered syndication and would be seen on local television stations for years. It would later be seen on a wide variety of cable channels. The entire series has been released on DVD by CBS DVD.
Rawhide would have a lasting impact. The fourth season episode "The Black Sheep" was the one that led director Sergio Leone to cast Clint Eastwood in his Western A Fistful of Dollars (1964), thus launching Eastwood on his film career. Its theme song has become a standard, recorded by multiple artists. While he was fired from the job, Rawhide was among the first shows produced by Bruce Geller, who would go onto create Mission: Impossible and produce the TV series Mannix. Rawhide also brought a higher degree of realism to television Westerns and, for the brief time that Bruce Geller and Bernard L. Kowalski produced it, even pioneered the revisionist Western. Rawhide may not have seen the success of Gunsmoke and Bonanza, but in some way it was just as influential.
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